Hillingdon Women's Centre
OPEN TO ALL WOMEN
HILLINGDON ARTS WEEK
In support of Hillingdon Arts week
Hillingdon Women’s Centre will be opening its doors to members of the public to drop in to view local women’s art work.
We will open on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th June 2010 from 9-5pm.
We hope that artists will be available to chat to the public about their work.
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Refreshments will be made available (donations accepted and will go towards the running costs of the centre)
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If you are a woman who would like to exhibit a piece of work please contact us to book a space on 01895 259578.
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You will need to be able to drop your artwork off on Thursday 3rd June 2010 between 5-9pm to the centre and hope you will be available over the weekend to meet the public.
Thursday 21st May 2009
“Oh Jill, you’re climbing Snowdon, are you going to be ok?” asked Maggie
“Oh I will be fine,” I said, “it’s more walking up than climbing, we have studied the web site and double checked and planned our route. We will be ok.”
“Who is going up?” asked Maggie.
“Myself, Di, Natalie (my daughter), Chaice (my grand daughter), Nicky a friend of Natalie’s and her father Mick. We are all going together and will stick together.”
“Good luck,” said Maggie, as did Lynda, who was also listening to our conversation.
“Bye,” I said cheerily as I closed the women’s centre door. I had decided to collect some sponsor money to help fund Hillingdon Women’s Centre’s running costs. I had approximately ten sponsors and felt good about this. I was already climbing so felt the sponsors were a bonus, I was looking forward to the experience.
Saturday 23rd May 2009
We all went down to breakfast (12 of us) in our hotel based in Snowdonia National Park and were ready to leave at just gone 10am. The five adults climbing (there was one 11 year old-Chaice) all thought someone else had printed off the instructions on how to get there; but none of us had, so everything was bit confused for a while. We had decided on the Ranger Route as it was the easiest, would only take 3.75 hours to get up and was the most picturesque. Four out of the six of us had never climbed anywhere before and two of us (myself and Natalie) were scared of heights. This is why we picked the route.
Four of us set off in Di’s car, Nicky and Mick in Mick’s car. We headed up the A470 further into Snowdonia National Park and then onto the A4085 towards the Lllyn Cwellyn Lake and pulled into the car park on the right of the road opposite a small lake. This did not feel right to me; I expected the lake to be bigger according to the map and for the parking to be on the left of the road. We had trouble getting the parking machines to work; whilst the drivers sorted this out we wandered over to the information board. “Is this where the Ranger path is?” I asked. Nicky said “it was, it was on the board but that paths are known by more than one name.” We all checked our gear (meticulously planned) according to the web site instructions, and set off across the railway line and up through the cut, at about 11am. Tally ho! The weather was slightly overcast and a bit chilly.
We had been going for about half an hour up the Rhyd DDu Path, when we came across a gate. We went through and down a slope, it did not feel right to me and so we got out the Snowdon Ordinance Map. Me fussing as usual. Mick was further up the slope trying to gauge our whereabouts and we were looking at the map saying we had turned off the correct path, and we called out to Mick that we felt we were going the wrong way. A man came walking along behind us and Natalie asked him if he had walked this way before, yes he said at least 3 or 4 times a week. Natalie laughed and pointed to his T shirt, on it, it said Warden, he should know then. We asked if he knew if we were on the Ranger path and he said no we had stopped too soon and that it was further along the road. We said we were mainly novices on Snowdon and would we be ok walking the route we were on. He described some difficult bits for us but said that we should all be ok. He showed us where we were on the map and told us about the gates ahead and a zig zag path leading to a narrower path. Then we would head for the summit. Just follow everyone else he said. He also added “remind me never to go orienteering with you!” We all gave a slightly embarrassed laugh and continued on up.
So onwards we went, it was challenging and my breath became drawn and shorter as we went up. I looked back at certain points and admired the view as the weather was much clearer now. The scenes all around me were beautiful. My legs were starting to feel challenged but I was starting to enjoy the exertion. I could feel myself burning and needed to start to drink frequently. There were little streams along the way and birds were flying around us, I am sure I saw an Eagle at one point. I stopped more frequently than anyone else but Di waited for me. Di and myself got separated from the rest, I did not care, I was not in a race and the ‘climb’ was becoming harder. We came to a very challenging climb that went up some very small waterfall type rocks with water running down but not gushing, trickling. This was very difficult but I kept going. There was an extremely boggy area for a while, but I contentedly squelched my way through it. A bit of mud does not hurt anyone.
We reached the first gate after about 3 hours, through this first gate the rest were sitting having their lunch, in amongst a ring of rocks sheltering from the wind which was now picking up. We happily chatted together and were looking out across the highlands and down to the lakes. It was very beautiful. After lunch and taking on plenty of water we headed on up. It was very steep and rocky. A man passed us on the way down and we asked how far we had to go. He said that he felt it was another hour and a half, we were all getting quite tired and in unison all gave a low moan. However, on we went up through a second gate with a stile that I was helped over. There we sat for a while on the other side of the wall. At this point Natalie looked up the zig zag path and declared “I’m not going up there.” We all looked at each other, what were we to do now? We were at the end of the Llechog.
Nicky said “let’s keep going,” Natalie said,”no way.” Chaice started to get very upset as she wanted to finish it. I was apprehensive when I was looking at the climb ahead and Di was saying we have to make a decision. Natalie said Call the helicopter and we all laughed and said “not yet.” I said I can’t get back down (as was always the case when I was up a tree or on a garage roof somewhere when I was a kid). So we were stuck. Nicky and Mick decided to press on, Nicky wanted to take Chaice with her but I said “no.” Everyone looked surprised at my emphatic no but I felt Chaice should stay with her mum. So off Mick and Nicky went. Nicky texted Natalie after a while saying it wasn’t too steep. So I said we ought to press on as we had to get to the other side of the mountain to have an easier walk down the Llanberis path as it would take us hours to get back down and this had to be done before dark. So on we went up the zig zag path that was at an angle of approximately 15-20 degrees I would say, with a fence to the left hand side a bit further up, I felt ok with no fence at first (but very nervous) as the fence started at about 50 metres further up. This was very tiring and my breathing was becoming much laboured. I kept looking up to see if the others were all right and I could see them checking me. We went across a flatter path with no fence (I seem to recall). Then as we rounded a rock, my heart hit my feet and bounced back up again, I could not believe what we had to do next.
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