30 years on, from sharing a tent on an expedition in the Arctic, Hwyel and I got together for another hike at last! Despite sporadic text communication, we hadn’t actually seen each other in nearly ten years – for no reason other than we’d never just set a date to meet up! Until now!…

The weather was kind enough to give us a (small!) window of dryish weather and we spent a happy day wandering the mountainside above Abergryngregan, following the ridge line up towards the summit of Drum.

All around us, a fine drizzle of rain was falling, and out to sea the skies were black, but somehow we pretty much remained in the sun and mostly dry!

We took in all the peaks along the ridge, gradually gaining height and new views. The perfect way to natter and catch up on each other’s lives.

There were some bursts of sun at the top. Everyone had sunglasses packed ‘just in case’ – except me, so I had to improvise…

We sent a couple of photos/texts from the summit to some other members of the original expedition team that we still had contact details for, to see if they still recognised us. Hopefully we can all try and hook up somewhere this year?…

Clare had made sure we’d got a well-packed lunch, so after a decent feed, we began our descent down the reservoir road towards the car, past an impressive display of sheep dog herding, (and two retired spies?…).

On the way home, we stopped briefly for the obligatory tourist dragon photo!

By the time we’d got back to The Cottage, had showered and eaten dinner, we abandoned plans to head out to the pub and instead, got stuck into some serious ‘button game’ action by the fireside. The highlight of which was when Clare set a new Olympic standard by finally breaking the two-minute barrier! Simple fun, and so much laughter… Good times indeed…