Shiny toys!

It is May again, so time for a trip down to Ludlow Food & Drink festival for judging beer of Wales & West.



 Liam Morrow has a new laser toy and is engraving stainless things with it.  Here we have a stainless growler, ready for auctioning at the 25th Langdale Mountain Rescue Folk Festival.

 One of the winners was a fantastic Chocolate and Vanilla Stout called Snowball by Waen Brewery.  Only the second beer I have ever given full marks to, but at 7.0% it is a bit of a beast!


Back up to Langdale and the folk festival is in full swing, and the weather is great.

Amazing who you meet here (again).

Sunday morning brought low cloud, that didn't seem to be moving. 

Think Posative!  I started off up Mill Ghyll, and got soaked.  After about 100 feet of ascent, I could see nothing.
I was resigned to being wet now, so I decided to head off down the valley and see what the weather was doing there.

 Rain

 Typical summer, go for a walk and stop in the pub to warm by the fire woth hot soup!

 

Tomato and fennel soup in Wainrights.  A superb spicy soup for these long summer days.

 I headed across towards Loughrigg Tarn, and thought I might at least climb loughrigg.  I met some people coming down who said it was zero visibility (and wet).

 I then continued into Ambleside, a terrible pint in the Queens, then decided to head back to Langdale.

 Having now walked 13.2 miles through rain, drizzle, rain, and drizzle, as I walked into the campsite, the sun came out!

 A warm shower meant that I was still wet, but warm and wet.  I returned to the Old and had a few pints of Yates, then the Game casserole finished me off, and it was an early night!

Going upstream

I had a quick night up at the Old, delivering beer again.  Lovely clear skies on the way up...

  ..lovely clear pint in the evening...

 ..but not so clear in the morning.

I didn't have time to go walking, as Yorkshire Rob had a Ribble link crossing booked and asked if I wanted to go with him.

I think he just wanted to borrow my anchor.










We set off from Tarelton lock, with Rob doing his Captain Ahab impression













The first stretch down the river Douglas was straightforward, except for the engine cutting out twice

Then we were out into the Ribble

  Other boats were passing us...

This was because, after the engine cutting out earlier,  we weren't running flat out.

We just started our turn into Savick Brook, when the lights turned red, and the gates were shut!

Following a call to CRT, we were told to continue on to Preston Marina, where someone would be waiting for us.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at Preston dock to find the gates shut, and everybody had gone home!  Having loosened the floating moorings, we tied the Blue Moon up, and Elsie next to it.  With a 9m tide, this was going to be an interesting night!

As a display of faith, I left Rob to it, and caught the bus back over to Luke's' for a fantastic meal.  Sunday Dinner !!! Excellent!

Down south and back up North

 A free day on the boat and I have tidied up the Battery Wiring.  A Blue Sea Terminal block distributes all of the 12V to shunts for Solar charger, Alternator Charger, Battery Charger and Total battery in/out.

I was invited down to Newton Abbot for the South East beer competition.  WHile changing trains at Paddington, I wandered up to the paddington basin for a coffee, but the coffe boat has gone.  Instead there is a floating restaurant, which has got to be the ugliest boat I have ever seen!

The festival at Tuckers Maltings is bigger than ever, and there were some superb beers.  My favourite, and a medal winner, was a Dark Mild from Coastal Brewery in Cornwall.

Finished work early on the Saturday, so I went up to the Old.

 

Superb weather the following morning, so I set off to do the Crinkles, and possibly Bowfell.  However, as I reached the top of Oxendale, the weather over Bowfell was looking grim, so I decided to head for Pike O Blisko.

I managed to stay dry, but it was very windy, especially at the summit.

Back in Langdale the Herdwicks were getting seriously stuck in to some beet.

Beer and Chocolate

It was now the turn of Ramsbottom RNLI Beer Festival at the civic hall.  The Chocolate festival was in town the same week, where the main street is closed and lined with stalls selling many different chocolate based produce.

We even had Marshmallow Unicorn Brownies.

The beer festival was reasonably busy until Saturday mid-afternoon, when there was a massive thunderstorm, interrupting the Sunny weather.  Instantly everybody dived into the Civic Hall, and started drinking beer.

By the time the music was finishing on Saturday night, there were only 12 beers left!

Sunday was a quiet countdown, 11 beers, 10 beers, 9, 8, 7...and the final beer ran out at about 2 O'Clock.

Due to the sellout, we managed to Raise a massive £3330 for the RNLI.

A break between two Festivals

Having not offended them too much last year, Padiham council asked us back to do another festival.

 35 Beers and 12 ciders and a set up in record time, so we celebrated with a spot of lunch

The doors opened and some people came, but not the hoards we were expecting.  I think beer festivals are getting so common, that they aren't anything special anymore.









 More to the point, I don't think anyone at the town hall could be bothered putting out the posters, banners and flyers we gave them!




Quick break between festivals, I went up to the Old.  After a few beers, I awoke the following morning to perfect walking weather.

That's it, I going for Bowfell.


Everybody and his dog was going up the Bands, so I decided to go up Mickleden and up between Bowfell buttress and Rosset.

Nice fluffy clouds and blue skies all the way up, perfectly warm I am down to a T shirt for the first time this year I think.

Having a short break overlooking Angle Tarn, and there still seems a bit of snow on Hanging Knotts.  I was only saying last night, that I haven't done any proper winter climbing for ages, and as it is now March, this is all that is left of the snow for this year.

The snow is melting, so it will be slippery and wet.

It would be insane to try to climb that by myself, without my climbing gear.

Ok.

It took a fair while to climb the snow, as it had partly thawed out, so several times I fell through to my waist.


Still evidence of snowmen though.

The last bit before the top was tricky, because I was trying to climb over this without breaking any of the superb icicles.

 Any normal person would have found a way around. Ho Hum!

Up to the top, and the views are superb.

A scramble over the rocks and I am at the top of Bowlfell, probably my favorite peak to climb.

There was a bit more snow going down towards the Bands,

 and more snowmen.

Back at the bottom, and it is a beautiful evening in Langdale.

Finished, and the best end to a slightly wintery walk.

Well, I thought that would be the last snow of the year, but the following morning...

A Beautiful setting for the Tipi's

And the snowmen are back