Distracted Dad: The Wales Template

Last week was my annual walk up a hill/mountain with university friends, this time to Wales. I’m not sure how this particular pastime got combined with this group of friends. After all, there’s no Schoolfriends & Skydiving combination or Work Colleagues & Wingwalking shindig.

Three questions which this column may answer: would it be better than my last two trips to Wales? Would it follow the usual walking up a hill template? And would I be able to stop myself focusing the whole time on food?

On that last point, you can read previous Distracted Dad columns about this annual trip by googling “Pepperami at 1,084 ft” or “Flapjack Perils Galway Bay”. (See what I mean about food?) As for my last trip to Wales … November 2002. It was closed. And raining. Although I did get engaged. (It was something to do.) Previously, in 1989, I’d been for an art degree interview in which the interviewer said how much I looked like one of the Everly Brothers. Phil, it turned out. I didn’t get in.

As for the template, well, it started off the same. We set off, if not from the four corners of the British Isles, then a fairly decent triangulation. I picked up one friend who described himself as “the other Southerner”, although he meant Bedford. Latest readers will know that’s not the South. On the way, we stopped off at the Knocking Shop. (Sorry, not part of the usual template, we don’t always do that. It was just a shop in the village of Knocking.)

We stayed in ‘Bunkhouse Heaven’, perfectly sized accommodation until we cooked so much rice (1) it was like expandable foam. Meanwhile, to add an hallucinatory twist, the owners had converted the outbuildings into some strange cocktail of pantomime stage set, Druid Temple and Portmeiron. (That’s not always part of the template either.)

My culinary control-freakery meant I took charge of the cooked breakfast (2) which I estimated would take about five hours of solid walking to digest. Luckily, that’s what we had planned. (We repeated it the next day. With added eggs.) The walk was gloriously sunny, I remembered water, and pasta salad (3) turned out to be a surprisingly refreshing snack while walking up the stunning Berwyn mountains and taking in – here comes a fact, I like my columns to be educational – the UK’s tallest single drop waterfall, the Pistyll Rhaeadr.

Having passed a number of sheep while ascending the Cadair Berwyn, they must have acted like those takeaway leaflets pushed through your door. You think you’re ignoring them at the time, but suddenly later in the pub you’re ordering the lamb shank (4).

Oh, I’ve missed a bit. Prior to going out, we were treated to some impromptu jazz by the owners of Bunkhouse Heaven, including piano, and some instrument that looked like a French horn but wasn’t a French horn. They also provided nibbles including some excellent olives (5).

OK, so let’s remind ourselves of the questions. Yes, it was definitely better than my previous trips to Wales – apart from the engagement of course. She’ll be reading this. Hello, love! – what with no rain and not getting compared to Phil Everly even once. The template was followed in terms of a decent, invigorating walk, great company, drink and food, but we deviated somewhat with the impromptu jazz, which I think should be added to the template for next year. Preferably always laid on by the accommodation owners. (No pressure there, then.)

As for the mentions of food, just five this year. Still you can’t expect me to go completely cold turkey (6).
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