Brathay Pool

The location for today's River Crossing workshop.
In the end only three participants but all keen and up for it.
The water distinctly colder than even a week ago, but much lower than I'd anticipated.

I run a mix of free and chargeable workshops for the Mountain Training Association, they keep my teaching skills up, let me network with usually cool people and (hopefully) I build up a client base for my courses. Today one participant booked onto my First Aid for Mental Health course, another wants to do one of my Outdoor First Aid courses and the last is going to come to my (free) Night Navigation workshops. A good return. It was also good when the feeling returned to my feet after 90minutes in the water...

Best of all though..... We saw Otters, a Mum and her Kitt. Woohoo.
Obviously Otters are shy, so they waited till we were exactly mid stream with our cameras left on the bank before they appeared. Amazing to watch them run along the bank and dive in leaving hardly a ripple. We seldom celebrate the good news stories, but the return of otters to our rivers is a huge conservation success.