Firstly big thanks obviously to S & D “without whom tonight would not have been possible”. I have such fun on these capers that mere thanks seem a bit lame. Proud to say I have absolutely no idea how far I rode, how long I rode for, how many calories (not) used, or how much I spent. Weather forecast was ignored too, and was completely wrong anyway. We also didn’t reach our intended bivi spot – a shame, but top of the list for next visit to the area. It’ll still be there. And I also saw more chapels riding there on Friday than I did churches on the rest of the weekend which was a bit silly since I was doing “churches”.
So far, so Situation Reg Normal. As Stu would say “none of it matters”. What did matter though was the excellent company of Pickers and Crewlie who put up with me, and the bikers and locals we continually bumped into (not always figuratively), and the scenery.
Arrived Caersws station Friday lunchtime and rode to Staylittle, with none of the advertised “heavy sleet”. A milk lorry in the ditch at Trefeglwys provided some entertainment and I hoped the same wouldn’t happen to me. Church at Llawr-y-Glyn:
Somehow I managed the insane hill up to Staylittle non-stop – easy when there’s 28 “false summits” and I’m gullible enough to believe every one. Popped in at the Stores for a cuppa from Nick, and I was honoured with a proper kettle and mug rather than the machine on the counter, cheers Nick! It was interesting to hear about his new cross-breed dog, crossed between a dachshund and a great dane or something. Presumably the poor little dachshund used a stepladder. I imagined it would look like a giraffe with long front and short back legs. Good for going downhill. Or maybe even diagonally opposite legs? Good to see he gets business – 10 people called by while I was there. And so to the Star via snowbound Pen Dylife:
Arrived way too soon at 4.30pm and enjoyed a long natter with Gareth and Karen, who get my thanks for their lovely hospitality. I even got the first pint of Monty’s out of the pump, closely followed by the second of which I was invited round behind the bar to draw myself! The rest of the evening’s a bit hazy ;-). Breakfast set us all up for the day, although I ended up with tinned tomatoes not fresh ones like Rob, hah! Many thanks to whoever picked my maps up
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Our route was north over the hill through Carnedd Wen forest and down to the A458, followed by a late lunch at Mallwyd cafe, then up into Dyfi Forest via Aberangell.
We managed to reach the hut at the far northern corner, which certainly had a very remote feel about it. Arrival at Corris was almost in the dark so we decided not to press on to Talyllyn lake, and took the much harder decision to bail into Andy & Adam’s cafe – unsurprisingly jammed with many of the other “churchers”. The next plan was to check out a few bivi spots that I knew on the way down the valley to Mach, along with a disused workshop, or even Mach itself. All this planning took an hour and a half by which time unfortunately the Slaters Arms next door was open. It was reluctantly decided that further planning was required, which took us another two hours, and we finally staggered out at 8pm with no plan at all. Some of the other chaps were on their way UP into Dyfi Forest to check out the remote hut – good luck men! As we stepped out of the boozer I recognised a chap from the Ceinws pub I’d visited in November, and him and his mate said we were welcome to kip on the football pitch, as they managed the old kids team, hurrah! Our 4 hours of planning had worked after all....
A Stu Stove surprises Mr Picton with its veracity, in the Corris Footie Team bunker:
The morning brought a lady walking her dog who’d been born in Corris (her, don't know about the dog life story) and lived there all her life. I managed to wheedle out of her that she was born in 1966, which made her exclamation of us being “young lads” (almost in our seventh decades ;-)) rather nice. She also reckoned her dog “liked wheels”. Hmm. We saw what she meant when the pooch tried to, er, shall we say "chat up" Crewlie’s hoops as we tried to escape - avert your eyes children. Our intended return route via Cemmaes got rejected (I do like all this planning....) in favour of a second breakfast in Mach, in the single open cafe. Eh? Tinned tomatoes again and Pickers and Crewlie get the fresh ones. It’s a conspiracy. By this time we were running out of churches to (not) visit, only having glimpsed the (wrong) Corris one so far, so Darowen was the next stop. Whilst there Crewlie entertained us with some stories of his dentistry student days, and the various items they practised on – sawing the top of a head off to extract a wisdom tooth does seem a bit extreme to me though. Some of the anatomy stuff is best heard before lunch too
. Nicely "sliced-bread" head slices on walls for examination – I thought a more interesting use for those might be as “coasters” for drinks at dentists parties
. We had some good laughs over the weekend – thanks guys.
The final stretch seemed an anticlimax – just a couple of quick bridleway miles up the valley next to the railway, presumably as flat as railways usually are..... NOT. An astounding gradient up from Commins Coch was followed by a mudfest across a field then an overgrown track through a wood. Those last two miles were worse than the rest of the weekend put together, typical BBB finale!
Many others have described the pleasures of Dee’s toast n cake, and Stu’s Brews (hey, that’s a great tagline, or even a cafe name!), so I’ll not add mine.
And so... back to un-reality.. the adjustment to which I find harder and harder as time goes on. Maybe next time I’ll do a Reggie Perrin after all, and leave my clothes in a pile next to the bivi spot.... ;-).
“Reg”
Hmm, this might be an early start 
