I had high hopes of this holiday, staying with friends over New Year in this beautiful cottage set high in the Brecon Beacons, I was anticipating a week of walking, eating, drinking, laughing and catching up on reading, writing and drawing. That is until the first day when I went down with an horrendous fluey cold which I could not shake off. They all still carried on regardless and on Monday attempted to conquer Fan-y-Big, the huge mountain behind the cottage. They came back full of it, how high, beautiful, scary, it was. Apparently a mist had come down and they had to retrace their steps in order not to get lost but they'd reached the top! On New Years Eve I was determined to stay up until midnight but was flagging until the lovely Isabella came up with the great idea of celebrating in Dutch time - an hour earlier - so I was able to toast in the New Year with a glass of water and still be back in bed by 11.30pm! On New Years day I decided I would not be left again and joined the others on a Waterfall walk which they had assured me was flat - ok until I found myself struggling up a precarious rock face with a dramatic drop hundreds of feet below me to pounding cold water. I had a hacking cough and could not breathe and wondered what on earth I was doing. They had forgotten about that bit! I think that finally did it for me - I needed to go home to my own bed and so left early on Wednesday just after the others returned exhausted from a second walk up Fan-y-Big, with the grave news that it had not been conquered the other day, apparently they had only just scratched the surface!
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