Blog – The travels of Mary Loosemore

I’m home after my KE Tour de Monte Rosa walking holiday with Rachel G in the company of a well-travelled group of experienced hikers, and a great guide able to draw on 25 years living and working in outdoor education in the Swiss Alps. I’d say that the Tour de Monte Rosa was probably one of the toughest walking holidays I’ve done. 9 solid days of walking, usually 6 hours a day plus breaks, and a LOT of up and down. Both Rach and I had tired legs and sore feet by the end. I’ve merged my Strava…

Heatwave No. 5. A funeral. Storage Battery installed. Longtown Show. Project Fill Skip. A sunny afternoon at Longtown & District Show Gym on Tuesday then into Hereford for a hot, hot shop at Tesco’s and Lidl. And to pop into Belmont Library. Over to Bedford and back for a funeral on Wednesday, notable for it being my first time flying solo with public EV chargers. Overall OK – BP Pulse was underwhelming: 7kW, 2h 10 mins charging, 1.791kWh delivered, at least it was only 65p/kW. Gridserve at…

Less than a week to go until RG and I head off to Switzerland and Italy to trek the Tour de Monte Rosa with KE. Money The trip notes say to take 120€ and 200 CHF. I’ve got the Euros and I’ve ordered the Swiss Francs for collection from Thomas Exchange en route to St Pancras. Comms My 1P Mobile package gives me roaming for unlimited calls and texts and 500MB data each month. I’ve bought an extra 10GB data boost for the month so that I can use apps, check maps, sync Strava, send emails, upload…

Air Source Heat Pump installed. Two good walks. Socialising. Wildfires from the West. GVWC: Peterchurch to Hay on Wye: Peterchurch’s Chained Trout Cool day Tuesday, even the very occasional spots of rain! ASHP installation day 2. Admin for me. More drips and drops of rain towards the end of the afternoon. And texts and emails with BS who’s coming to the rescue on the holes in the brickwork in the Utility Room and also doing our long overdue plastering of the old doorway between the Lounge and…

Jean’s 80th Birthday and a Big Party at Forty Acres. The Marquee is up at Forty Acres Green Shed clear out. ASHP installation starts. Still nice and cool on Tuesday morning. Army camp shooting practice got going at 9am sharp. LED admin and a bit of party prep. Lunchtime we drove to Llanfoist for the Kia service. While that was being done Phil and I pottered into Abergavenny for a late lunch – a cheesy feast at Madame Fromage. Cheesy lunch at Madame Fromage – Mixed Cheese Quiche More pottering…

Northamptonshire Midweek Mini Break. Pont Esgob Figure of Eight. Forty Acres Apples Arrive. Very Hot, but turning cooooool. Still no rain. Skirrid from Bryn Arw Gym on Tuesday morning, home for lunch in the shade of the log shed yew. Still so hot. Leaves drifting down from the hazelnut trees, mistletoe leaves crunching underfoot. Greenapple came to replace two of the three septic tank covers, No 3 turns out to be a round one which he’ll come and do next week. Late afternoon I sat outside with a…

Garden jobs. Quiz night. The Odyssey. Eating out. Some good walks. Still hot and sunny. Everything is parched. Panorama from Sugar Loaf summit Computer admin Tuesday morning, once I’d surfaced. Another sunny, breezy day, RW here cutting the hedges. Scything in progress, and hedge trimmed Oven glass door glueing seems to have worked – although we’ve not used the oven yet. Pottered around outside for a couple of hours in the afternoon, turning one of the many old dustbins into a new compost bin,…

Heatwave No. 3. Garden / Outdoor jobs. Pickwick Papers. Walton admin x2. “New” dentist. A kestrel. Scything has started Slow start on Tuesday. Hadn’t slept well in the middle of the night and it took me ages to wake up properly…. at 9am. To the gym for PT then home for lunch then back out to Belmont to return a library book and for a quick whizz around Lidl before returning home to get three large mayo jars of frozen plum gin underway (the main driver behind the Lidl trip), put the orchids into…

Northumberland explorations. Peterchurch to Hay. New garage door. Another heatwave ahead. Alnwick – The County Town of Northumberland C drove us over to Warkworth on Tuesday morning to visit the castle, the old bridge and gate house and for a stroll along the river between the two. On to Alnmouth for more strolling, this time along the beach, followed by lunch at The Tea Cosy Tearoom. Selfie on the beach at Alnmouth Back to C’s for tea and cake then out to explore Alnwick on foot. Alnwick…

Heatwave. Red Warning – Extreme Heat. And Humidity….. Red Heatwave – Indoor temperatures 4pm: 29C upstairs (Landing) A visit from SG. JG Birthday. Small Breeds and Giant Icecreams. Shropshire Stiperstones. Up to Northumberland. We were both up 6am-ish on Tuesday, enjoying the early morning cool. I sat outside on the patio watching butterflies meander around the tall grasses and listening to birdsong. We had all the windows open to let the cooler air into the house. Everything is relative: 6.30…

Beacons Four Tops. Essex family weekend. Hot and humid. Sonia, Sara and Me on the Diving Board, Fan y Big Walked the Beacons Four Tops (well, three of them to be accurate) on Tuesday with SSG and JP: Neuadd Reservoir car park – Gap Road track – Fan y Big (719m) – Gap Road Col / Bwlch ar y Fan (600m) – Cribyn (795m) – Col (680m) – Pen y Fan (886m) – below Corn Du (873m) because the wind was unbelievable – the ridge back round to the Neuadd Reservoir. Tea and cake in the Old Barn Tea Room on the…

The return of the cows. Eating out. Strawberries snaffled. GVWC Cat’s Back – Hay Bluff – Olchon Valley, with a super social back in Longtown. The cows are back in Thistly Field Tuesday morning headlines: The cows are back in Thistly Field! Into Hereford for an Ego strimmer, lunch at The Bookshop, some shopping, the library and Tesco’s. Lunch at The Bookshop Home to find something has eaten all my red strawberries!!!!! And they’re under a net cage. Grrrr. Snoozy few hours in the conservatory as…

New radiators. Two good walks. Dragon’s Back descent Pips must have caught something overnight as I was greeted by some innards on the telly room carpet on Tuesday morning. To the gym for some DIY exercise. Rainy out. Home to admin. In the afternoon, WDS’s plumbing team arrived to replace three radiators ahead of our ASHP installation. New radiator in the lounge Wednesday morning the birds were busy on the peanuts in the bird feeder – and a cheeky squirrel too. An adult red woodpecker was…

Heatwave. Cabling for ASHP and Storage Battery installed. Septic tank emptied (first time in 10 years….). Social BBQ. Three years retired. Skirrid and a Hot Air Balloon over Herefordshire Tuesday was another sweltering day. Breakfast outside on the patio with Pips for company before the sun arrived. To the gym for Functional Playground, back to set up my Free House Plants stall on the verge – need to get rid of some spider plants and chinese coin plants. To Much Dewchurch to pick up JG then on…

Walking in the Malvern Hills. Party, Pendle and Puddleducks in Lancashire. From log stove to sweltering heatwave. DH on the path up to Worcestershire Beacon Up very early on Tuesday for the drive to Malvern to do the Malvern Hills End to End and Back Again with Malvern Walking Festival. I was on the road by 6.20am and parked in Malvern’s North Quarry Car Park by 7.25am, well in time for the 8am start from the Clock Tower. Rainy morning, dry-ish afternoon. Over most of the hilltops on the way…

A mow. Catching up on Weeknotes. Hail. The Big Black Mountains Challenge 2026. Finisher’s Certificate – Big Black Mountains Challenge 2026 Didn’t get onto Functional Playground on Tuesday morning but that allowed me a bit of time to work on the photos I’d uploaded to Flickr while in Pembrokeshire. The whole thing takes so much longer to do properly if I’ve uploaded them from my phone – no tags and no file names and they never upload in the order I’ve taken them plus it’s fiddly marrying up the…

Rucksacks. Rowlestone Ice Cream Circular x 2. Cuckoo. BBMC Partial Recce. St. Peter’s Church, Rowlestone Relaxed start to Tuesday with coffee and a little bit of toast in the lounge then a stroll around the garden checking out the flowers and my transplanted oak trees – they seem to be doing really well in the hedge line. On the front lawn the first yellow flag flower is out. Into Hereford for brunch at Sensory & Rye. Very tasty Gochujang Crumpets with poached egg and halloumi for me. Out for…

Pembrokeshire Part 2. Talgarth Walking Festival. Six walks. Seven squirrels. (Finally catching up on posting my weeknotes!) We wrapped up Everest Trek Get Together No. 23 on Tuesday morning saying farewell to D&G and then driving over to Narberth for Bluebell then back to Mayhem for coffee and chat. A walk with Bessie, through the woods and along the lanes, to Hwb for lunch then back to the van for a siesta. Distance: 4.13 miles Elevation Gain: 530 ft Walking Time: 1h 30 mins Elapsed Time: 1h…

Another mouse. Mowing. Pembrokeshire for Everest Trek Get Together No 23. Sea campion Up early on Tuesday thanks to hearing Pips munching away on the landing at 6.15am… the headless mouse found a new home in the hedge. Cloudy morning, good for weeknotes followed by PT. Spent the afternoon doing my Where Next blogpost / Where Next? page update for this year’s Nepal trip and caught up withg KvR and EW on our KMC social over Zoom. Managed to book onto both Functional Playground and Stretch at the…

Unseasonal snow last October, the unseasonably cold snap in November and avalanches in Rolwaling meant I didn’t get to do the route I’d planned with Val last year to cross the Tashi Labsta* (5755 m) east to west, acclimatising in Khumbu on the eastern side and trekking out through the lovely Rolwaling valley on the western side. So I’m trying again this year. A few differences from last year: Val’s planning a different route in the Khumbu taking in Phortse (last visited on our return route from…

Walking in the Lakes. Walking in the Lanes. Spring flowers. Forty Acres from Thistly Field Drove down to Langdale on Tuesday to walk the Langdale Pikes: Loft Crag (682m), Pike of Stickle (709m) and Harrison Stickle (736m). We had cloud on the way up, rain on the way down. Me, Harrison Stickle Stayed at Val’s climbing club hut that night – got the coal fire going and tucked into a lot of flapjack with two pots of tea before going through trip details for Peru (S) and Nepal (me), accompanied by a…

Gardening. Garaging. Bonfiring. Lake Districting. A great day getting things done in the garden on Tuesday. And a gorgeous sunny day. First up, tackling the tall tree that had been sort of brought down onto the yew tree up on the solarium. The job expanded to include clearing lots of the deadwood amongst the old … Continue reading "Herefordshire Week 328: Tuesday 7 – Monday 13 April 2026"

Still a bit suboptimal courtesy of the cold. Storm Dave and sunshine over Easter weekend. Pips back in mousing mode. Some walks, some shelving, some mowing. Spring is here: flowers, leaves, lambs. Read in bed all morning on Tuesday, “taking it easy” but actually feeling much better than I did last week. A cloudy morning … Continue reading "Herefordshire Week 327: Tuesday 31 March 2026 – Monday 6 April 2026"

I spotted yesterday that the trains I’d identified for getting to/from this August’s Tour de Monte Rosa (with KE) are now on sale, and I’ve bought the tickets today. The Man In Seat 61’s page on Travel from London to Zermatt provided the information on trains from Paris to Visp and back again, and booking … Continue reading "Tour de Monte Rosa: European Trains Booked"

A week with a snotty cold. Farewell to the Hipkins Beach Hut. Tuesday marked the end of an era – 50 years of a Gyford Beach Hut. Sadness all round. To Frinton for a lovely lunch at Bird & Bean then back to Wivenhoe for a rest, physical and emotional. We left WIV in the … Continue reading "Herefordshire Week 326: Tuesday 24 – Monday 30 March 2026"

Time to write up last year’s snow-bound Nepal trek. A trip of two parts: Khumbu Trek: Three weeks trekking in the western Khumbu with Val, Pemba and his yaks, Daley (cook), Tenzi (sherpa), Mislung and Shekha (porters & kitchen staff), together with Nic and Sonia. We spent most of the time confined to the Thame … Continue reading "Khumbu & Gosainkunda: Photos & Notes"

SUNSHINE and BLUE SKIES. HOT!!! Birthdays week. First mow. New mower! Tuesday morning, RH arrived first thing with his logging machine and spent the day cutting up the various piles of branches of varying diameters.  We now have plenty of firewood. Back to the gym for PT – upper body as legs still tired after … Continue reading "Herefordshire Week 325: Tuesday 17 – Monday 23 March 2026"

More walks in the Brecon Beacons with the Crickhowell Walking Festival 2026. Two dead mice – 1 x Phil’s mousetrap, 1 x Pippa. Beautiful sunrise on Tuesday courtesy of the Saharan dust. Speedy drive over to and through Abergavenny and Crickhowell to Cwmdu on Tuesday morning for CWF walk 28 – Lakeside Views – Mynydd … Continue reading "Herefordshire Week 324: Tuesday 10 – Monday 16 March 2026"