France trip, 2007

Hi all,
I have to say, it's really hard to sort through the hundreds of pics I took in France. I'm getting there, but thought you'd like the first 'instalment' to be going on with. I am up to the day we went into some fantastic caves, the grottes de grand canalettes. This was an incredible experience, and I think there are some really good photo's. Of course, NOTHING can do it justice like being there. Those are to come, but for now here's from day one.

These are the people that made it all possible, Brenda and Mannes. We are eternally grateful to them for everything. You just could not buy a holiday like they gave us. They ran us everywhere in the car, knew all the very best places, fed us like kings, had patience when we wanted to take pictures, go further, stay longer, climb higher, and never ONE sigh or cross word. Saints, the pair of them! The dog is Robi, he belongs to Mannes. Robi found the leg of an Izzard (an antelope) on a day walk. God KNOWS where he got it, but within only three hours, the three dogs (Brenda has two Samoyedes) had devoured it, fur, toes, the LOT. Again, those pics later.

This is Brenda's lovely house, 'Les Samoyedes in a little village called 'Nyer' (pronounced knee-air). The balcony on the left is right outside my bedroom, bliss, whatever the weather.


"Make sure you have your boots on - you are walking straight off the plane".
They were the instructions from Brenda. And so it was! We did a lovely walk through the vineyards, then it turned into a quite serious climb to a tower on top of a hill. A good warm-up for what was to come in the following days.

That was where we were making for, that tower. As you can see, it was a lovely, warm day.
You may also deduce that the hill it sits atop looks VERY steep.
Believe me - it WAS!

I went to France last August, with the sole objective of getting to the top of 'Le Canigou'. At a tad under 10,000 feet, it's the highest I've ever been on foot. I can tell you now, it is HELLISH cold at that height! No chance of going up there this time of the year though. As you can see, there is a lot of snow

I love this picture. It's got it all, the mountains, the snow, and the flowers.

On the walk down, we passed through a lovely village. There was a ruin on top of a hill, so of course, we climbed up to it for pictures. Brenda & Mannes, as usual, waited patiently for us.

Aren't these little villages just too nice for words?
(But what do the people all do for a living????)

What a lovely vista.

The ever-present vineyards. The vines had tiny grapes on them, we were FAR too early!

Another view of Canigou.

Mannes' house has a wonderful view of this mountain, which he loves dearly.

Looking across the valley to the mountains.

We were sent out on our own this day, to go up the Caranca gorge. Brenda wouldn't take the dogs, as it's far too dangerous.
You'll see why soon. I actually was drawn off the path by what we could see above us so we had to go back again later in the holiday, led by Brenda, to do it again, and it was WELL worth it.

Once I saw THIS above us - I made a bee-line for them! If only I'd known, these are good, but the BEST balconies were further up the gorge, where Brenda told us to go. I am too impulsive!

As we climbed higher up the gorge, the views got better and better.

After taking the shot above, I just turned around, and this was behind me.

How's your head for heights? This path just drops away to the gorge floor, a LONG way down.
Not so bad, IF the path looked stable!
Does this look stable to you? No - me neither.

View over the edge - you need a steady hand and foot up here.

See the path we came up on below?

Some sections were quite a breeze though.

I do the French speaking, cooking and wine pouring and Colin, my brother, does the navigation (very well too, I might add).

You don't have to speak French to know this is telling you to be VERY careful up here!

Just a kid at heart, there was a carpet of fallen leaves. Well, we couldn't just leave them LYING there - could we?

That's the first 20 done. I hope you like them.

I am really looking forward to posting the cave ones - oh go on then, ONE sneak preview..........

My fifteen minutes of fame

www.lunasa.ie

If you haven't heard of them, you have no interest at all in Irish folk music. Lunasa are a world famous band, selling out most of their venues. They travel extensively, but when they are within 150 miles of me, I get a ticket to see them. Last Wednesday they appeared at Nottingham University (a sell out), and I was in the second row.

Anyway, after the last time I'd seen them, at Litchfield, I was my usual gushing self about the performance. Mind you, it is always perfection. I jokingly sent a; 'Jim'll fix it' email to their site for me to play with them on stage (one of my hobbies is playing the bodhran, or Irish drum). It was very tongue in cheek, and I just forgot about it. I checked my emails just before going on Wednesday, and there was one from Tracy Crawford (the lead of the band's other half, I guess), saying my email had only just been seen, then going on to apologise that there was NO WAY Lunasa could invite an unknown onto the stage without practice, knowing ability, etc etc. She was very nice about it, and I was a bit embarrassed, as I hadn't really expected them to agree to it. Anyway, off I went to Nottingham University's Djanogly theatre. First half, fantastic, second half, just as good, then they came back for the encore, and Kevin suddenly announced they were going to dedicate this last song to Les Singleton (yours truly). I was stunned, to say the least, but what happened next was he got me up, took me to the stage, (for some bizarre reason made me put on one of those Day-Glo vests), and then the band struck up. I was given the drum, and off we went! It was a dream come true, and I think I 'held my own'. I even got a smile & a wink from the usually dour Cillean Vallely - praise INDEED! Sean Smith looked over and winked too, and that really put me at ease. Well, after our little number, the auditorium erupted, and I was SO proud! Here I was, in such fantastic company, me - and I had actually played along with Lunasa. Does it get any better?

Thanks lads.

A trip to see old friends

This entry describes a walk around the area near to Cerrigydruddion, about 20 miles beyond Corwen. I went to visit some friends there.

When I first started doing long distance paths (LDP's), my third one, in 1993, was the Pembrokeshire coastal path (diary of this walk can be found here; http://walkdiaries.blogspot.com/2006/07/pembrokeshire-coastal-path-diary-les.html .

About 4 days into it, I met Ron, and his wife Rhiannon, and had a couple of days walking and meeting/chatting with them. Amazingly, we have kept in touch over the years, and I finally decided it was time we had a 're-match', so at his kind invite, I went over to a little village they live in called 'Cerrigydrudion'.

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE FOR A LARGER VERSION, THEN CLICK 'BACK' TO RETURN.

Here are my friends;

I KNOW Rhiannon won't thank me for putting her picture on here (shy little flower, isn't it), but I have to say, I think I caught them just right, and it's a nice shot of them.

On the way down, I passed these lovely castle remains.
It is in Ellesmere, and it just took me to capture it.
Nice that the swan posed for me too.
This is the miners track up Cwmannog woods. It was quite a steep path, but we plodded on and up.
A short while after this was taken, a young girl in what looked like waitress garb came striding the other way - complete with white shoes and dress!
As you can see, although warm, the day was hazy. And for this reason, I'll include some of Ron's pics, taken when it was clearer, so thanks to Ron for them.
Looking down on the disused Klondyke copper mine. The walk would traverse around the hills to the left and behind the mine, and we were to visit it later in the day.

looking towards the disused slate quarry

Llyn Ceirionydd from the west side. This was a bit of a honeypot, and there were quite a lot of people here. The morons were out in force too, and we saw a crowd who had put TWO disposable BBQ's directly on one of the wooden picnic tables. Rhiannon took it upon herself to tell them, and to my surprise, there wasn't a torrent of abuse in return.
I don't think they'd take any notice though, and I wouldn't bet on them taking their rubbish away either!

A fine figure of a man.

Creigiau Gleision in the gloom. Nice show of Gorse though.

Cornel Farm & Llyn Ceirionydd.

Klondyke copper mine & silt beds

May blossom and an old cart at Cymannog farm

The date on the pulpit in Llanrhychwyn Church.

The roof of the old church.

Plenty of nice little clumps of violets, lots of wood anemone too!

Ha-harrrrr - Jim lad!

If any of you out there are thinking; 'I MUST tidy that shed out this weekend',
well - here is the most UNTIDY shed in the world (alleged).

And now, courtesy of Ron, a few clear pics.

And with a sigh and a goodbye, we headed off home. My thanks go to Ron & Rhiannon for their invitation, transportation and hospitality. Oh yes, and for the sharing of food. I did a really clever trick. After making up the most DIVINE sandwiches of ham, roast beef (separate), salad, olives, blue cheese etc, I promptly left them on the back seat of the car to slowly broil in the 28C sunshine. Ah well, I like banana sandwiches Rhiannon, thanks XX

Sample information plaque

This is a sample plaque for wall information. I have uploaded it at full size, so if you click on the picture, you should get a much larger version that you can read. If you right click on the large picture, and select 'save picture as', you can download it to your own PC, then open it in an image program and blow it up to read the detail. I hope this helps.

Les

Nottingham trams & the castle

I decided a day out to Nottingham was due, as I really like that city. It was a nice day, this was what I saw when I started out in the morning. I just love clouds :-)

I parked on the outskirts of the town, and took the new NET tram to the city centre. The new square was supposed to be opened for the Xmas market (see earlier entry in this blog), but of course, whoever believes a builders promise? Here it is, still 'almost finished'. To be honest, I preferred the old square, and think that the millions they have spent on 'improving' it were wasted. However, I suppose you have to make the best of what you've got, and residents will eventually get used to it. This is the view at the moment, with my back to the council house (that's the next target to spend more of the taxpayers money - a re-vamp of the building).

Boring and flat, isn't it?

This isn the view towards the council house.
Boring and flat, isn't it?

Some things are sacrosanct though, they wouldn't DARE take the lions away.

Many a tryst has started with the words; "I'll meet you at the lions".

Now these I DO agree with! Sleek, comfortable, and affordable. The new trams are worth every penny, and the long inconvenience to traffic they caused during construction and track laying.

I think they SO fit in with the city, and I use them whenever I go.

This is looking up The Poultry. The old Flying Horse pub is on the right. I spent many a happy night there when I was young, now no longer a pub :-(

Looking down exchange walk, with the flower seller.

This is inside a shop. I was amazed at the great prices for really nice stuff. It's called 'stone the crows', and is on Hounds Gate.

No trip to Nottingham would be complete without a visit to the castle. I was really disappointed to find they are now charging £3:50 for a 'combined ticket' for the castle and the museum. As I lived in Nottinghamshire for twenty years, I have seen the museum and castle dozens of times. All I wanted to do was walk the grounds to take a few pictures of the windmill at Sneinton, but that's not now allowed. Pay or stay out, is the rule. Wrong, in my opinion.

The impressive gate of Nottingham castle.

The Man himself - Robin Hood (well - his statue, anyway).

You'll notice he is arrowless - they keep getting stolen!

He stands in the courtyard below the castle.

The Robin Hood way starts from the yard in front of the castle gates.

A lovely old lace market building, dismantled and rebuilt next to the castle.

It now sells the famous Nottinghma lace to tourists

The oldest pub in England since 1289 AD, don't believe the pretenders!

It's an amazing place, with nooks and crannies hewn out of the sandstone of castle rock.

The museum is just further on.

Nottingham has always attracted players, entertainers, minstrels etc over the years. It still does, and this guy gave a great show of fire eating and juggling.

I hope you have enjoyed the short tour. As I said, there is another entry when I was there just before Xmas, if you look back in the archive of this blog.