Man in a sensibly priced car…

Not been out in the hills for a while and this weekend’s weather isn’t looking great especially tomorrow so it might have to be the climbing wall.   At least we’ve got an OM meet in Langdale to look forward to in two weeks time.

I haven’t mentioned the (not so!) mighty Tigers for a while.   It would seem that the finances of the club aren’t what they should be (hmmm, feeling of deja vu here!) and as a consequence the Chairman Paul Duffen has resigned which was a bit of a surprise as normally it’s the manager who carries the can!  However popular opinion seems to be that Phil Brown only has a match or two to turn things around or he’ll be on his way too.   I have to say some folk have very short memories, for all their faults Brown and Duffen have taken us to the promised land of the Premiership which I honestly never thought we’d do in my lifetime.   There again the fans who are shouting for their heads probably don’t remember because they were supporting Man United or Liverpool or even Leeds at the time!   Funny old game eh!

Anyway, back to the subject of todays blog…I decided it was time to change my car.  Mainly due to the fact that my Honda Jazz has done 76,000 miles (mostly done on the A82 I suspect!) in four years and was coming up to a major service which would have included a new timing belt and also it’s MoT was due at the end of November.  So the search was on and after looking at the usual suspect (Jazz, Fiesta etc) my research found me looking at the Hyundai i20.  I’d really made my mind up but when I went to the dealer they were doing the i30 at such a discount it was going only going to be £300 more than the i20.  So after much umming and aaahing I decided to go for the the bigger i30.  It is still a very sensibly priced car though!

Sensibly Priced Hyundai i30!

Hull City 2 Wigan 1…Ben Lui 0 Real Food Cafe 1

Well at last the Tigers managed a second win of the season but still managed to make hard work of it by letting a goal in four minutes from time.  And then there were five minutes of injury time!  Much nail biting took place in that last nine minutes!  It brought back memories of the good (bad?!) old days at Boothferry Park when I could never really relax unless we had a three goal lead (not that that happened very often!).

Today we planned to do Ben Lui but a combination of setting off a bit later than planned and a problematic  river crossing saw us turn back at the foot of the mountain.  Still got a couple of decent photos…

Looking towards Ben Lui

Another view of Ben Lui

Probably for the best as the weather took a turn for the worse.   So regular readers will know where we finished up…

Fish Supper at the Real Food Cafe!

Played two, lost two…

Oh dear, looks like it’s going to be a long season.  After starting off so well by going into the lead against Chelsea on Saturday only to lose to a goal in the third minute of injury time we were well and truly beaten 5-1 last night by Spurs!  Not panicking just yet though as both Chelsea (as expected) and Spurs (perhaps not so expectedly!) look like very good sides.  It would be good to get a win under our belts though – hopefully Bolton will oblige on Saturday!

Weather forecast not looking too bad for the weekend (Saturday better than Sunday) so hopefully I’ll be up a hill somewhere and will get back to the car to find out we’ve got our first three points of the season!  Just need to decide which hill…

Prophesies sometimes do come true…

I was working my way through the blog putting categories and tags against old posts and came across the following:

17th December 2007. “Well on Saturday the mighty Tigers got back to winning ways with a 2-0 win over Leicester.  So one game from the half way point of the season and we have 30 points and are mid-table, which is a lot better than the same stage last season!  You never know we might even be in with a chance of a play-off place!”

6th January 2008. “Still, at least we can concentrate on the League.  Oh aye, that was another thing we used to say but at least this year we’re not concentrating on avoiding relegation…we’re only a point of a play-off place…and the Final is at Wembley…maybe, just maybe…”

For the non-footie fans later that year the Tigers did in fact make the play-off final at Wembley and went on to win promotion to the top flight f.or the first time ever.

Pity I’m not as good at predicting the lottery numbers!

Summer’s Here!

To borrow a football phrase it was a weekend of two halves with Saturday’s torrential rain being followed by a glorious Sunday which was probably the best day since early May!

We travelled across to Arran on Friday afternoon with our friends from Air Na Creagan Mountaineering Club.  But on Saturday morning it was clear that it would be madness to even think about going out, not that it stopped some members venturing out (although they did eventually abandon plans to go up Goatfell!).  It did clear in the afternoon so we had a wander up Glen Sannox to see how high the river levels were…

Sannox Burn, Glen Sannox

We then went for a walk along the Coastal Path to North Sannox.  But the forecast promised great things for Sunday so it was with some relief that we awoke to glorious sunshine.  We had planned to do a route up Glen Sannox then over Beinn Tarsuinn and Beinn Nuis back to Brodick to catch the ferry home.  However being wary of whether we would be able to cross the burn we decided instead to head for North Goatfell from Corrie then across the Stacach Ridge to Goatfell…

Looking towards Goatfell

On the Stacach Ridge

Cir Mhor and Caisteal Abhail from Goatfell

Managed to get down to Cladach via the seemingly endless “tourist” route just in time to catch the bus back to Brodick (not sure we would have caught the ferry had we had to walk that last 2km!).

And back to the football, I suspect there’s more supporters in North London who are as sick as parrots!  Yes, the mighty Tigers are up to 3rd in the Premiership!  Thanks Kate for providing a Premium Rate Score Service while we were sailing back to Ardrossan!  Worth every penny!

Ayshire Cub on Conic Hill

Well what a wonderful weekend!

Jennifer was gallavanting with a friend in London so it was a boys weekend for myself and Craig.  On Saturday afternoon we went to Eglinton Park, our local country park, which had an open day whcih allowed us to go up the last remaining tower of the ruined castle there.

View from tower of Eglinton Castle

Then we went to watch the Tigers take on Arsenal away.  To be honest we would have settled for a 1-0 defeat but were amazed that after going 1-0 down just 5 minutes into the second half we managed to come back to win 2-1.  Unbelievable especially as Arsenal hadn’t even let a goal in at home never mind dropped any points!

And on Sunday we went to Conic Hill with Elaina for a cracking wee walk…

Ayrshire Tiger and Cub on Conic Hill

Ayrshire Cub being watched by Highland Coo!

All in all a perfect weekend!

Next weekend it’s a trip to Arran with Air Na Creagan Mountaineering Club so hoping that the weather picks up!

Rum Adventure

Well what a cracking weekend!  We headed up to Mallaig on Saturday morning to catch the lunchtime ferry to Rum.  Leaving Glasgow just after 7.30 to give us time for breakfast at The Real Food Cafe seemed like a good plan until we discovered it didn’t open until 10am!  So instead we carried on to the Craft & Things Cafe in Glencoe.  Still, we had plenty of time didn’t we…until we hit the road works first on the road into Fort William and then on the road to Mallaig…but we made it with about ten minutes to spare!

Stayed at Kinloch Castle which was excellent.

Kinloch Castle, Rum

Unfortunately our luck didn’t extend to the weather which was overcast and blustery.  And so it stayed through Saturday and Sunday so plans to do the Rum Cuilin were replaced with walks out to Kilmory Bay and Harris.  Both great days with plenty of wildlife including deer, Highland Cattle, goats and best of all White Tailed Sea Eagles!

Kilmory Bay, Rum

Harris Mausoleum, Rum

Monday eventually saw much better weather that allowed us to a quick dash up Barkeval.

Stag on Rum Cuillin

before heading for the ferry at 3pm.

Homeward bound...looking back to Eigg and Rum

A long journey back but so looking forward to going back sometime.  And I do just have to add that the highlight of the weekend was Jamie’s transformation from reluctant International Speak Like a Pirate Day participant to fully fledged pirate…

Jamie the Pirate!

The only disappointment was the Tigers throwing away a 2-0 lead against Everton…still it’s another point closer to avoiding relegation!

It’s been a while…

…since I last posted!

To be honest I’m not a superstitious person but since the last post in February a certain football team made a remarkable push for promotion towards the Premier League for the first time in their history.  I really did not want to jinx them as they made their way to finish third in the Championship and another first, a trip to Wembley (so much for my post of January 6th!), for the play-off final.  I couldn’t get a ticket and matters were further complicated by the fact that the Scottish Cup Final was being played at the same time!  However I managed to find a cafe bar in Ayr that was showing both matches and enjoyed local lad Dean Windass score a remarkable volley to send us Premier League bound!

On the walking front we’ve had trips to Glen Affric, Glen Clova, Torridon, Langdale and most recently to Ben Nevis with a group from work.

This was my third time on the Ben - first was in 1981 on a glorious clear day in May up the tourist route.  Second time was up the CMD from Torlundy but didn’t get any view at all as the cloud base was down to about 1500m.  This time we went up from Glen Nevis as a couple of the group were going up the tourist route and it made more sense for them to have a pub to wait in rather than a car park!

We split off at the half way lochan and went round as far as the CIC hut.  At that point it looked like the cloud was there for the day and I did have a sense of deja vu but as we climbed up Carn Mor Dearg it miraculously cleared.  Still fairly cloudy most of the day on the Ben itself but it did clear a bit so we did get a rare view from the summit.

Have to say there were fewer ill clad numpties than on my previous visits to the Ben – mind you that could have had something to do with the fact that we didn’t get to the summit until 5pm!  And it was nearly 9pm by the time we all got down (yes, that’s 12 hours!).  Was a long day but it was a group of very mixed experience and ability and I think everyone enjoyed it!

I’ve fogotten how to post photos so here a link to one on OutdoorsMagic.com

Another Windy Day!

Well the forecast looked best in the east so Elaina and I headed off to do Ben Chonzie.  Very easy Munro but still a challenging day due to the very high winds on the summit.  Wasn’t so bad going up but after having a quick lunch at the summit shelter it really was hard work walking back down!

And after a couple of weeks without a game (one match postponed then a free weekend due to being not in the fourth round of the cup) the Tigers scored a 90th minute goal to beat Coventry

Another season we’re not going to Wembley…

Back in the mid seventies/early eighties when I was a regular at the then home of the Tigers, Boothferry Park my mate and I had a phrase we always seemed to use in the first week of January… “Well, there’s always next year…”. And it would seem that things haven’t changed even though we’re now playing at the KC Stadium.  Apparently we haven’t been past the third round of the FA Cup since 1987 and yesterday we succumbed to a 3-2 defeat at Plymouth despite the best efforts of the old warhorse himself, 39 year old Hull lad Dean Windass who scored both our  goals.

Still, at least we can concentrate on the League.  Oh aye, that was another thing we used to say but at least this year we’re not concentrating on avoiding relegation…we’re only a point of a play-off place…and the Final is at Wembley…maybe, just maybe…

Footnote to non-football readers: Hull is the largest City in Europe never to have had it’s team play in the top flight.  Or win the Cup.  Oh, the suffering!

Trivia question – who were the first teams to take part in a penalty shoot-out?  Answer: Hull City and Manchester United in a Watney Cup match in 1970.  And yes, we lost!