CHAPTER 8
There were very few people from work at the reception, which Penny and Keith held in the Red Lion, in the same stables bar the folk club usually occupied. As many of the guests were fellow folk club members, it was familiar territory for them; the climbers, being climbers, simply needed to know what direction the bar was in.

The wedding itself was held in the Registry Office on George Street, and our plan was to wander back that way later in the evening to hit the India Garden on Wellington Street for a final refuelling stop. As the soon-to-be-married couple would be flying to Palma the next day, I pitied anyone sharing the plane’s cabin and their curry-related effusions.

Auds and Caro did the bridesmaid thing, I did the best man bit with the ring, and about twenty of us then descended on the Lion. They had a proper meal for us, the staff having gone above and beyond, and of course someone had brought their guitar, another two their fiddles, plus some squeezeboxes, and if the people from our climbing club didn’t know the songs when we started, they did by the time we decamped to the Garden.

Parts of my memories of that day were somewhat blurred the next morning, and I felt rather fragile for the early part of the day, but as Keith always said, the liver is evil and must be punished. Caro didn’t rise from our bed till gone eleven, and when she did, she just pointed at the kettle.

“Tea. Now”

There was no way we would have been at the airport in time to wave them off, so we just spent the morning planning our own trip for the following weekend, four days’ worth of it after some convenient swaps of our shifts. I had traded up to a 900 Kwak by then, and after some careful studying of the bus timetables, we had a Plan.

I stood astride the Kwak that Friday morning as Caro mounted behind me. The tent and sleep mats were on the rack, our other kit spread around throwovers, tank bag and a rucksack Caro was wearing. That nearly meant her falling over backwards, but she flung out a hand to grab my shoulder, finally settling down with a wriggle. I tried not to laugh out loud.

“You’ll have to grow some longer legs, love”

“Yeah, and you’d love that, you lech, wouldn’t you? Let’s get rolling before the rain starts!”

“It’s set fine, woman”

“We’re heading for Wales, so enough said. That and the soul sucker”

Her name for the stretch around Birmingham; I set the bike into first gear, and we were indeed rolling, through the edge of the town to the M1 and a peel off onto the M6 after Watford Gap services. I gritted my teeth as we approached the pit of despair that is the urban stretch of motorway through Birmingham, where it became a mixture of stop-go-stop-go with occasional filtering when the cars became stationary.

My mind was in its usual odd mix of concentration and silliness, and when a number of stationary cars did let us through, I thought ‘letters’, ‘stationary’, ‘stationery’, and of course I ended up trying not to laugh too hard. I am far too easily amused when locked into a bike helmet, oh my.

Finally, as we approached Hilton Park, the traffic started to speed up, and when we peeled off onto the M54 I was able to let the Kwak have its head, despite the shitty concrete surface to the road. Through Telford, and then watching for the tail of the inevitable queue as the three-lanes-each-way motorway abruptly became a single carriageway road with one lane each way.

I will never understand how such a road scheme ever got signed off as acceptable. The traffic wasn’t that bad, for once, and finally, after threading Shrewsbury centre, we were waiting at the lights by the Welshpool turning. On through Bicton and Montford Bridge, my spirits lifting as we got closer to the border and landmarks came and went. The Old Three Pigeons and its tank, better roads with decent sightlines, and much less traffic. The first raindrops hit us just before Oswestry, so I pulled into our usual spot for a hot drink and its consequences.

Little Chef was the place back then. The food was never outstanding, but both of us found it tasty, and this one did pots of tea rather than single cups, along with cafetieres of reasonable coffee. Dropping Caro off to order our refreshments, I took the bike around to the pumps to refill the tank, using its lack of width to sneak back to the café through some bollards rather than ride it all the way round again. Sod having a car.

Back in, as the rain squall blew through, and blue followed. I still grabbed both pairs of overtrousers before entering the café.

Hot tea for her. Hot coffee for me. An Olympic breakfast for each of us, despite the time of day, and once refuelled and drained pf non-precious bodily fluids, we were onto the last short stretch of English roads. There was the usual wriggle as we dropped into the valley before Chirk, as Caro craned her neck to look at the canal aqua/viaduct, and then it was ‘Croeso i Gymru’, and much nicer roads after Chirk. The rain held off, my spirits lifting with each familiar spot, and then that view from the Geeler Arms before the descent to Pentrefoelas. The hills closed in on us before the more open space by the Waterloo Bridge and the usual Betws traffic jam.

Breathe, Michael. Not far now.

Right-left by the Ugly House, carefully through Capel, grin at the sunlight gilding pen Llithrig and finally, finally the long straight past Helyg to Little Willy’s. Caro used the gate post to steady her as she dismounted before the cattle grid, and then we were parked up against Emlyn’s garden wall as we unloaded and dumped our bags on a suitable sweep of grass.

Sod Caro’s cobwebs and elf spoo tents; we had my Wild Country dome tent with us. I was all too familiar with the winds in that place. While I set out the bedrolls, Caro erected our little windbreak and stove before walking over to the waterpoint so that we could get outside another cuppa. We were alive once again, rather than just enduring another day.

I did the usual run down into Bethesda for beers and chips, along with our usual basics for breakfast and a couple of evening meals, and once back at the tent we settled down with my purchases before pulling out the bus timetable I had managed to find in the post office, confirming our plans for the morning. By eight thirty, we were in bed, at peace with each other and the place that held us to itself like a second home.

A walk past the Milestone the next morning left me twitchy, because I would normally have peeled off at that point for the crag and some favourite routes. Instead, we kept walking until Idwal Cottage and its bus stop. I was still awash with tea, so we left Dennis and Dafydd’s place alone and simply settled into our seats for the first part of our expedition.

Two bus rides and a stroll up a track, and we were under the Aber waterfall and checking our loading once again. We weren’t heavily laden, as we only planned to be out for one night, but things like sleeping bags are bulky things. We were carrying one of Caro’s lightweight tents rather than my fortress, but our intention was to overnight in the Foel Grach shelter rather than pitch it.

Through the firebreak tracks in the conifer plantations, goldcrests and other small birds calling before ducking out of sight, past the slightly awkward but at the top of the falls, and then out onto the open moorland. It wasn’t an area I really knew, but the walk was an obvious one for anyone with a soul, and both of us had been planning it, separately, for years. We stood at the top of the escarpment, looking out to the Irish Sea, hand in hand and grinning.

Sod Luton.

The next several miles were all new to both of us, even though there were several places, such as the wire fence on Drum, that I had seen in multiple photographs, usually with long streamers of ice and wind-driven hoar frost. It wasn’t that sort of day, thank god, and while our gaiters were essential, we didn’t need our waterproofs at all. We passed the minor summits before the first of our six three-thousand-footers, Foel Fras, and it was already heading into late afternoon. The whole route was around fifteen miles long, and if we had pushed harder we could have knocked it off in a day, but that wasn’t the point. We had taken a long break sitting on grass by the drystone wall near Drum, enjoying the sun and the games being played by ravens and buzzards in the cloud-studded blue dome above us, just holding hands as our others held a brew from a thermos flask Caro had squeezed into her rucksack.

“Mike?”

“Yes, love?”

“What did you think of that do? Penny and Keith’s?”

“Um, thought it was a good one. The bits I remember, anyway”

“Yeah. I did as well. Our sort of people, most of the ones who were there. Gave me some ideas, it did, but I had another thought. Any idea what the rules are about getting wed somewhere you don’t live?”

“Dunno, love. Where were you thinking of?”

“Not sure. I mean, somewhere like Lindau would be magic, but that’s a bit of a stretch. I was wondering if somewhere up here, or maybe by Fort Bill, that sort of place, might do it”

“Would put the mockers on some people coming, too much travel. That and time off from work and stuff”

She grimaced.

“Yeah, I know all that, just as I know we’re going to end up in bloody George Street, but we don’t have to stay there. Split the hitching and the knees-up? There’s a bunkhouse in Llanberis we could block book, and plenty of hotels there have a decent function room”

I shuffled across to her so that I could lay an arm over her shoulder.

“Not been thinking much at all, then?”

That trademark grin, dimple and all.

“Well, not beyond ringing the bunkhouse and seeing when they’re free. October do you? And. Er. The registry office has a slot, and I sort of sent a cheque off to that bunkhouse for a deposit…”

Of course I kissed her. She had stitched me up properly, but then again, as it was something I was coming to realise more and more, that stitching was taking me somewhere I really wanted to go. As we separated, she grinned once more.

“How much room in this shelter place, then?”

“Well, two people can fit in, side by side, or spooned, as long as they are REALLY close friends!”

A happy laugh.

“Or I could just lie on top of you…”

The rest of the walk took enough breath away to stop most of our laughter, but our smiles never left us. Finally, Foel Fras and Carnedd Uchaf were behind us, and we were coming towards the top of the third of our three thousands, Foel Grach, hand in hand once more. I led the way round the scabby pile of rocks that gave the summit its name, to find the shelter door open, and a middle-aged couple sitting outside. A sleeping bag was just visible inside. Bollocks.

I still had to ask.

“Excuse me--- are you planning on staying the night here?”

The woman answered, as her obvious other half worked a small stove rather similar to my own. She looked to be in her forties or so, very slim, in a powder-blue T-shirt and baggy walking trousers, boots unlaced. I recognised her as someone I had met more than a few times in the usual places, like the Vaynol Arms and the Idwal snack bar, as well as on some of the wilder walking routes.

“We are that. Were you hoping to do the same?”

Caro answered for me.

“We were that. Just walked up from Aber; going on to Little Willy’s in the morning”

The older woman winced.

“So sorry, love. Bit of a tradition for us, this one. Wedding anniversary. What do you have with you, kit wise?”

Caro was firmly in charge at that point.

“We have a decent tent broken down between us, so don’t worry. Just need to find a softer spot. I’m Carolyn, by the way, and the big lump’s Mike”

“Well, I’m Pat, him now literally indoors is Rob. Nice to meet you. Got a stove and water?”

I nodded, and Pat grinned.

“Get it set up next to ours, then, and I’ll show you a decent pitch for the night”

As I dragged out the necessary bits and pieces, she led my lover off around a corner of the rocks. I squeezed into the shelter next to a walnut-coloured man who seemed to be all sinew and flashing grin.

“Get brewing then, son! Devious, is my lass, and if that’s her usual site, it’s a bomb-proof one. How long are you up for, wherever it is you’ve escaped from?”

“Just a long weekend, and it was… Luton”

As I started our own stove, he winced.

“Oh dear. You have all of my sympathy indeed! Now, you smuggled anything past your own lass?”

“Sorry?”

“I humped up a couple of bottles of vino. Don’t tell me you don’t have those bottles I saw you load up with in Bethesda yesterday? It was you, wasn’t it? Big red and white Kawasaki?”

I couldn’t help shaking my head and grinning.

“I think I’ve met Pat and you a couple of times, or at least enough for a wave and a hello”

“Probably. Answer the question, son!”

I couldn’t help yet another grin.

“Guilty”

“Then, if you don’t mind, we can have a decent evening together, and toast the sunset together. Here’s the other two back. Pat? Met this’un before, we have”

She peered at me, then grinned.

“On Crib Goch once?”

“Indeed. Not to mention the Vaynol and the Bryn Tyrch”

“Ha! A man of taste”

Rob called past me.

“I saw him in the Co-Op yesterday. He’s come adequately suppled, he has, hint hint!”

Pat’s eyebrows rose, and a grin almost as dazzling as Caro’s shone out.

“Red or white, Mike?”

Later, as Caro and I were cooling down from making love in our little tent, I caught the sound of Pat as she and Rob did the same. I couldn’t begrudge them their place in the shelter, and I took comfort in the simple fact that people like them existed. People like me and my own lover.

‘Sod Luton’ was my last clear thought before sleep took me.