Cold...and Hotter

Moel Siabod

So. Wales. It didn't go quite as planned.  We usually make this trip a couple of times a year, to stay with Adrian’s mother, to visit his family.  Over the years I have grown fond of Llandudno, a Victorian seaside resort, faded yet somehow bravely chivalrous.  But it was pure love at first sight when I cast my eyes on surrounding Snowdonia.  Mountains. Mountains. Craggy peaks. Wild tumbling rivers. Dark eerie lakes. Before James was born, we climbed so many of them; Moel Siabod probably my favourite.  But – strangely - never Snowdon.  Yr Wyddfa. The 'tumulus'. This time, I promised, we would.

Except…my mother-in-law fell ill.  A bad bout of flu.

Just as I am fond of Llandudno, I'm also deeply fond of Doris. Okay, so at first she raised an eyebrow but then, who could blame her? I wasn’t a nice decent Welsh girl after all; I was an outlandish Londoner, a brash stroppy English woman.  But she soon mellowed.  

I just have endless admiration for her attitude to life.  She brought up two boys singlehandedly and worked damn hard as a school secretary. Now she’s retired, she plays damn hard too. She gets out there, she does stuff: she belongs to countless societies; she has tons of friends; she does Pilates; she ‘has a go’ at whatever comes up, whatever’s on offer – whether it’s a talk on Bronze Age mining or The Inbetweeners at the cinema (okay, so she thought she was going to see One Day but hey…)  She’s canny with her pension and goes off on all manner of trips and holidays. She reckons life’s for living and I take my hat off to her. 

She has a weakness for fashion:  she’s a devil for clothes and shoes.  I fear that, in my uniform of skinny jeans and jumpers, I’m a sore disappointment.  However, this time, I had a trump card.

‘I’ve got a pair of Hotter boots,’ I told her.  I confess I hadn’t heard of Hotter until Doris started rhapsodising about them several years back.  They come from Lancashire originally so I figured they were a ‘northern’ thing.  Except, no, they’ve got shops all over the show. According to her they're the bee’s knees, the dog’s bollocks, the whatever of whatever of footwear (oh, alright, she didn’t really say dog’s bollocks).

Keswick walking boots by Hotter

I knew Doris was ill when she didn’t even raise her head at the magic password Hotter.

I tried again. ‘They’ve sent me a pair to try out.’ I paused for dramatic effect. ‘You know, Hotter...’

Nope, not even the slightest widening of the eyes. She didn’t even ask which style they were. She was really truly ill. Completely buggered. There was no way we could wander off up mountains all day. So the testing of the boots (called Keswick, by the way) would have to wait.

I’ve had the same pair of walking boots for, what? Ten years? Something like that.  A pair of Brasher boots, bought on holiday in Connemara where my earlier pair had finally given up the ghost (yes, I tend to keep things until they fall apart in tatters).  These, in comparison, felt unbelievably, unfeasibly light.  Yet they came with the GORE-TEX® promise of complete waterproofability.  Hmm. Back on Exmoor (Doris got better by the way; we didn't just drive off, leaving her forlornly coughing in her sick bed), I looked at them and they looked at me. 

‘Okay, you two. Let’s see what you’re made of…’ I muttered, slipping them on. Jeez, they were light – it was like wearing slippers. Truth to tell, I felt a bit undressed marching out with the SP.  It had rained solidly all night and there was a small river running down the road outside the house.

I raised an eyebrow at the Keswicks. ‘You’re gonna get wet, y’know,’ I said splashing through a puddle.  They gleamed quietly in understated mahogany. A bit overconfident, you might say.

‘Okay. Let’s see how you handle the Chimney,’ I smiled evilly. I’d had a look at their soles and, frankly, they looked a bit lightweight, a bit wussyboot.  The rain had washed away most of the mud, leaving the chimney more or less bare rock and, to my surprise, they handled it pretty damn well.  Chwarae teg, as they say in Wales – fair play.  

The path evened out to pure mud and through we sloshed, nearly up to the ankle.  The Keswicks are lower cut than my Brashers and I did think I might get a soaking but nope. 

By the time I tied the SP up outside the Co-op he was soaked but my feet were totally dry and toasty warm. Plus…just take a look at that pic below…the clever little sods had shrugged off an hour’s worth of thick Exmoor mud.

Verdict? I’m impressed. The Keswick (£95) really is a damn good little walking boot that can take reasonably tough terrain in its stride. Supremely comfortable, extremely light and 100 percent waterproof.  Quibbles? Well, I’ve got very narrow feet and they didn’t tie up as snugly as my Brashers. I also didn’t feel I had quite the ankle protection I’d prefer if I were mountain climbing over very uneven terrain and the boot isn’t high enough to march through streams, as opposed to deep puddles. But that’s being very picky. For most hiking purposes they are just fine and dandy, plus they're lightweight enough for everyday trolloping around.  Would I recommend them?  Yup. I would. 

*waves* to my SIL Deborah and Adrian's cousin Beth who I know read the blog - though the buggers never comment.  Better not tell Doris about this though, eh? I might just undo twenty years' of good work.  ;) 

Igam Ogam up the Great Serpent

Llandudno.  Again.  Twenty years I’ve been coming here, to the place where the mountains meet the sea. 

This time I joined Adrian and James half the way there…at Telford.  Where a tiger smiled and showed me the way. No, really. He did.  You gotta love it when you're looking for the loo and a big guy dressed as a tiger points the way.  

Different morning walking here.  No hilltop fort, no wide open field, no strong wild river.  Instead, down to the seashore, to walk by waves.  But no. The tide was in. No beach. No halfway place – neither sea nor shore. No borderland; no liminality.

So, when a path is closed, you go another way, don’t you?  And that way led up, up, up. Up the Great Orme. The Great Worm. The Giant Serpent.  Too much symbolism there – let’s leave it be for the moment eh?

Igam Ogam, said the sign.  Literally.  Igam Ogam/Ogam Igam. Zig-zag/zag-zig up the ziggurat.  For every hill, every mountain, is a pyramid of sorts.  The wind so hard, so harsh, taking my breath away. Wishing I had tied my hair back as I could barely see.  And really, sometimes it is so hard to see clearly.  Even when the view is really wide, stretching way across the silver sea to the mountains beyond. Snowdonia.  Which makes me think. I must manifest a hair cut J ..and maybe a change…of colour. What do you think? 

I’ve been thinking about shamanism a lot lately as I edit my YA novel, Walker – a book about shamans, about signs, about earth medicine. Medicine? Signs?  Are they here too? Oh for sure (foreshore).  A narrow rocky path, steep, so steep, with perilous drops either side.  Gorse, so much gorse, snatching legs, pricking hands.   Gorse, the flower totem signalling despair, despond, hopelessness. For feeling useless.  Shit, shit, shit… No, seriously, literally - there is just so much shit all over the fading grass.  Why? Goats. Wild goats. There, there, there. Sea-goats. Capricorn. My sun-sign. My shit?  Probably.  Fish-goat-worm – ah, now there’s an interesting trinity of creatures. Christ/Satan/Serpent.  Ah hell, I promised I wouldn’t do this…

And there, hanging, totally still, a hawk. A kestrel.  How? How, when I am being blown every which way by the relentless wind, does that small bird just stay motionless, unaffected?  What minute shifts of musculature are holding its body, which weighs barely anything, so still?  Still. Hmm. Hate that word.  But anyhow.  How does it?  Is that the message?  Control? Balance?  And then, of a sudden…it drops. Clear, focused, controlled.

And here I am, right here and now.  In the pub.  Because it’s the only place I can get wifi.  My iphone has decided  not to play ball either. So I am out of touch.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel.  And see. With a hawk’s eyes?  Ah…wishful thinking.  J

No dragons

So. Wales. Snowdonia.  Land of Dragons. Where the mountains come down and kiss the sea. Lost worlds under the waves – drowned palaces. Home of eagles no more. Some kites, but mainly a banality of seagulls. Place of ancient wild elemental magic.


And we came to it as grumpy pilgrims; all out of sorts with the world. Adrian stressed. Me still sick and despondent. James pending sick, in a foul mood. And, as we turned onto the motorway for the endless slog, with the mood in the car hovering somewhere below freezing, I didn’t dare suggest a jolly game of Twenty Questions, or Who am I? or circular storytelling.

The silence got heavier and heavier and then, out of the blue, Adrian said: ‘Badger or Pheasant?’
‘What?’
‘Roadkill roulette. Badger or Pheasant?’
He was pointing ahead at a small bloated hump on the side of the road.
‘You sick bastard.’
‘Come on. We’re nearly on it.’
‘Oh, for God's sake. Badger.’
‘Pheasant.’
We passed it.

‘Ha! Pheasant. 50 points to me.’
‘What?’ James forgot to sniff for ten seconds to peer at the corpse.
‘Yeah, new game,’ said Adrian, and went on to spell out a hugely complicated set of rules and scoring.
‘Do dogs count?’ said James.
‘This is revolting,’ I said and stuck my headphones on. And thought about an email I’d had from some parenting website asking for my tips ‘as a top Mummy blogger’ (hollow laughter) on how to keep children amused on long journeys. And felt almost tempted to send them an example of a ‘typical Exmoor game’.

And Wales was cold and wet. Adrian visited pubs and breweries and went on long hikes in the pelting rain. James sulked and watched TV. And I felt sicker and sicker. I needed fire but was drowning in water; frozen by cold. No smoke on the water; no fie-yer in the sky.

And bless her, my lovely mother-in-law sent me to bed, in the middle of the afternoon, with a hot water bottle – swinging me right back to childhood and reminding me (again) how strange and sad it is not to have a mother anymore. Even when you’re a grown woman with a child of your own. Even when for years upon years you had to mother your own mother. She took James off to see The King’s Speech and I curled up in foetal position, clutching the soft heat, head spinning while the SP took up his newly discovered protective stance, glaring out the window, growling at squirrels. My funny little medieval hybrid beastie turned brave knight.

And the days passed in a kind of blur. Wobbled out shopping for clothes (as nothing fits anymore and I have a pile of Next vouchers burning a hole in my purse) but ended up buying books and CDs instead. Watched more TV in four days than I usually do in two months (and confess I rather enjoyed South Riding and became morbidly mesmerised by The Biggest Loser). Went to Wetherspoons for a bit of Twitter banter and did manage to smile.

But it was a strange trip, unsettled and unsettling, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we came home.

Final tally? Badgers = 4. Pheasants = 10. Plus one partridge; two faithful black bin liners (20 bonus points) and one man peeing by the side of the road (50 point super-bonus). But no dragons. :(