Last weekend was another busy one at the Cafe with a couple of large groups including Kingswood School taking advantage of our 8:00 pm opening hours, these extended hours last daily until the end of August giving you more time on the hill before returning for a deserved re-fuel. This also brought sighs of relief from Mike & his Prestatin party after a full day traversing Moel Siabod & the Glyders. Arriving at the Cafe just after 6:00 pm thinking we might be closed a little trick was played by Myself & Aled before we let Mike & co. in for his Birthday Cake (Black Forest Gateaux, Mike’s particular favourite. Look forward to seeing them again in August’s Oggy 8 Challenge!

Kean’s & my trip to the Alps is almost upon us as the year continues to fly by & my mind has turned to kit, kit & more kit! Having been regarded as one of Cotswold Outdoors’ residents in recent years I of course have plenty of kit, but what better than a trip to the Alps to justify ‘I need a bit more’!

So last Friday a ‘short’ visit saw me leaving the store with a new sleeping bag which fits snugly between my Rab Andes 1,000 & Gelert summer bags & hopefully will be up to the job of keeping me warm at a planned bivvy at 3,500 metres somewhere on the Jungfrau, never done a Bivvy before let alone on glaciated terrain so that could be interesting, I feel some of Tim’s ‘Man up Spray’ may have to be rifled from Kean’s bag!

I seem to be glutton for punishment as the day before I head off for the Alps I have entered Mike Blake’s race the train in Caernarfon, at 5K you might ask what punishment do you call that? Well the problem is that I also entered Dorina & Simona who haven’t run for two years. I have a feeling that I won’t just be being chased by the train, a woman’s (or to be more precise 2 Women’s) wraith knows no bounds.

That’ll get them back for putting me on the Pots the day after the summit challenge!