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
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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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