Continuing Day 1 of my Big Scottish Adventure... After walking along the river for a while, we turned right at this little green hut. I wanted to know who lived here, but there seemed to be no one home! M said it was owned by a Mountaineering Club, for them to use when they visited to climb in the hills. It's quite small though, so I don't think many of them can stay here at once... The sign outside the hut said "Respectez les fleurs". M said that meant "Respect the flowers" in French, so I immediately started looking for some flowers to respect. I found these beautiful tiny pink flowers. They were hidden in the grass. M said she thought they were tiny wild orchids. If you look closely at them then they DO look just like miniature orchids! AS we started going uphill, I found this curious pile of rocks. M said it was a "CAIRN", and that they are built to label paths and mountain summits. This one showed where the path we would take on our way back joined our outward path. I thought it made a great place for me to have my picture taken! Our path zigged and zagged up our first mountain. Sometimes we were looking at other mountains down the main river valley we'd walked in from... Sometimes we were facing what would be our second mountain of the day... I was surprised to see small white patches of SNOW up there! It was May, and at home the snow had gone long ago! Oooo...a mini cairn for my next photo opportunity! Then some rocky bits to scramble up... And FINALLY a big summit cairn to sit on top of! Hard work getting there, but the view was GREAT! Heading along the ridge to our next mountain, I found my first patch of snow! M was busy explaining to me that both of these hills were called "Munros", I just wanted to play in the snow! Sadly she wouldn't wait for me to build a snowman... Oh...a "Munro" is a Scottish mountain over 3000ft high, and there's a list of them that "Munro baggers" try to "tick off" and complete. (How strange humans are!) See M, I WAS listening after all! There were also rocky bits to negotiate on the ridge... And quite a bit of snow along the edge of the ridge. M said we needed to be careful and avoid this as much as we could. (Apparently bits called "cornices" can break off over the edge of the solid ground. You can fall off a long way with them!) It seemed to take a very long time, and it was a bit steep to get to, but EVENTUALLY we reached our second and final summit of the day. Great views in all directions. This one looks down the way we will head next. There was an old row of fence posts up there. It must have been hardwork for whoever put that fence up! We walked down on a muddy path next to this waterfall... Then lots more grass and uneven ground to negotiate... Before finally meeting the bigger path we took on the way out. (I was getting quite worn out by now. I only have tiny legs, and it had taken me a LOT of tiny steps to get that far!) I was so glad to make it back to this bridge, and shortly after to the car! That was the end of my first long day. I got back to the tent very hungry and very tired. I was hoping M planned to cook something yummy for my tea! That's all for now! Catch you later...Love Odd xxx
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Hi everyone! Odd Sock here! Sorry it's taken me so long to remember to write my blog again! I've been up in Scotland with M and Buster, on a BIG adventure! This was the first Scottish loch (lake) that I'd stood by, and the mountains we saw on our car journey looked beautiful. When we got the tent out, I was glad to see that M had remembered all the essentials - like my chair! On our first night, I discovered that a big bag of maps make quite a comfy bed. Especially if you can find a nice fleecy hat to snuggle up in! In the morning, M and I ate a big bowl of cereal each. (Mine had a chopped up banana in it, as I love bananas. Someone once asked if I was related to the purple Minions, but I don't think I am.) Then we set off in the car to the start of our first walk, leaving Buster behind to guard the tent! From what M had told me about Scotland, I hadn't been expecting to need the sun cream out. As we started walking, this was my first amazing view. We'd be heading into the mountains ourselves very soon... More to come in Part 2! Bye for now, Odd xxx
Hi everyone, Odd Sock here again! Well the 3 day free promotion has now ended for our Monster Poems Kindle book, so I'd like to start off by saying a VERY BIG THANK YOU! Thank you to everyone who has downloaded our book, shared our posts, written reviews for us, or has just made a comment to encourage us in our book writing and illustrating efforts! We had 90 downloads on day 1, a further 223 on day 2, and then a STAGGERING 660 for day 3! (We are all keeping our paws crossed that a few people may continue to download our book once the price returns to $0.99.) Now onto discussing my adventures over the long Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK. (That's a weekend where most people have Monday off work too, so get a 3 day weekend break.) On Saturday afternoon I popped to a quiet little quarry in Wales to do a bit of rock climbing with Melinda and her husband. As you can see I'm still struggling a bit with my "rope management" skills! But I did go up here... And, no, this is NOT a trick shot of me on a flat pavement, the photographer just zoomed in a bit too far! I'm on a very vertical bit of rock, clinging on with all 4 paws, as well as both of my ears! Please don't try this without a sensible adult in charge, kids! Melinda was holding me safely on a tight rope. We are still trying to get my harness right, though, as I'm a bit too small for a normal one... After climbing up rock for a while, I discovered that climbing up trees was fun too! I was keeping my eyes out for some pretty wild flowers - these were the nicest ones I found, but I'm not sure what they are. After a good night's rest, 5 of us then drove out to the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia on Sunday morning. We wanted to get away from the busy Bank Holiday crowds and find somewhere quieter to rock climb. I'm glad I was carried in though, as at this point the humans are just about to start battling through waist-high heather, with no paths! Hmmm...so we are supposed to be there now, but none of you look at all sure which bit of rock we are supposed to be climbing... Heehee...you'd have thought they'd have learnt by now that they shouldn't put me in charge of the ropes... This is at the top of the first rope length, while we queue behind our 2 friends who are climbing ahead of us. This is Melinda's husband starting to climb the next rope length . The funny metal bits hanging off his harness are for sliding tightly into cracks in the rock. You can see that the yellow rope is attached to one of these metal bits by 2 metal clips (called "carabiners"). This means that, if he slips, the rope will be held by the metal bit fastened into the rock crack. That will stop him falling far. We feed more rope to him through the special device below, which allows us to easily hold the rope if he falls. We climbed 3 rope lengths to the top, but we didn't hang around there for long, as it was VERY windy! We were able to carefully walk a different way to get back down to where we started. (More deep heather - I was carried!) Back at the much less windy bottom, and time for me to admire the view with a snack and a drink of water... The humans then climbed for longer, while I had a well-earned rest! Hmm...looks like they make an even worse mess of the ropes when I'm not there! That's looking a bit tidier... Heehee...here's one I did earlier! Time to play on a few rock boulders on my way back to the car... The mountain in the background is called "Tryfan", and it is one of the mountains in Wales that are over 3000ft high. Scrambling up... ...to get a better view! Ah, look, here come my 3 porters with all the heavy climbing equipment in their rucksacks! As we are over the border in Wales, all the signs are written in Welsh as well as in English. Met a couple of new friends on our walk back to the car! One last view of Tryfan before heading home! I hope we come back soon! Hope you enjoyed seeing what I did at the weekend! Bye for now!
Love Odd Sock xxx Hi everyone, Odd Sock here! OK, so my title for today's blog might be a slight exaggeration.... Our new YouTube video does include the whole of the Top of the Wardrobe Gang, and it also features quite a few MONSTERS from our latest book! I did help out a lot in making the video, though, and I'm quite proud of that. Click on the link below to check it out on YouTube. We hope it will make you smile! Despite a busy week doing "book things", I did manage to help hold the ropes while out climbing one evening... ...once I'd managed to get myself unravelled from them! I also enjoyed scrambling up and down some of the rocks myself... ...checking out the undergrowth for tigers... ...and even watching a beautiful sunset! I was very excited to get this lovely bookmark from my 3 bear friends in Whitby! I wanted to make "something" special to thank them for my yummy Easter choccies, so last week I did a bit of sewing... ...and I made my sock cousin, Snowy Oliver Sock! (Heehee...S.O.S.) I popped him in the post, and he is now very happily living with them in Whitby! I know this is a bit naughty to show, but it is very funny, so I'm hoping Melinda won't notice! I asked my friends to try one of their "Build-a-bear" outfits on Snowy, to see if they might fit me too....it looks like we are a bit too well stuffed! (I don't think Snowy was very happy about being asked to try a girl's dress on, so...sorry Snowy.) Well, our FREE 3 day KINDLE BOOK PROMOTION starts tomorrow! I hope lots of people will download our Monster book... Bye for now, Love Odd Sock xxx
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AuthorsThe Top of the Wardrobe Gang: Oscar Rabbit, PD Monkey, Odd Sock, Burton Bear, Terry Tiger (TT), Burton Bear; helped by Melinda Kinsman Archives
October 2018
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