And so it came to pass that we had been walking together for 25 years.  A quarter of a century and we still hadn't learnt how to find our way out of a car park.

A celebratory trip for this momentous date so we arranged to walk a couple of the Welsh hills we hadn't done - Arenig Fawr and Aran Fawddwy.

The motley crew assembled by the side of a small road just south of Llyn Celyn to the west of Bala around lunchtime.  Weather looked ok but the tops of the mountains were covered in cloud (what a surprise).  A pleasant stroll up to Llyn Arenig Fawr and a quick peek into the world’s smallest bothy.  Tav is already planning a romantic weekend away with Sara.

Thereafter the terrain steepened and we huffed our way up from the lake above Y Castell.  The effort and altitude was obviously getting to Dave E who revealed an unprompted and unexpected love of Julia Bradbury.  Something to do with Country Walking magazine we believe….

At this point we disappeared into the clouds and spent the remainder of the time wondering what the views were like and navigating our way onto the ridge in thick cloud.  The trig point hove into sight along with the memorial to the crew of the Flying Fortress that flew into the mountain in August 1943.

Gvien the poor visibility and increasing wind we decided to ignore the subsidiary peaks to the south and follow the fence line from teh summit down to the north east.  As we dropped the weather and the views improved but teh ground got slightly boggier until we reached the track we planned to follow out - which had largely been turned into a watercourse.  From there it was back to the cars, off to our accomodation in Bala and a night out.

We were lucky enough to find an excellent tap room with a range of interesting beers before retiring to a bisto for a bite to eat.

Day 2 dawned soggy but after a breakfast of Oxfordshires’ finest sausages we poured into Dave E’s tractor and headed off south from Bala to tackle Aran Fawddwy.  We quickly entered forestry land and whilst the tracks were good going the monoculture was somewhat depressing.  The weather flipped between rain and dry often enough to become annoying and then as we reached areas that had been recently felled it felt like we were walking through some alien landscape - forestry leaves a real mess behind.

Despite the low cloud and persistent drizzle, things were looking up as we left the ruined tracks and climbed a stile onto open mountain land.  Things immediately started looking down as we sank into a saturated bog and hopped across streams.  Only about the middle third of our body was still dry.

At this point one of our party admitted they were not feeling well and despite their Captain Oates like assertions that they could find their way back by themselves we decided we should probably all accompany the casualty off the mountain (and of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that we were already somewhat damp with the weather forecast only worsening).

We decided to return to the car by a different route just to add in some variety.  On the way back to Bala, full pensioner mode was triggered as we found "a nice spot for lunch in the car with a lovely view”

To celebrate the 25 years we had arranged to eat in a Portuguese restaurant who gave us one of the best meals we’ve had on Tav's Tours wiht lots of traditional Azorean dishes accompanied with copious amounts of red wine.  A perfect way to celebrate a set of friendships and activities that have been part of our lives for 25 years.

Not sure what the 50th anniversary might look like…..