School Photo

This photo was taken at school a few weeks ago.

Portrait

Not the best ever, but watch this space for school photos.

The Birth of Jasper

On 2 November 2007, my mum had a baby boy called Jasper. The first time I ever saw him was at the hospital the evening she had him.


When I was holding him, Dirk seemed very interested in him as well.


He is very cute.


I also visited him at midday on Saturday 3 November.



Dirk takes a great interest in Jasper. His skin feels soft and he is very loud. He usually peeps a lot. And he has dark grey eyes. I help Mum sometimes by changing Dirk's nappy.

Photographs

Man of the Hills!

On the 4th and 5th of augest me greg and gregs sister’s husband James went to north wales to climb three very tall, steep and big mountains. It started when Greg and I went to millets in Dunstable to get me some walking boots to go up the mountains in.At first I wore them in the house and after a while Greg took the label of so I could wear them out in town as well. Then when I went to my Dads for a week I took my boots with me and I wore them everywhere I went (apart from the park because they might of got ruined.) When I took them back to mums I wore around town again until it was Saturday the 4th of augest. It was the day we were going to leave we had a big breakfast. Then we left in the car to wales (leaving mum and Dirk behind because they were staying at grannie and grandads.)

Greg says: Click on the pictures to enlarge them. (Only the first few were taken by us, as the cameras stopped working in the damp atmosphere!) The picture below shows the first two-thirds of Connor's route. To give it some scale, the end of that lake is a full mile (in a straight line) from the peak of Tryfan. And that little thread beside it is a major road (the A5, which leads all the way to Dunstable!)

Some time ago, Connor asked how high the mountains were. The highest is actually 999m (3250 ft) but this is very misleading, as that’s the height of the peak above sea level. I think that’s cheating a bit. So, I used the OS map to determine how high Glyder Fawr is from its base. (For our purpose, this is about the level of the main road, as the mountain range starts right on the A5. This gives an practical height of 2583 feet. Click the picture below to see how it compares to some famous buildings.

When we got to the camp-site in wales I stay in the car while Greg put up the tent because it was raining. Once greg had put the tent up we went into town (Betws-Y-Coed) to buy lunch then we drove back to the campsite and had lunch in the car.

Then we waited for James to come along once he came we all went into the tent and changed from our travelling clothes into our walking clothes. Once we done that we put all the rucksacks in James’s car and drove to the campsite at the bottom of the first mountain which was called Tryfan. James payed for the parking and then we started to walkup the mountain stopping to take photos every now and then.

It rained all day when we got to where we were going to sleep James and I sat down for a minute or two while greg looked for a good place to camp that night when he found a good place we went over to it and got out our sleeping bags and roll mats and had a lie down after a while greg made dinner we all settled down to sleep.

Greg says: It took nearly four hours to get here from the car park. On the map, we had covered two miles. This sounds like slow progress until you realise that Connor had travelled half a kilometer vertically! He was carrying his own sleeping bag and camping matress in his rucksack. He was also carrying wet weather clothing, emergency food rations, drinking water, two-way radio and mobile phone (kept waterproof in a condom!)

On the way up, we had to cross a stream. It was swollen by the rain so that most of the stepping stones were submerged. Connor kept a cool head and crossed without incident. Though we camped in the lee of a drystone wall, the high winds meant that any attempt to erect a tent would have led to an involuntary hang-gliding lesson. We had foreseen this and not bothered to bring one.

When we woke up the next day we got out of our sleeping bags, got dressed and had a little stroll around and had breakfast and then got our rucksacks on and set of again. 20 minutes later we decided to turn back instead of go right up to the top of tryfan because if we did we woulden’t be able to do the other two mountains. So we turned back and started to walk done tryfan then when we were about half way done Tryfan we walked half way round a circle and inside the circle was a lake. Once we walked round the lake we started to walk up the second mountain called Glyder Fach.

Greg says: Glyder Fach's summit is 994m high. The picture below shows the route Connor took after breakfast.

When we were near the top it started to get very windy. We nearly got blown off our feet it was so windy.

Greg says: From the top of Glyder Fach's cliff, we could see our first mountain, far below us.

When we were very nearly at the top we saw a huge heap of enormous rocks. We all took our rucksack off and decided we would climb on them for a little while. One of the rocks was sticking out from the heap

Greg says: This was the famous Cantilever Stone. You can, in fact, stand as many people as will fit without the slightest danger of tipping!

it was flat so we all walked across it (not all at once) James went first then me and Greg did then it started to get very windy again so me and Greg sat down and wriggled our way back across the rock, Climbed down of the heap of rocks, got our rucksacks on and walked on.

Greg says: Looking ahead from the Cantilever Stone, Connor could see exactly where he needed to go.

Then a little while later we came to another heap of enormous rocks (*). This time we had to climb down them we saw some very amazing rocks one was very thin, 15 feet high and standing up on its own.

Greg says: This heap of rocks is called Castel Y Gwynt (Castle of the Winds.) It is well named.

We picked out way between giant flakes of rock, aware that just a few feet to our right, there was a sheer drop of nearly a thousand feet. If we fell, we'd have nearly a full seven seconds to think about how much it was going to hurt. The upside was that it wouldn't actually hurt for anything like that long.

Looking back at the way he had come, Connor got a good idea of how high he was!

Once we were off the rocks we started to walk up the third mountain called Glyder Fawr the tallest mountain of them all.

Greg says: It's 999m. That means when Connor reached the top, his head was more than a kilometer up in the sky! Snowdon is higher, but that's for the tourists, and they go up on a train!

When we got to the top of the third mountain it was most windy.

Greg says: Connor waited while I had a peep over the edge. The wind was very keen to get me to the car park far below.

On the way down there was just a stone path but then I had to take my rucksack off and give it to Greg. Greg threw it down the mountain then it stopped. Then about two minutes later it started rolling again! Then it stopped for the final time. (Greg threw my rucksack so that I could get across a big space between two rocks easier.)

Greg says: A quick word of explanation: Descending a gully, we discovered that the terrain had been drastically affected by running water. We were forced to traverse a short cliff. The eccentric behaviour with Connor's rucksack was intended to give him better balance while hanging onto the cliff face. I'm sure he would say that - if the rucksack was going to bounce down all those rocks, he'd just as soon not be strapped to it. What Connor is too brave to say though, is that a shifting rock crushed his finger at this point, resulting in a blood-blister under the nail. By the time we stopped for our next break, it had burst and looked really quite exciting!

Once I got my rucksack back on and walked down a little more we came to a lake and turned right then we had to go down some more except this time there were stone steps all the way down to the next lake some of the steps were tall, some short, some wide and some were thin. Some of them were so tall that I had to sit down to get to the next one, some were short enough that I Just had to hold on to the nearlest rock while I lowerd my foot, some I had to twist my foot so that I could fit on the step and some were like steps at home.

Greg says: This descent is steep. Connor lost 250m in altitude during a leg of the walk only just over 300m long. If you look carefully at the picture below, you'll see some red squares. The tiny specks in the squares are groups of people.

Once we were right at the bottom there was a little mini beach so me and greg had a paddle in the lake (James had gone to get the car from the car park at the bottom of Tryfan)

Then it started to rain so we left the mini beach and headed for the car park at the bottom of Glyder Fawr where James was waiting for us.

Once we got in James’s car he drove us back to our campsite dropped us off and then James went home Greg and I got in the tent we blowed up our mattresses got in our sleeping bag read for a while and went to sleep. Next morning we woke up we had breakfast read our book for a while I went for a little stroll around the camp-site once I’d fineshed my book. Then a few hours later we packed up the car and drove all the way home.

Greg says:

Before he went, Connor was nervous about his biggest mountain walk yet.

He was right to be.

Though these mountains are spectacularly beautiful, they can kill.

And do.

Routinely.

Well over 100 people have died on these mountains since I first visited at the age of ten.

But if they are approached with respect they can be friends. And Connor certainly won three friends this weekend. Having learned about the risks and safety precautions at home, he stepped onto the lowest slopes with the right attitude as well as the right kit.

He walked farther and higher in two days than most of his peers will manage all summer (if not their whole lives!)

Everybody who knows Connor should be proud of him.

I know I am.

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Cub Camp

Last weekend, Connor went to Cub camp. He did lots of fun things, which he'll be writing about here soon. While there, he gave an interview to Chiltern Radio. His picture appears on their Web site.

St George's Day Parade