What with the bleak weather over the winter and the fact that the committee members of the Singleton Allotments have been having to rake their plots to a fine tilth ready for their seed sowing, life has been quite quiet recently on the disorganised walks front. Before I go any further perhaps I should point out that the Singleton Allotments is not a pairing agency for those searching for love, no, Singleton is a district of Swansea and the allotments are plots of land on which they lovingly coax vegetables out of the soil. These people are what used to be called yeomen, the backbone of the country. In these days of equal opportunity I have to add that there are yeowomen too but as yet none of them have expressed any interest in coming walking with us. Myself, well I am a sort of honorary member, my company tolerated because I usually tote a camera and am quite happy taking snaps of the other members posing or pointing. Indeed sometimes they both pose and point at the same time as you will see later.

Anyway last Thursday three of our little gang found ourselves with free space in our diaries and decided to drive to the head of the Swansea valley past Craig y Nos and Dan yr Ogof caves and take a walk to Llyn y Fan Fawr, I think we needed a gentle walk to get us back into the peak condition of which we were once able to boast. So when we got to it we took the left turn and drove to a rough car park which was to be our starting point. We could see our destination in the distance, at least we could see the ridge above it and, not daunted at all, we set off. We had not gone very far when we heard a warning cry from behind and, on turning, saw a lycra clad runner bearing down on us. We stood to the side to let him pass and exchanged pleasantries, as you do. It was not long before he was out of sight.

We hopped over little brooks and generally made good progress until we got to the river but soon found a suitable crossing point. We were now walking up a gentle slope albeit a bit boggy in places marked by large patches of cotton grass and our eyes were convincing us that we were nearly there but there are many false summits when you are walking up slopes. We must have had a good half dozen.

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Although, from our elevated position we had a wide view, we could not see our friend the runner and we quietly envied his fitness although we consoled ourselves with the probability that at his age he was still working whilst we had long since cast such inconveniences aside. Yes, it’s good to be retired although I must say that life gets amazingly hectic at times.

Finally we reached the last summit and we were looking down on the lake, this was to be our refreshment stop and where we would have a brief discussion as to whether we would walk up the steep path behind the lake to the top of the escarpment, or not. It looked rather steep to me. We walked down to the lake, this quiet calm lake, when suddenly the waters were broken by a black-clad form beating its way to the opposite bank.

We settled ourselves down, unpacked our sandwiches and munched to the tunes of skylarks singing joyfully high up in the sky and the steady plop, splash of the swimmer, in case you’re confused he was the man formerly known as the runner.

It was really great, I just love exercise – I could watch it all day!

But I sensed that Mike and Allan were getting restless and realised that they were ready for a bit of pointing and posing, there would be no peace until they had had their indulgence. So I took them to the water’s edge and positioned them artistically. I stepped back and put the camera to my eye and in a distinct military fashion their left hands snapped to their hips and their right arms with fingers outstretched pointed to the lake. Their faces opened up in beaming smiles.

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