30th Birthday, Christmas and New Year 2007

The Christmas holidays were a welcome relief, more so because it marked the end of a long and exhausting autumn spent in the hospitals of deepest darkest Cumbria! It was nice to finally be back in my house for more than a couple of nights since the beginning of May!!!!

The holidays got off to a surprising start when I ended up in North Wales for a "quiet weekend" away with Alex, only to be welcomed by canoeing and biking friends from university days past and present! It appeared that Alex had spent the best part of 6 months organising a surprise birthday weekend for me! I had a wonderful weekend catching up with people, some of whom I had not seen for years. I was very touched by the effort people made to come with some people travelling from Inverness, Cornwall and London. We managed to get out biking on the Saturday, only loosing 1 out of 30 people while out was an achievement although it maybe a while before he lives it down! We were staying in a large old house in Snowdonia that is owned by a mountaineering organisation. It was perfect for a large party and the drinking commenced amid various challenges including some crazy climbing of the building. Sunday was a beautiful day and half the group walked up Moel Eilio (opposite Snowdon) with my mum and Alex's parents while half of the group headed off to a biking venue near Chester.

We spent the 2 days before Christmas at Alex's parents and Christmas day and Boxing day at my parents. Both Alex and I were full of the joys of flu for most of the 4 days but never the less had a lovely time feasting and catching up with the families. We then headed up the M1 from London and kept going and going and going........................until we got just north of Inverness!!

The first day we spent biking in the clouds at Learnie red rocks, JP and Jenny's local single track although Jenny spent the day healing the highlanders post Christmas ailments!!! On the Saturday we paddle the Blackwater, another of their local runs running through Strathpeffer. We then packed up all the toy and headed down to the cottage we had hired in Glen Moriston.

Sunday was spent on the world mountain bike cross country course at the Nevis range. 1 lap was quite enough for Jenny and I, so while the boys went off for a second lap, we took Sam up the mountain in a Gondola and went for a walk at the top. The path was very icy and we had great fun throwing snow balls for Sam to fetch although he didn't quite get the fetch bit and just ate them all!!

Jenny and JP both had to work on New Years eve, so Alex and I went walking for the day with Sam on the Sleet peninsula on Skye. It was a nice surprise to arrive on Skye and the torrential rain we'd had for the journey to be replaced by beautiful sunshine! We did 2 walks, one to a castle on the west coast and the second down to the point of Sleet, where Alex and Sam had great fun on the beach playing fetch in the sea!

We then went back to the cottage and had a big New years eve dinner with Jenny and JP, before seeing in the new year amidst lots of fun games and the customary glass of wine or two! We then spent New years day paddling the lower Roy in what could only be described as low water - but fun none the less.

Wednesday saw Jenny, Alex, Sam and I going on one of the most random bike rides I have ever done. We had headed off to Glen Garry searching for some single track biking. Not quite what we ended up with - we couldn't find the biking and asked a local for some directions. He clearly had no idea what we were on about but suggested a nice ride along forestry tracks to an abandoned settlement. Nothing had prepared us for how recently the house must have been left since there was a big blue trampoline in the garden, vehicles in the garage (including 2 amphibious craft) etc etc. We had great fun exploring and amused ourselves on the trampoline. Not what Sam made of it all but I think Alex was surprised by my trampolining skills, not having known I had learnt to trampoline when I was younger!!!! In the afternoon we walked in the forest near our cottage and were very surprised when Sam disappear only to reappear in very close pursuit of a stag!

The rest of the week was taken up with biking around the 10 under Ben route at the Nevis range. Not as good as the other route there and not as well signposted. We ended up doing the 2nd half first then the first half and using the world cup downhill course as an escape back to the car park - a perfectly reasonable proposition in the middle of winter but we'd have been less keen if there had actually been downhillers around that were likely to have come screaming up behind us! We also went to Abriachan and the Balnain bike park - in the snow. It certainly made an interesting ride at Abriachan. My bike didn't even make it off the car at Balnain - superskinny elevated snowy platforms - not really my thing!!! Alex had fun scaring himself on some of the trail though.

We then headed back to Inverness to meet up with Jenny and JP, who had spent the last 2 days at work. We headed up to the Highland wildcat trails at Golspie which was excellent before heading back down south after a fab weeks holiday!