Hello Everyone, it’s Jim, Alli, Claire, Rob and Lisa all typing on Jim’s blog late on a Sunday evening:

Jim - Lisa made us all eat chips at 10:00 at night after eating a large roast dinner at lunch time. We did not really want them but you can’t just sit there while others eat chips can you?! Earlier on Simon and Jane were here and we all played board games, sang songs and had some obligotory random chit-chat, t’was a very spendid afternoon.

Alli - We have had some very strange conversation topics today, global warming, being hung drawn and quartered, brass monkeys, beans in Jim and Claire’s bean bags etc…

Claire - Yes we have eaten lots of food today but it has been very yummy especially the pudding we had called Eton mess which had icecream, rasberries, cream and white maltesers.

Rob - Well they’ve stolen all my ideas, and I dont really know what else to say, so I think I’ll round this blog off with my favoruite poem, written by Spike Milligan:

Through every nook and every cranny,
The wind blew on our poor old granny,
Around her knees, into each ear,
And up her nose as well I fear.

Throughout the night the wind grew worse,
(It nearly made the vicar curse)
The top had fallen off the steeple,
Just missing him and the other people

It blew on man, it blew on beast,
It blew on nun, it blew on priest,
It blew the wig off aunty Fanny,
But most off all it blew on granny!

Lisa - Yes today has been marvellous, I have laughed many laughs and been accused of many things. I wish to contest my competitiveness and remark only that my love of the game is only to be admired. I admit that my hair is a bit monica but that again adds to the beauty of my character. Yeah let’s all go to bed.

“That’s right, I stepped up! She’s my friend and she needed help! If I had too, I’d pee on any one of you!” –Joey, Friends

It makes me laugh each time there is an advert on TV for women’s beauty products, and after studying a few I have noticed a definate formula. The first thing that every beauty product advert should have, above anything, is a totally made up chemical name and that classic line “With xyz technology” some of my favourite random chemicals include ‘Nutrillium’, ‘Boswellox’, ‘Par-Elastyl’, ‘Pro-Tensium’, ‘Pro-V’, ‘Elastium’, ‘Bio-Vityl’ & ‘Collagen’. Another important component in beauty adverts is some totally cheezy model/celebrity who has been dubbed so badly that the words do not even match what appears to be coming out of her lips. The model’s eyes must also have those bright rings in their eyes from the intense lights which are being beamed directly in their face, Claire has also noticed that it is obligatory to have a couple of scenes of slow motion hair flicking.

Now, I thought that I would be a great idea to invent my own silly chemical name ‘Whimbillyoxydren-Y’, and should the likes of L’Oreal, Pantene, Maybelline or Garnier decide to put any ‘Whimbillyoxydren-Y’ in their products I can sue them and get lots of money!

On a similar subject, another observation I have made recently is that every woman seems to hate the Herbal Essences adverts which always contain a deranged woman making orgasmic “oooo, errrr” sounds. So what I don’t understand is why women still continue to buy it, I mean we even have some in our bathroom! Women will always remain a mystery, but I love mine anyways.

“At this time one beautiful mermaid called Nelarrina came to him and spoke to him. Ygg swooned at the beauty of the maiden and fell in love with her. She soothed his cold heart and Ygg became changed.” –Ygg (God of the warring sea storm), Copyright (c) 1997 Ben Staniford

Ok, so, last weekend (23rd - 24th September) myself Simon and Craig were firmly clinging onto a rock, a rock which was firmly clinging onto a mountain, Glyder Fach (994m). We had just climbed Tryfan (915m) and were a little shaken by two facts, firstly how un-fit we were having not done any hiking for some time, and secondly the fact that we had to ascend the top of both of the mountains by scrambling up a couple of rather technical climbs including Bristly Ridge. Now, I will not kid you into thinking that it was only Craig and Simon that were a little scared at times, I too had the feeling of ‘I don’t want to be here’ on occasion, but I just want to focus on a few good points…

One major benefit which was gained from scaling these mountains was the amazing view across Snowdonia national park, they were amazing! Looking down from the top at the flowing landscape with rivers weaving through the valleys it put our human size to perspective. Not only were the views stunning, the rock formations on the top of the mountains were beyond understanding, huge pieces of stone erupting out of the peaks, set in position way back in history when things were a little more turbulent than they are now, two such formations include ‘Adam and Eve’ on Glyder Fach and ‘The Cantilever’ on Tryfan, both are popular rocks for posing for photographs at the top (There were no Trig Points!).

Another great benefit of this trip was the way it built up our little team, at times one of us may have been feeling low, lagging or a little freaked at going first, and in such situations we kept together, encouraging and helping each other out. Even things like distributing the heavy load and sharing water built our little team further, and when we reached the peaks we gave each other a verbal pat on the back.

On the Sunday we took it fairly easy and took the ‘motorway’ up Snowdon (1,085m), our initial plan was to walk up and get the train down, but when we got there we found out that the train was only running a half-way-up service, and because of time-table constraints we were forced to walk both up and down Snowdon, which did give us a bit more of a sense of achievement (and 2 Trig Points!), but did put us a bit off our originally planned departure time from Wales, a departure time which after a 6 hour drive I got home to Portsmouth at midnight. Poor Claire, who was starting her new job the following day, was very very sleepy, having waited up for me, a little miffed at my lateness, but pleased to see me in one piece.

As for the quote competition, all your entries were of very high standard, and it was very hard to choose a winner, but there has to be one! The winning quote was submitted by Julie and was chosen because I like carrots…

“There is a certain ‘Je ne sais quois’ about a firm, young carrot” –Uncle Monty, Withnail & I