Gareth Harrison

Right… it’s been a whole month since I did a news update, so here’s one now!

Earlier this month I went on a camping weekend with Dean and Michael (and some other guys who I didn’t really know!) to a place called Shell Island in mid Wales. It’s quite a nice place – where we camped we could see the mountains of Snowdonia on one side, and the sea on the other!

It was really sunny on the Friday when we arrived, but unfortunately on Saturday and Sunday it went a bit manky. Me, Dean and Michael ended up doing quite a bit of castle-visiting… not sure why(!)… but we stopped off at a little castle on the way there, and then on the Saturday afternoon, took a look around Harlech castle. Then on the Sunday afternoon, just before we drove back, we took a walk up by some small waterfalls which was cool, although we had a little panic when Dean realised he’d dropped his mobile phone somewhere along out route, so we had to go and trace our steps, checking in all the undergrowth. Found it in the end though!

My main achievement this month is my newly-disovered skill of cake baking!! Sarah & Emma are running in the New York Marathon in November, and they have to raise quite a lot of cash for Christie’s Hospital, so Sa held a cake sale at work on Wednesday, and I foolishly said I’d do some cakes for them to sell!! I had one attempt at baking some blueberry muffins and chocolate brownies last Sunday – which turned out pretty bad to be honest! I’ve now discovered that my oven is quite rubbish, and that it’s hotter than it says it is, and the heat’s uneven! So something else to add to my list of home improvements! Anyway, tried again on Tuesday, and the results were a lot more successful! This time I went for chocolate chip cookies, and produced another batch of brownies – which this time were brown rather than black! And my pièce de résistance… a sponge cake with fresh raspberries, and a crème fraîche and mascapone! Don’t know what it tasted like, but it looked good… and apparently it sold within minutes for £10!!

Oh, and the final amount of cash that I raised for my run was £317!! Well chuffed!

It’s been quite a busy – there’s been quite a bit of running going on, and I’ve seen six different bands playing since last Wednesday!

Music first then… last Wednesday night I went to the Roadhouse in town with Sarah, Emma and Caroline to see Stoney Lacuna do a gig, and they were really good, and we had to listen to two other bands playing before they came on. So that’s three down, three more to go…

Then on Saturday, a few of us went to Alton Towers for the day, followed by a gig in the evening with a gospel group called Sinai, singer Rebecca St James, and headlined by Delirious. The theme park was cool – but massive queues though. Didn’t get onto the biggest rides because the wait was over 2 hours, but still got onto some good ones. The concert was great, although it was quite an experience being in a 12,000-strong mosh pit!!

I’ve been doing quite a lot of running at the gym, but I went running outside for the first time yesterday afternoon. Jamie drove us out to a village in Derbyshire called Mellor to do about an 8km circuit that he normally does on his mountain bike… so as you can imagine, it was quite hilly! We managed to do it in about an hour and 10 minutes with a mixture of running and fast walking. It’s so much harder running outside than in the gym, you really feel it on your feet running on the road. One thing that is quite a worry to me is that after a while my toes went really numb, then just became very sore on every step. Don’t know why they’re hurting like this, and could really do with that not happening this Sunday! Have decided to take a break from running for today, but will be going to the gym tomorrow. I’m getting my dining room replastered on Wednesday and Thursday, so my plan is to try an get out and do a run somewhere near to home at some point during those days.

It’s been a pretty busy weekend. Yesterday, because it was Dave Cieszynski’s birthday last Sunday, a load of us drove up to the Lake District to go for a walk up Scafell Pike – England’s highest mountain. There were 19 of us that went on the walk, and the drive there was a bit of an adventure in itself! I left Manchester at about 7.15am, and once we got off the M6, ended up on some very steep and narrow roads – my poor little Fiesta didn’t know what had hit it! After getting a bit lost, we eventually arrived at Wasdale Head at about quarter to eleven, which is where we set off from to start the climb.

The weather didn’t seem too bad – quite sunny, but not particularly warm, although the walking certainly warmed you up! But as we got further up, it got loads colder, and incredibly windy. I had one nightmare section which we had to do – there was a rocky section that we had to scramble up that did scare me quite a bit. It was quite steep and narrow, and I was struggling to find places to put my feet on, and rocks to grab onto that didn’t move! My other major concern at this time was that even if I did manage to get up this bit, there was no way on earth I was going to be able to get down the same way!! So when I got to the top, I was pretty relieved to hear we were taking a different route down!

As we made the final ascent to the summit, we entered into the cloud, and had to walk over loads of stones and rocks – and by now the wind was really strong, and I got knocked off the rocks a few times, which wasn’t great for my dodgy foot! At the very top, you couldn’t really see very far at all because of all the cloud, and it was absolutely freezing! And it was almost impossible to stand up for long without being blown off balance.

So after about quarter of an hour or so at the top, we started back down, and it was harder than I expected, because we had to negotiate ourselfs over some pretty rocky ground, and my foot by this time was starting to hurt quite a bit! And then, as we were walking down the last section, both me and Dave got cramp at exactly the same time as we were on this steep section of grass, and the two of us collapsed on the side of the hill in agony! I manage to drag myself back up to the main path, and the cramp kind of passed, but by now my knee which I injured skiing felt like it had turned to jelly – I seemed like my body was totally falling apart! It was at this point that the heavens opened and torrential rain and hail came down on us, so by the time we got back to the cars, I was totally drenched through, so we headed to the nearby pub to dry off and get refreshment!

If you want to see some photos from the walk, there’s a load of them here.

Then this morning I had to be up pretty early this morning to get up to Middleton for Colin & Caroline’s daughter Olivia’s dedication service. Both Emma and Sarah are Godparents, and Ben and Kristy were also at the church for it, so I sat next to them, which was cool. Went back to the house afterwards for a bit of get-together, and the place was over-run by babies, which was interesting! I think I handled it quite well considering my lack of experience! All in all, it was a really nice day, and wrapped up a great weekend – although I can feel the aching in my legs starting to kick in now… I need to do a lot more walking this year I think to get myself a bit more conditioned to it!

Last year I climbed Snowdon – the highest mountain in Wales, Scafell Pike – the highest in England… so all that’s left now is Ben Nevis. Bring it on!

Spent the weekend down in Kent, meeting up with some of the guys from the CU when I was in Birmingham – Bin, Russ, Jon, Eve, Rho, Pres and Ginge. It took absolutely ages to get down there – I left at 8pm from Manchester and got to Pres’ house in Paddock Wood at half one! I thought the motorways would be better at this time of night, but no chance! On the M25, I was at a total standstill at 11.30 – you just can’t win!

Anyway, following a good night’s sleep (after watching a tape of that night’s Big Brother!), we went over to Tonbridge for lunch, and then went rowing around the castle’s moat! It has to be said that we weren’t really the best of rowers… we all took turns, and ended up in the bank many times, and also came perilously close to some big boats on a few occasions! I had a go at rowing on my own nearer the end, and that was a bit easier to control than pulling on just one oar… but I have definitely decided that sitting on a rowing machine in the gym is a lot easier to control – even if loads more tiring!!

The weather was gorgeous – in fact I got a bit burnt – so that’s my summer tanning completed then! In the evening we had a barbeque which somehow I pretty much got out of doing! Actually it was my second barbeque of the week having been to Jamie’s lifegroup one on Tuesday night, so I was getting quite used to burnt sausages and burgers by now!

Sunday again was really sunny – so we just sat out in the garden taking in the rays! I left just before 3 o’clock, and this time it only took me 4 and a half hours to get home, getting back to Manchester at half seven… arriving late for a quiz night thing Reach were doing at Jabez Clegg! I joined Dean’s team and they actually won(!), even though I came in half way through, and could answer hardly any of the questions! Oh well.

Have a look at my photos of the weekend here.

I am aching all over! But that’s probably got something to do with the fact that I walked all the way up to the top of Mount Snowdon yesterday!

A load of us went over to Wales yesterday morning to go for a walk in Snowdonia for Dave Cieszynski’s birthday, and I don’t really think it had registered with me that Snowdon is in fact the tallest mountain in Wales! So we ended up walking about 10 miles in all, and 1085 metres up! It was quite a killer, ‘cos there are parts of it which are really quite steep, and it’s very rocky, so your feet can end up sliding all over the place!

For the first hour going up, I didn’t find it too hard really, but as time went on, it got more difficult. It took us about 3 hours to get to the summit, and the view from up there was stunning, but it was also pretty cold on the top! It was a bit quicker coming down – that only took about an hour and a half – but my feet were beginning to feel the strain by that time. And when I finally got up this morning, it took a little bit longer than usual to walk down the stairs – very painful!… and I’m at work at the moment, and it’s quite a struggle walking from one end of the office to the other! Check out the photos here.

On the way back, we stopped off in Llandudno and had some tea at Emma’s mum’s house. When I was lodging at Emma’s last summer, her mum and her dogs and cats were staying at the house whilst she was waiting to buy this one, so I got to meet all the animals again! Everyone was pretty worn out, and just crashed out in the living room, and I was so glad that I hadn’t driven there – it’s much better being a passenger after a day like that!

Other news… I officially became Irish last week! I received a letter from the Irish embassy in London saying that I’d been entered into the Irish register of foreign births, and that I can now apply for an Irish passport! This doesn’t mean I’m not a Brit anymore though… because my mum’s parent’s moved over here from Ireland, she’s automatically dual nationality, and because I’m next generation I can apply for dual nationality as well and I have! Steve and Vikky are going to apply as well, but we have to do it separately because we need to supply so much documentation! Now all I’ve got to work on is my Irish accent… to be sure(!)

It’s been a busy few days. On Saturday morning, I decided to drive down to Newtown in mid-Wales because some of my old mates from uni CU were getting together for a weekend. It was nice seeing the guys again – Russ, Bin, Eve, Jon, Pres and Rhona. We went for a small walk in some forest somewhere, and went out for a meal at an Indian restaurant with some of Russ’ Welsh mates on the Saturday night (where, as tradition dictates, I ordered my standard chicken and chips with nalm bread!!).

Got back to Manchester Sunday night, and then last night was witness to one of the maddest things I have ever seen!

Jamie arranged a group of guys to go out to Derbyshire late last night, and to bridge-swing off an old viaduct in the pitch black!! To be honest, even though I said that I was only going to watch, before we got there I thought that maybe I might be tempted to give it a go so that I could say that I’d done it. But after looking over the edge of the bridge and shining my torch to see the river rushing past 50 feet below, I decided that there was NO WAY ON EARTH that I was going to throw myself off the side of the bridge!! What they were doing sounds crazy, and it really was!

Basically, they tied two climbing ropes to one side of the bridge, and took them underneath and pulled them up to the other side where they were pulled tight and attached to someone wearing a harness. Then all that was required was for that person to hurl themselves off and swing under the bridge in a massive arc, hoping that they wouldn’t hit one of the nearby trees! And then when the swinging had subsided, a rope was thrown to them as they were lowered down to pull them into the bank of the river. It probably is a really cool thing to do, but the thought of throwing yourself off into total darkness, relying on a rope to stop you hitting the river was a little bit more than I could contemplate doing! Photos of the whole mad night are here!

And another month’s gone by… I must try and update this news page more often!!

Well, still waiting to hear when I can move into my new house – it’s looking like it won’t be until mid to late August – the only problem is I have to have moved out of my current house by the 29th July, which is a bit of a problem! I’ve got to find somewhere to store a house-full of furniture, let alone find somewhere to live for a few weeks myself! If I can’t move in until the end of August, I may just go off to Soul Survivor for 3 weeks ‘cos it’d be cheaper that staying in a B&B in Manchester! I’ve got the whole time off work, so it may be the best thing to do! It appears that the damp problem isn’t as bad as it sounded, but I’m still waiting to get official confirmation on that. Jeb & Nicky (whose house I’m buying) were getting the house they’re planning to buy surveyed yesterday, so hopefully if there were no problems, things may start moving pretty quickly.

Was down in Birmingham on Saturday night to meet up with a few guys who were on my masters course at uni – Surjit, Don and Mike. Was really weird seeing them all again – we left UCE Christmas 1997 – but was cool catching up with them. We went for a drink in the afternoon at one of the bars on the side of the canal at Broad Street, and in the evening went for a Balti… well, they went for a Balti – I had my usual meal of chicken and chips, not being a major fan of curry myself!!! )

Had a really smart day on Sunday – a load of us from Reach went off to the beach for the afternoon again, and the weather was really nice! I took some shorts this time so I was able to go out into the sea – when we finally got to it! You can see some photos of the day here.

Work’s been manic as usual – last Monday I managed to do 23 and a half hour shift! (started at 8am, left the office at 7.30am) I’ve been working on a TV commercial for Manchester United’s pre-season tour, and had to get Sir Alex Ferguson to film some stuff for it, which stressed me out pretty much in the run up to it!! The ad is supposed to start running this weekend on Sky and ITV, just need to get all the tapes out to all the various tv companies now!

Woah, it’s been a month since I updated this…. how time flys by!!

Been a pretty cool few weeks really – I went to Alton Towers for the first time ever a couple of Wednesdays ago, and it was really good. We had some tickets that got us in half price so it was a real bargain. And I think we were really lucky too, ‘cos it wasn’t too busy, and we hardly had to queue for any major lengths of time at all… I think the longest was for about 20 minutes or so to go on ‘Air’, the new rollercoaster there where you basically just hang off it. It was a real adrenelin rush – excellent!

And the Jubilee Bank Holiday last week kept me busy – on Monday I went to a barbeque with some of the guys at Roz’s, and it was a really good night… I even had a bit of a kick-around with a football in the back garden – and it’s not very often that that happens! Then on Tuesday, a load of us went to the sea-side!! We went up to Southport (just north of Liverpool) and it was a pretty good day – we had one heavy burst of rain, but the rest of the time it was really nice. I even caught the sun quite a bit, which I wasn’t expecting – cheaper than going abroad!

On to the latest in my house-buying saga… the building society have done a survey on the house, and they’ve found a couple of thing that need doing before they’ll give me the full mortgage… basically, the main problem is they reckon there’s a problem with rising damp, and they say I must get it sorted… I have a feeling that could be pricey…