Celebrating Bev's 30th up a mountain

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Bev Wilmshurst - my friend from NZ - decided to mix drinking with hiking to celebrate his 30th, and what better place to do that than in the Lakes District. And with Ryan having lived there for a year, it didn't take much convincing to get me back up there.

Bev booked three adjoining cottages near the small village of Broughton-in-Furness for the occasion, which proved perfect for the 11 of us who headed there from London and Scotland.

On the Friday after work I trained up to Banbury where four of us met and drove the remaining way up. We arrived at about 11, and Bev didn't know I was coming so it was cool to surprise him! That evening we chilled out with a few beers, and it was just as well we didn't go too crazy as the next day we climbed Scafell Pike - the highest peak in the UK! It took us about five hours, so when we had our first drinks at the local for Bev's birthday dinner, we definitely felt like we deserved them! I stupidly only packed my skateshoes for the weekend, which made the effort even more impressive 😊 We carried on the party back at the cottage with G&Ts and a game of Cranium, which was great fun with a big group of us. The uber competitive boys won though, darn it.

We were really lucky with the weather the whole time, and after a hearty cooked breakfast on the Sunday morning, we went for a walk around the farms surrounding the cottage. We came out of it with scratches all over us, but hey, you can't go a whole weekend of walking and drinking without a few battle scars...

We finished up the weekend with lunch and another game of Cranium in the gardens before making the long-haul back to London. We stopped half way for a Sunday roast, which topped off a great weekend.

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