On Friday Simon Morgan and I met up at a small country pub in Nailsea for a night of banter with our mutual chum Tim Berry.
I'd phoned the landlord the night before and said "Do you remember I camped in your beer garden last December?"
"Yes"
"Can I do it again tomorrow?"
"Yes"
End of call. He's a scary bloke.
Anyway we had a very pleasant evening of banter and drink and sometime after 12.00 Simon and I retired to our respective Bivvi bags.
Now, due to the demands of Mrs Onepot, I had to be home in Cardiff by 8.15 at the latest. On my venerable sidecar outfit this presented a challenge. Consequently my alarm rang at 6.15 and within a couple of minutes we were up and about. It was cowing cold. We both fumbled around for our kit and I set to making coffee on my thankfully easy-to-use Svea123 Stove. At one point Simon was messing about with my drybag and I said. "Si, that's my bag" to which he replied, "Oh, I didn't think I'd packed this stuff. Then he started looking for his bag.
"It's under the sidecar, remember?" I told him.
He continued looking in the chair
"It's under the sidecar... under the sidecar... under... underneath... it's underneath the sidecar"
I can't blame him, I was equally as befuddled by the cold and the fact that the stars were still out.
I wondered aloud, "How the f*** do they cope on the South Col?" (the last camp before the Everest summit from whence climbers have to depart at midnight for the summit push).
"Yes" he said "and we haven't even got the excuse of oxygen deprivation".
We were on the road by 7.00 and within 5 miles or so had parted company as I headed for the bridge and he aimed east for Reading. By the Severn crossing toll booths I was in agony with my hands and I had to stop just before the booths. My fingers had become really cold and then, for the first time ever, wiggling my fingers had brought the blood back into them. Which would have been fine, but the blood coming back was more painful, by far, than the cold fingers in the first place. The sun crept over the horizon as I waved my arms around and massaged my digits back to warmth. The low sun illuminated numerous toll booth attendants laughing at my antics.
A short time later I was back at home, before the alloted time to the amazement of my wife.
Half an hour later as I drove her to work I said "Do you know, I got up at 6.00 this morning, shook the ice off my bivvi bag, made coffee with my gloves on, risked frostbite on the way back and provided some free entertainment to all the toll attendants on the Severn Crossing"
"so" she said.
"Well" I replied, "it's just that even with all that I'm still in a better mood than you, you grumpy bugger"
She hit me then.
Saturday was a kids day and then we went out for supper at a neighbour's house (and heard a blinding joke that can't be done justice here due to the requirement to perform a hand movement to make it work).
Sunday started with my first lay-in for weeks and then a sleepy day spent reading and drinking tea.
Not a bad weekend
GC
ps Micro meet cold breakfast piccy in the Events/meetings page
