The trip started none too promisingly-Phil and Dave’s plan to leave Brum by 11.00 and check in at the hotel at 2.00 was scuppered by Phil getting tangled up in the eiderdown with this teddy bear and not surfacing until the aforesaid-mentioned hour, so departure time went back by an hour. This extra 60 minutes resulted in serious traffic delays, particularly on the M54 and coupled with the news that Louise had bailed out due to woman-flu-the weekend was off to a low-key start.
This was soon forgotten as the weather turned glorious and a stunning drive over the Llanberis pass was followed by a 4.00 arrival at the hotel.
A short reccie of the town then took place, which lasted about 20 minutes including a trip to Tourist Information (for a map for Saturday-never let it be said that a chap goes unprepared) and a walk to the local Spar so that tea could be partaken by the lake.
Phil then had a quick play on the monkey swing and Nigel texted in to confirm that he had left work and was on his way.
This left the other two to search for a hostelry to spend the evening however two things became clear quite quckly:
1 there were no real pubs in town just bars attached to the various hotels and
2.very few people appeared to be speaking English.
Eventually a drinking establishment was tracked down-basically a white building on a street corner (with no name above the door-very odd). Phil insisted on shoving Dave through the bar door first mainly for two reasons:
This was done and amidst the jabber of ancient druid tongues it was with some relief that Dave got to the bar and managed to place the drinks order with an (apparently) English barmaid. The obligatory pool table was found and the gruesome twosome amused themselves by playing several games and inserting money in a jukebox that appeared to have come straight out of 1979-a game of doubles was negotiated with two locals, who despite their native tongue were decked out in Man City and Everton football tops and engaged Dave with the perils of trying to give up smoking-one of them (forgetting the pub smoking ban-introduced in Wales on 2nd April)-attempted to light up and was greeted with a volley of abuse and this was qualified by the words “It’s O.K lads he’s from Bethesda”.
Phil then received word that Mr Walters had hit town and Dave attempted to navigate him to the chaps location “it’s all right Nige-it’s a white building on a street corner”
With such “precise” directions he arrived in fairly quick time just at the exact moment that Phil was buying pork scratchings-the pig character on the front of the packet seemed to bear a strange resemblance to Mr Atkins-who immediately acquired the nickname Porkers-more of which later.
After several beers and games of pool in which Hillers remained unbeaten time was called-Phil made a desperate (unsuccessful) attempt to negotiate a stay-back with the bar staff so it was back to the hotel.
The hotel bar was deserted save for one character-a northern type bloke-sporting what looked like a dodgy syrup and a DENIM SUIT-not a good look on a 50 year-old plus gentleman. Anyway the chaps christened him “Prezza”-he duly announced that he hailed from the glorious burg of Preston-home of the great North End and proceeded to regale the chaps with tales about Freddie Flintoff, Deepdale, Mark Lawrenson etc. etc.-yawn. Phil attempted to squeeze a round out of him for the chaps but the tight git was having none of it and when he attempted to spark up a “special” fag in the bar, the barman came sprinting from behind his hatch spluttering about £8000 fines and him losing his job and stuff. Hillers, having seen where all this was going, decided to hit the hay and left Nige and Porkers to it. Unfortunately the company proved to be less than stunning and the night was soon over-especially as Prezza managed to lock himself out of the hotel, after retiring for a fag (the doors automatically locked from the inside after 1 am-sad!).
There was still time however for Hillers to be woken up by the Porkster playing a voice-message on his phone of him saying goodnight to his rats “Goodnight Teresa, goodnight Nibbles” or whatever-repeated about 15 times before the soppy prat fell asleep only to emit a volley of thunderous snores and farts (henceforth known as “Porkers Corkers”) for the next half an hour.
Saturday dawned Nige stuck his head into the other chap’s room to be greeted by what Ray would call the “Bournemouth Experience”-let’s just say that Porkers Corkers had left their mark and Nige’s wrinkled nostrils gave the game away.
The chaps adjourned for breakfast to be greeted by the surreal sight of having to queue to get in the dining room-this set Porkers off down the corridor as he started to play the hotel piano-he’d obviously seen the queue and gone into nightclub mode and was trying to impress any surrounding single females-alas there were none and he would have failed anyway. The other disturbing sight was that of “Preston Prezza” emerging from one of the tables still clad in the denim suit of the night before-urgh!!! -The chaps managed to avoid eye contact and shuffled off to their table for a full……..English, Welsh, Irish-basically all the same thing really.
Bananas, Red Bull and water were packed and the explorers hit the trail in glorious sunshine at 11 a.m. Nige seemed to be making a new fashion statement, looking very Brokeback Mountain in his new titfer-and eventually was christened as Brokers for the ascent. The trudge started in earnest pretty much straight away and the water was soon out of the rucksacks. Brokers, ignoring all gags about him bringing up the rear and slotting in at the back of the field, was finding the going tough and, as the peaks and vistas grew ever more impressive, his face took on a few new shades of purple previously unseen by man or artist. Anyway with plenty of breaks and err! ”encouragement” from Hillers and Porkers the half way house was reached after about 2 hours-this involved a stop for the loos, which were out of order and for a cup of very expensive, weak tea-the weather even at 2000 feet above sea level was still remarkably warm however.
Back on the slopes and the ascent got even more arduous with an admittedly tough section just past the old copper mines. Some more great views and then the trek to the top started in earnest-the stream of people on the mountain was thinning out slightly by now-many seemed to be possibly cheating and taking the train half way up the mountain but the chaps ploughed on and soon the main summit was in sight.
The final stages were duly negotiated and the reward was tangible on such a clear day when the top was reached. An hour was spent at the peak, soaking up the clean air (the odd porkers corker notwithstanding) and great views before Hillers suggested the descent begin. This was done (against official advice) by following the railway track as far down as possible as by now there were some seriously aching limbs and the scrabble down the loose rock pathway was looking less and less appealing as time had worn on. At 5.00 after a much quieter, less sweaty and eventful journey back the travellers arrived back at the foot of the hike trail.
Back to the hotel and news of Villas’ win at Blackburn perked Hillers up no end-suitably refreshed the Chaps went in search of fodder and eventually went to the world’s slowest takeaway for tea, where the lady behind the counter seemed that busy telling everyone how overrun and understaffed she was that she forgot about the task of actually preparing food-this was eventually done and the chaps converged to a hotel bar called the Heights for the nights entertainment. Yet again this consisted of beer and pool but the day’s events were beginning to take their toll and the mood was less ebullient than on the Friday-which was a pity because it was a much nicer bar and the barmaid allowed the chaps and a selected few a stay-back after she had cleared out the local riff-raff following the Calzaghe scrap.
Then it was back to the hotel for an extra snifter and off to bed for a very sound night’s kip-barring the sound of Pokers Corkers yet again.
Sunday-another big brekkie was followed by a drive to Caernarfon-where the delights of the castle were sampled . Brokers enjoyed the medieval surrounds and symbolism and Porkers went on a 12th Century building survey to check that all correct construction methods had been used (yawn!). Then it was off to the boat for a leisurely afternoon cruise of the Menai Strait and some views of the sand dunes of Anglesey before setting the sails home for Brum.
By David (Tolstoy) Fish!!!