Hi Guys
I know that it has been a bit of a while since my last ‘proper’ update so here it is.
I have been back at York for just over a week although the rest of my corridor has only really returned in the last couple of days or so. The days I spent here by myself were actually quite cool to be honest although yes it did get lonely at times as well.
But the nose is well back to the grindstone now so to speak as work has kicked off in a big way and my timetable has been handed out
I’m now a very busy man but not in the way that I immediately imagined or probably briefed you on. I do have a fair few days of pure excavation but they are not for 4 to 5 weeks or so yet. However I do have a lot of other skills courses to take. Geophysics, graveyard and building surveys as well as field trips are the aim of the game before any excavation can take place. So it’s a lot more varied than I thought but no less busy to be honest.
Looking forward to it
Rob
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Holiday
I know it’s been a wee while since I have written anything but that is about to change, the reason for a lack of any communication is a lack of any news to communicate in the first place.
A quiet first week staying at Uni chilling out and being attacked by geese in heat gave way to a couple of quiet days at home, all very nice but pretty sedate and not really news-worthy. There was the beer festival of course, always a laugh and this one was extra special as the Rook laid on live music each night. There was a mixture of the usual guitar based singing as well as some sea shanties and folk music. Good beer was drunk by all and a good time was had.
Then I went on holiday to the Lake District for a week with my mate Laurence and his family and it was awesome. We walked most days and on the days that we didn’t due to bad weather, this is the Lake District after all, we went to some of the towns in the area. This was good as it is something that I don’t really get to do with Ben Lairig much as our time in the lakes is always limited and full of walking so it was nice to see a different side of the lakes. The Ruskin museum in Coniston is worth a visit in particular.
Being in the lakes of course also meant that there was a lot of walking done as well, I have now climbed up Scafell Pike, the tallest mountain in England as well as knocking off numerous other small tops and peaks over the week. It was a nice change of pace to the usual extreme walking weekends I normally do. No less active but spread over a longer period of time.
The walk up Scafell was wonderful but the walk down was the single worst piece of walking I have ever done, it was so windy, misty and wet that it was a real effort and when we finally got back to the car we looked as if we had been swimming rather than walking!
It was a wonderful week full of good food and good company.
A quiet first week staying at Uni chilling out and being attacked by geese in heat gave way to a couple of quiet days at home, all very nice but pretty sedate and not really news-worthy. There was the beer festival of course, always a laugh and this one was extra special as the Rook laid on live music each night. There was a mixture of the usual guitar based singing as well as some sea shanties and folk music. Good beer was drunk by all and a good time was had.
Then I went on holiday to the Lake District for a week with my mate Laurence and his family and it was awesome. We walked most days and on the days that we didn’t due to bad weather, this is the Lake District after all, we went to some of the towns in the area. This was good as it is something that I don’t really get to do with Ben Lairig much as our time in the lakes is always limited and full of walking so it was nice to see a different side of the lakes. The Ruskin museum in Coniston is worth a visit in particular.
Being in the lakes of course also meant that there was a lot of walking done as well, I have now climbed up Scafell Pike, the tallest mountain in England as well as knocking off numerous other small tops and peaks over the week. It was a nice change of pace to the usual extreme walking weekends I normally do. No less active but spread over a longer period of time.
The walk up Scafell was wonderful but the walk down was the single worst piece of walking I have ever done, it was so windy, misty and wet that it was a real effort and when we finally got back to the car we looked as if we had been swimming rather than walking!
It was a wonderful week full of good food and good company.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Field Walking and Mountain Walking
So it’s been a long while since my last update but once again that has been because I have been so busy lately. I am rocketing to the end of my second term of university and as I do my workload has increased by about 4 times! On Thursday and Friday we went out to the site of the new campus to do some fieldwalking. For the uninitiated this involves sectioning off a field into 10 by 10 meter grids and then methodically walking it and picking up the different things you see. This may sound a little boring and it can be but it also all becomes worth it when you fin a bit of Neolithic flint or a piece of Roman Samian ware pottery. The weather for both days was amazing so it was two days in the sun and was really worth doing. By the second day I really had my eye in and I was finding a lot more things, even if a fair amount of it was brick and ceramic derbies.
Tired from all of this hard work, and it’s more taxing on the body than you might think, it was time for the last Ben Lairig trip of the term, back to the Lakes again for what promised to be a hard but amazing trip. It was a small weekend trip, only 5 people going on it including me. We are all pretty fit and the weather forecast was very good so we knew we had to get something decent done. We settled on the Kentmere Horseshoe for the first day, a 12 mile stretch of 8 peaks dotted around a lake. The weather when we arrived on the Friday night was abysmal, wind and rain that made putting up the tents unpleasant and during the night kept us awake with the noise and the fear that the tents might actually fail. They did not and we awoke to a drizzly morning at 7.30 to get the most out of the day. After a quick breakfast of couscous we set off and by the time we had peaks our first mountain the rain had stopped. We knocked off another 4 before we stopped for a well earned lunch break after about 4 hours on the hill and then polished off the remaining 3 and dropped back to Bance’s car. The hills climbed that day were:
Shipman Knotts
Kentmere Pike
Harter fell (Eskdale)
Mardale Ill Bell
Thornthwaite Crag
Froswick
Ill Bell
Yoke
(12.2 miles, 1127m climb)
The whole thing only took us 7 hours so we returned back to the campsite in windy conditions and watched a few of the tents around us blow away! After a quick meal of pasta and some beer we ran to the pub that owns the campsite and settled in for the night.
While we were there we saw the weather forecast for the next ay and the view outside the pub windows cleared considerably. It was decided, in a slightly drunken haze, that we would get up at a similar time and then do the Fairfield Horseshoe the next day, same number of peaks but knocking in at about 10 miles, also if climbed from Rydal then all the major ascent is in the first part of the day. As we left the pub the night was warm and totally clear, so much so that Bance decided to bivvy, leaving me with a lot of room in the tent!
The weather the next ay was absolutely amazing, warm and clear so we set off. As we left the car park and started our ascent of Nab Scar we lost the path an soon found ourselves hacking our way up a 45 degree slope to get to the top, I won’t lie here it was a brutal climb that left us all beat and hurting but the plus side of it was that by not following the path we had peaked our first mountain in 30 minutes, leaving us a lot of time in the day. We made our way round the horseshoe in glorious weather; I was in a T shirt for 2 thirds of the day except when we peaked Fairfield itself and Carrig stayed in shorts the whole day. A great day was had by all and we decided at the end of the horseshoe that as we hadn’t come up on the path there was no need to go down on it and as we could actually see the car we would just aim straight for it. So we ran down a slope into the valley of the horseshoe and then hopped over a waterfall and down a path back to the car. Mountains climbed on day 2;
Nab Scar
Heron Pike
Great Rigg
Fairfield
Hart Crag
Dove Crag
High Pike (Scandale)
Many power ballads and ELO songs followed on a quick and uneventfull trip back to York and after the customary pint and Ultimate burger in the pub I slept for about 11 hours.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Happy Birthday Ben Lairig!
Last weekend I went to the Lake District, Langdale Valley to be exact, to help celebrate Ben Lairig (the universities walking club as I’m sure you have gathered by now from reading my blog) turning 25 years old. We left York at about 4pm on the Friday evening and after a nice journey to the lakes while listening to the Juno soundtrack arrived at the campsite around 7pm. We pitched a few of the tents that we had as only two cars had set off at 4 and then decamped to the ODG pub, famous among walkers for its friendly atmosphere and good beer. I had sausage and mash and a fair few pints of cider and over the evening people began to arrive, not just the other current members of the club but many of the people there for the reunion as well. Ben Lairg’s original captain even brought me a pint of cider while he told me all about the first few trips; it seems that not much changes over the years, even if the kit gets updated!
After 6 pints of cheap and powerful cider, good conversation and good food I stumbled back to my tent and had the best night’s sleep I have ever had in a tent.
The next morning I felt a wee bit fragile but we were up at 7.30 and on the hills at 8.30. As there will be a large shift out of the club next year due to a fair amount of graduation it was decided that all the people that would be left next year should walk as a group over the weekend, away from the committee so that we could bond and check our navigations skills, fitness and other things we will need to know when it comes to running the club next year. It was decided that we would climb Pavey Ark via the popular scramble of Jack’s Rake. This is a decent and steep scramble and I got to lead most of it, this involves more than simply going first, it involves picking out a route you know all your group can do an shouting out the instructions for it when it when needed, you have to be speedy without being to quick and very aware of the rest of your group, I very much enjoyed it. We were then up round the Langdale Pikes and knocked off Thunacar Knott, Harrison Stickle, Pike O'Stickle and High Raise. And then back down Pavey Ark towards the campsite. I got a bit dehydrated as the weather at the start of the day, and especially during the scramble was so hot that I drunk most of my water and the spring I was going to refill at had a dead sheep in it, but it wasn’t a huge deal as I had 6 pints of water in the pub before I had any beer at all.
It was back to the pub for the Rugby and the Reunion. My knee had swollen up to ludicrous proportions due to what it was decided was a trapped nerve as I was fine right till the last descent and was fine to walk 3 peaks the next day so don’t worry about me, so I had my leg up most of the night with an ice pack on it while I enjoyed my steak and ale pie. This severely limited my getting to the bar which was probably a good thing as it meant I walked the next day feeling fresh, even if we did stay up in the campsite drying room drinking beer after the pub had closed till 2 in the morning!
The next morning was a much slower start and a small group of us (all of us who were going back in jack’s car) decided to do Swirl How and its satellite peaks of Great Carr and Grey Friar. This is a long walk without too much ascent or descent once you get up the first peak and we had it all done and back at the car by 3pm, even with a one hour lunch break, however as we had been so busy the day before we felt that this was enough and high tailed it back to York, stopping at the Charles for a nice meal to end a lovely weekend.
I got back to discover that I am through the first part of an application process for field work in the alps and then passed out from exhaustion on my bed!
After 6 pints of cheap and powerful cider, good conversation and good food I stumbled back to my tent and had the best night’s sleep I have ever had in a tent.
The next morning I felt a wee bit fragile but we were up at 7.30 and on the hills at 8.30. As there will be a large shift out of the club next year due to a fair amount of graduation it was decided that all the people that would be left next year should walk as a group over the weekend, away from the committee so that we could bond and check our navigations skills, fitness and other things we will need to know when it comes to running the club next year. It was decided that we would climb Pavey Ark via the popular scramble of Jack’s Rake. This is a decent and steep scramble and I got to lead most of it, this involves more than simply going first, it involves picking out a route you know all your group can do an shouting out the instructions for it when it when needed, you have to be speedy without being to quick and very aware of the rest of your group, I very much enjoyed it. We were then up round the Langdale Pikes and knocked off Thunacar Knott, Harrison Stickle, Pike O'Stickle and High Raise. And then back down Pavey Ark towards the campsite. I got a bit dehydrated as the weather at the start of the day, and especially during the scramble was so hot that I drunk most of my water and the spring I was going to refill at had a dead sheep in it, but it wasn’t a huge deal as I had 6 pints of water in the pub before I had any beer at all.
It was back to the pub for the Rugby and the Reunion. My knee had swollen up to ludicrous proportions due to what it was decided was a trapped nerve as I was fine right till the last descent and was fine to walk 3 peaks the next day so don’t worry about me, so I had my leg up most of the night with an ice pack on it while I enjoyed my steak and ale pie. This severely limited my getting to the bar which was probably a good thing as it meant I walked the next day feeling fresh, even if we did stay up in the campsite drying room drinking beer after the pub had closed till 2 in the morning!
The next morning was a much slower start and a small group of us (all of us who were going back in jack’s car) decided to do Swirl How and its satellite peaks of Great Carr and Grey Friar. This is a long walk without too much ascent or descent once you get up the first peak and we had it all done and back at the car by 3pm, even with a one hour lunch break, however as we had been so busy the day before we felt that this was enough and high tailed it back to York, stopping at the Charles for a nice meal to end a lovely weekend.
I got back to discover that I am through the first part of an application process for field work in the alps and then passed out from exhaustion on my bed!
Monday, 23 February 2009
About Bloody Time!
Finally fixed trouble of the drier not doing its job properly when i do my washing.
Pressed the big scary button marked permenant press and boom, everything is dry.
Just thought you'd like to know :P
(also pub golf this wednesday, expect.....somthing to happen to me)
Pressed the big scary button marked permenant press and boom, everything is dry.
Just thought you'd like to know :P
(also pub golf this wednesday, expect.....somthing to happen to me)
Friday, 20 February 2009
Hey It’s Been A While
So I haven’t updated this in a little while, mainly because I have really been to busy too. Last weekend I went to visit Ruth and her friends at Bangor University and it was a really nice weekend. The place is nice and quite, different to my life in a good way and it defiantly seems to be the right fit for Ruth. All the people were good fun and I like to feel that I was in my element of meeting new people and doing new things. It was also nice to catch up with mum and look around Carnarvon castle.
Things here are subdued as my housemate Will learnt that his dad had died suddenly. He has gone home for a bit and a sombre air is around both for his loss and the fact that we all miss him. Work continues to go well. I got a high 2.2/ low 2.1 on my last essay, which I am pleased with as I found it difficult. Unfortunately I did lose marks due to poor referencing and that was because I had run out of time to proof read it. Thus the next essay that I am doing, which is not due till next Friday was started today, just to give me that little more time.
Battle of the Bands has taken up a lot of my time and my finances recently and the final is tomorrow. Its been good fun and my mate Matt from Ben Lairig got two bands into the final, so that should prove to be a riot.
Will try not to leave it so long next time!!
Things here are subdued as my housemate Will learnt that his dad had died suddenly. He has gone home for a bit and a sombre air is around both for his loss and the fact that we all miss him. Work continues to go well. I got a high 2.2/ low 2.1 on my last essay, which I am pleased with as I found it difficult. Unfortunately I did lose marks due to poor referencing and that was because I had run out of time to proof read it. Thus the next essay that I am doing, which is not due till next Friday was started today, just to give me that little more time.
Battle of the Bands has taken up a lot of my time and my finances recently and the final is tomorrow. Its been good fun and my mate Matt from Ben Lairig got two bands into the final, so that should prove to be a riot.
Will try not to leave it so long next time!!
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Snow Lakes
I went to the Lake District yesterday, and experienced some of the best snow weather that the Lakes have seen in about 20 years apparently. We saw the weather forecast on about Thursday and decided that we had to take advantage of it with a quick day trip. So at 6.30 on Saturday morning 5 proud Ben Lairig members set off towards the lakes.
We arrived at about 9 ‘o’ clock and kitted up, aware that we would need Ice Axes and Crampons to get the most out of the day. And what a day it was, we cramponed up a snow slope onto Catstye Cam and followed the ridge around. Then did Swirral edge which about 25 times better in winter with ice everywhere to summit Hellvellyn. Then round onto the Dodds and did Raise and then down via Sheffield Pike.
In the end we were on the hills for just over 8 hours and walked 10.98 miles (Jamie checked) bagging 5 peaks which allowed me to double my Wainwright count to 11.
It was a lovely day, made all the cooler as it was an unofficial trip and was really just a bunch of mates messing around on hills. We got a lot of walking and a lot of messing around done, taking photos and the like. Then it was off the hill for an expensive pint and then home to York for a cheap pint, a cheap burger and 14 hours sleep.
We arrived at about 9 ‘o’ clock and kitted up, aware that we would need Ice Axes and Crampons to get the most out of the day. And what a day it was, we cramponed up a snow slope onto Catstye Cam and followed the ridge around. Then did Swirral edge which about 25 times better in winter with ice everywhere to summit Hellvellyn. Then round onto the Dodds and did Raise and then down via Sheffield Pike.
In the end we were on the hills for just over 8 hours and walked 10.98 miles (Jamie checked) bagging 5 peaks which allowed me to double my Wainwright count to 11.
It was a lovely day, made all the cooler as it was an unofficial trip and was really just a bunch of mates messing around on hills. We got a lot of walking and a lot of messing around done, taking photos and the like. Then it was off the hill for an expensive pint and then home to York for a cheap pint, a cheap burger and 14 hours sleep.
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