Our illustrious Treasurer finally turned 60 this October, but not wanting to crowd the CYHA programme, he elected to postpone the celebrations to November and booked Holmbury St Mary YH for the party of the decade.
Located in the Surrey Hills, or, judging by the poor phone signal, one of the Surrey Lows, Holmbury was the first purpose-built YH in Britain. Sadly, as it’s on the current ‘for sale’ list, this could be our last chance to stay in this beautiful location.
Most of us arrived on Friday afternoon, to avoid trying to find the right wooded car park in the dark. George treated us to a fish and chip supper whilst we broke the seal on the first of Dave’s beer barrels. A splendid start to the weekend.
Our Saturday started with a full Dave breakfast, with added birthday black pudding all the way from Stornoway. This fueled us for a glorious walk through autumn woodlands to the heady summits of Holmbury Hill and Leith Hill. Sweet chestnuts and crunchy leaves, the odd bit of slithery mud and a little bit of misty rain. Very autumnal. All great stuff for building up an appetite for an amazing feast at Dave’s birthday party.
Many thanks to all those who generously contributed to the bring-and-share party food for the evening buffet. As well as being fantastically varied and delicious, we had enough to see us through Sunday lunch too. The centre piece was a birthday cake featuring an edible photograph of the birthday boy himself. Something to digest while we watched the slideshow Dave had pulled together of the last 60 years, featuring a good 30 years of adventures with CYHA – something for us all to celebrate!
With Dave’s party over, Sunday was Ali’s turn for a birthday celebration. With the weather gods smiling on us, we headed up to Box Hill for spectacular views and a rather nice pumpkin spiced latte.
Ali
Thanks!
A big thank you to everyone who joined us at Holmbury St Mary hostel and made our birthday celebrations so enjoyable and memorable! Thanks for all the cards, gifts and all the delicious food contributions!
It was great to see so many familiar faces, many of whom also appeared in the photos of my birthday gatherings from 10 and 20 years ago (both at the now-closed Bradwell Village hostel in Milton Keynes).
Thanks especially to Jonathan for being DJ for the evening, Cress for organizing sandwiches for the vast numbers, George for the fish & chips, Nick for keeping us supplied with top-quality pork pies, Ali for beer, cake and black pudding, and everyone who went to so much trouble to prepare a sumptuous buffet!
Dave P
A Scilly Business
Last month John gave us a history of the Isles of Scilly, so this month I thought I’d mention a few of the things we saw and did while we were there.
- Fort walls built with inca-like stonework
- Cream tea in an Elizabethan star castle
- Signal towers
- Boat trips between islands
- Red squirrels
- Tresco Gardens
- Cornish Pasties
- Lobster dinner
- Figureheads and wrecks
- Lighthouses
- Ancient Burial Chambers
- Royalists and roundheads
- Exploding life rafts
- Walking on the sea bed