Skiing up Cairn an Tuirc

I went with the Scotts ( that is Scott Burnett and Scott Muir not as in the Scotts nationality) up towards Carin an Tuirc to hunt out some decent snow, it had snowed hefty amounts recently but with heavy winds so there was a little bit of care needed in finding decent safe snow.

We got to the top in some pretty strong winds that made the idea of going across the top of the plateau to have a look into Coire Kander not that an appealing idea.

We managed to find some decent snow which was on the SW face of the hill and we did one lap of it and decided that it was that good there was not real need to look any further, so did another lap of it.

Mr Muir in his normal ‘ripping it up’ fashion.  That was until you hit some thing that was lurking under the snow, as there was now base you would be happily skiing along then all of a sudden end up clipping something and falling over ( well that is my excuse anyway! Me below eating a face full of snow)

All in all we did four laps of the hill which was a good leg work out and a great fun ski.  On the way back we found a shallow gully to ski down literally to the car.  Great fun  the rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking on this

Happy First Birthday Fin!

Not sure where that year went, but Fin is now 1!  Happy Birthday little man.  We all went around to Scott and Anna’s, Scott have been busy making a snow ramp for some sledging action in the back garden.

Ellis Loved it and i think we are going to do a lot more sledging in Gap this year!

Thanks for alot of fun Burnetts.

The birthday boy with Daddy and Uncle Paul.  the rest of the pictures can be seen in the gallery page linked top right.

New Year’s Eve Week in Aviemore

We managed to book a great house in Aviemore for the week over the New Year Period.  There was loads of snow in the hills and the Smiths, Ryan, Rich, Lorraine, Hugh and Hannah went to play!

On some days Lara went out skiing and I took Ellis out to play, the weather was not that nice all the time ( as can be expected in Scotland in December) and Aviemore has a great indoor play area for young kids.  On the second day we had a weather front that came in bringing really high winds and hi temperatures.  this shut down the ski hill so thankfully we had plan B with us in the form of MTBs.  We went to the local bike shop who pointed us in the direction of some good trails which happened to be literally behind our house

Rich and I had a days climbing which was pretty un successful ( i forgot crampons) so half way up where we were going the snow got too hard and i was not able to kick my feet in so we had to bail

Ellis was a great fun, and was not shy with all the new faces, and would happily play with everyone and generally run around ( usually with no clothes on, not sure where this habit comes from)

New Years Eve came and we had a great dinner and then spent the rest of the night trying to pickle ourselves with vast quantities of Gin and Tonic playing stupid games that usually ended in embarrassment

Don’t ask!

The bad weather stripped a lot of the snow so unfortunately skiing was little limited, there was still enough to get a reasonable days skiing for Scotland.

With limited skiing more biking was done, Me rich and Lara rode up the Lairig Ghru and back.  For anyone who likes a little bit of technical riding and amazing single track, I would really recommend this ride, it is a belter!

Ellis had a lot of stone throwing tuition this week, she is getting good at throwing stones into water now, and seems to like picking ones that are huge and she can just about lift….  Thanks all for coming up / across for a great fun week.  all the rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking on this.

Xmas at the Tadeusz’s

Xmas this year was spent down at Lara’s parents. A brilliant week was spent playing with the new dogs, walking, mixed in with far to much wine and cheese!

Ellis didnt’ really get the concept of xmas was yet, but I am pretty sure she knew it was a special day and she really enjoyed opening all her presents.  Thank you everyone for your generosity, she was a little spoilt!

The Crowthers came and joined us for lunch and we all had a great afternoon eating and drinking far too much as usual.

We had a little dance

Then came the weird and wonderful Majorcan drinking jug.  the concept being that you start with the spout in your mouth, you then have to fully extend your arm whilst still pouring the liquid (in this case sherry) then back again before you mouth come too full.  Tallie above forgot to even open her mouth….. Chester being the great husband he is obviously decided she needed a helping hand.

Frank didn’t quite get it either…….

A great fun day and thank you Frank and Caryn for having us.  the rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking on this

Squeaker goes sledging

Keen for Ellis to play in the white stuff ( and nothing to do with my own addiction what so ever), I took Ellis up to the Lecht to have a go at sledging.

The weather was playing nicely and it was reasonably pleasant and Ellis was wrapped up and enjoyed it!

Screams of “weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” all down the slop followed by “again!” when we came to a stop.

We were outside sledging for about an hour which I thought was enough until we retreated into the warmth.  I think she is going to enjoy snow sports as she seems to enjoy the speed.  Good little squeaker!

I am a crap Contractor

Most contractors don’t dare take a day off, but with the recent snow fall and the weather forecast like it was, I just could not say no when Monica asked if I wanted to go skiing today.  I had talked to a friend who had walked from Braemar to Aviemore on Monday and he said there is lots more snow in the Northern Cairngorms, plans were made and an early start to Aviemore was agreed.

We spent a great day up and around the northern corries, there was not a breath of wind, the clarity of the air was amazing and we could see for miles – a refreshing change to the norm.

A great start to the season, hopefully it will snow some more as there is a great base up there already, and this should set us up for a great season.

The rest of the photos can be seen by clicking here

Beinn A Bhuird is a long way away

Retrospective is funny old thing.  When deciding on where to go, obviously thinking that our first day out winter climbing would be spent in Beinn A’Bhuird is retrospectively not the best choice.  It is one of the most remote places in the UK, under alot of soft fresh snow.  Still we never really thought about that, I was just keen on going some where new.

After cycling  and walking we finally go to the bottom of the route we came to climb ‘ Slab and Arete’ after 4 hours!  It was probably the longest walk in I have ever done.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a stunning day and the place was beautiful – just quite hard going for the first winter outing with heavy bags full of ‘stuff’.  We decided that eating lunch at the bottom was a good idea, this is were I found out I had left my lunch on the front seat of the van.  A few choice swear words and a grumbly stomach and we set off up the climb.

It was rather more than the guide book suggested and with a few alterations and swearing we got up it, not the conventional route but was plenty interesting and gave a really enjoyable climb.

We got to the Top around 4:15pm just as the sun was setting. What ensued is a long walk back to the bikes in the darkness across the top of Beinn A’Bhuird with amazing views of the sun setting all around us, we could see for miles. It was a pretty clear night so we managed most of it with out head torches, when we got back to the bikes we had a brilliant decent back down the snowy icy path slip sliding our way down.  Amazingly all of us staying upright.

A great day out albeit a long one, nothing like breaking us in gently!  Scottish hills were a great place to be that day!  All the rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking here

Lara’s First Half marathon at GLen Clova

Lara wanted a target to aim for and three months ago she decided a half marathon was a good challenge.  I had done the Glen Clova half 2 years previously and she decided it was a good one to as it was in a pretty place and not being the competitive type, meant she could race against my time exactly at the same place so I had no excuse if she was faster.  Rich being the good bloke he is decided he would be stupid enough to keep Lara company on the challenge.

It was a cold morning, and the nerves were high.  Lara worked herself up into a tither and spent most of the morning making fast trips to the toilet with a ‘nervous tummy’  The race was set to start at 11, it soon came about, no more procrastinating – time to put your money where your mouth is!  Off they went with the 300 other runners.

Glen Clova is a hard course, Lara had it in her head that she was aiming for a 1hr 45min finish time.  This is pretty fast for your first 1/2, let alone your first half on this course!  Well, she was off and Ellis and I had some time to kill,  we went for a walk up to Loch Brandy on the north side of valley.

She was really good, we sang songs all the way up.  Lorraine was with us to give moral support to Lara and Rich and administer any first aid required at the end.

Ellis not sure about this way to go, so she decided it was back down.  The Valley below is where the race was being fought out.  We decided we would go back down for about 1hr 20 to make sure we caught them and get a bit of the race atmosphere.  We lined the finish line and clapped on the truly talented fast runner ( first place was 1hr 14min!!) we were checking our watches thinking we had quite a while to go until Lara arrived, in the distance I saw what looked liked to be Lara, I checked my watch and it was 1hr 37mins, wholly cow the women was flying!!!!!

By the time she crossed the line she had finished in 1hr 39mins!  She had run a stormer and I was carrying serious egg on my face as she utterly smashed my time from two years ago.  I think I will just have to be a man and admit it, my wife is a better runner than me.  There, I said it.  ( kinda hurt).  She wasn’t too burst either, she went through her race with us and she said she thoroughly enjoyed it and wants more!!!! Oh I think we have created a monster!

Rich Finished in a very respectable 1hr45min taking 8 minutes of his previous PB, so another great effort on the day.

Well done to you both!

Tallies 30th in Fort William

Tallie decided she wanted to climb a UK Mountain for her 30th.  Being her, she chose the biggest one!  We all drove over on Friday night to meet them.  Unfortunately Lara was not well and spent the weekend in bed whilst we went out and played and Granny and ‘Pob Pob’ ( Franks new name from Ellis) looked after Ellis.  We were suppose to go up Ben Nevis on Saturday but the weather forecast was better for Sunday so we went to the Ice Factor in Kinlochleven for T&C to try there hand at Ice climbing inside the big fridge they had there.

That done we found a ball pit for Ellis to play in.

Sunday the weather play ball for us and we had a lovely day walking up and down Ben Nevis.

A bit of unexpected snow on top made it that little bit more fun.  Great fun and was great to have views up to around 100m off the top.  The rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking here

Granny SMith Visiting

Granny Smith ( aka the old apple) came up for the weekend to get her fix of Baby E and do some baby sitting for us ( greatly appreciated).  Saturday we went out and joined our friends on a bike up and around Bennachie

Think there was around 17 of us, glorious weather as well.  Below is Lara on the way up.  Martin was showing us around some new trials he has been piecing together.

We all stop for a piece of cake and tea ( extremely civilised behavior if you ask me half way around) and we did our Ninja impressions!

A lovely ride and what made it was that Lara and I managed to go out riding together again, it doesn’t happen that often unless Ellis is with us in the trailer so this was brilliant.

Sunday we thought we better get Mum out the house as Ellis was starting to beat her up!  (joking)  We went for a gentle walk around Loch Muick.

Some thing was going on as it was another glorious day and was lovely to be out with Ellis in the hills, two days sunny in a row is odd up here.

Once at the Loch we taught Ellis how to throw stones and she must have spent 30 or so minutes throwing stones in, loving it, just have to work out how to make her understand where and where not to throw stones!  I think we may regret this…..

A lovely weekend and was great to see mum, but to also get out and play with Lara.  Rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking here