more pix from the skyline walk...

thanks for sending on these pix, Crysse - and sorry I'm so abysmally disorganised to get them up so late!

Another packed week...

Work... bit of a struggle to focus this week.
Crysse's birthday Monday night...
Bridport on Wednesday, Golden Cap to Charmouth and back again (makes me feel like one of the Fellowship of the Ring, that 'and back again'. Just as long as I'm not a hobbit...)
Annabelle's for a 'debrief' on progress so far...
the Harm Reduction Strategy meeting...
Helen's...
Mike's...
... and another clothes-swap fundraiser, ably hosted by Marina, proceeds split between my venture and hers... (& another lovely evening it was too - more additions to my wardrobe...)

admin Saturday morning before haring off to Winchcombe. While Kit serviced the Polo, I went for a stroll - a mistake to take the Rover, after an hour's walk I was hot, tired - and compelled to procure a cache of junk food and read the paper while listening to the radio...
& we had a VERY lazy Sunday...
that's the trouble - when you're so busy, you need 'down time'. Which there isn't really time for in my training schedule...
so it has to be the social side which is junked again for a while... that and newspapers!

BATH SKYLINE

This one was a challenge.
I was pretty knackered.
It was HOT.
I was still standing by the end! (well, once I'd got up from the canal bank after a welcome respite in the shade...)
and this one I just couldn't have done without Crysse's and Peter's support (a bit like turning back to look at our descent path on Skiddaw - left to my own devices, I'd have wimped out of this).

We started on the Cotswold Way, and up Kelston Round Hill, over to Bath Racecourse, and on to Solsbury Hill. Down by the toll bridge, along the canal, up the ancient railway built to transport Ralph Allen's Bath stone from the quarry to the canal (that one held memories of some of the Skiddaw trek!), then back down into Bath, as we were running very short on time (and energy - even after a leisurely picnic on Solsbury Hill).

I need to do this one again, when I feel more lively. Even the views didn't boost my system much beyond grim determination - but the sense of achievement after DOING it was worth every gruelling step!!! So thank you, Crysse and Peter - it was a grand day, even if I wasn't exactly at my scintillating best (always I assuming I manage scintillating at my best...)

dreamweaving...

Saturday was lost to sleep.
I know it was a demanding week, but it was still a shock. I consoled myself at the time that I was due to walk with Crysse and Peter the following day...

Nepali Dinner Evening

A gorgeous garden, an idyllic English summer evening... and people sat round on sumptuous fabrics like gaudy butterflies, enjoying the feast Pippa had prepared... A perfect evening of breaking bread together in support of my adventure with the Hep C crew on our trek...

...later, Rod lit a fire in a giant wok, and we sat round the flames in the fragrant woodsmoke...

the total raised yet to be finalised.

What a lovely way to end the week - thank you, Pippa and Rod! - and thanks to everyone who came and supported the event.

Sunset on Cley Hill

Just as Frome is gearing up for the last Saturday of the festival - I'm heading for the hills... or hill. Cley Hill.
This seems fairly typical at the moment - being out of step with the communities to which I belong...

SKIDDAW TREK

This is what I've been just itching to put on my blog all week... Frome Festival week, so two gigs to fit in - and back to work; I always pay for time off with stacks of catching up... training to organise, and the pathway launch to cater for... Not to mention the - er, 'hiccups' - which beleager my work at the moment...

from my journal, 8th July 2006:

'Today, I climbed Skiddaw.
The feeling of elation at the top was wonderful, leaning into the gale as we headed back down...
Done it, done it, done it!'

I've never scaled a big hill before.

I lived at the foot of the Pentlands for 15 years - and never went to the top of one. I rambled around the slopes, but never actually scaled the summit... (to be fair, as a tiny child, I couldn't, really - well not without an adult, and as an adolescent, I wasn't that intrepid). I worked in Yetholm for a couple of years, and never once went hill walking. I listened to numerous tales from triumphant walkers in the Black Swan in Kirk Yetholm, at the Scottish end of the Pennine Way, and wished there was somebody I could try to walk it with... (who would carry the tent...)
But at that time, I traversed the Cheviots on horseback. I might walk the 5 or so (largely flat) miles to the pub and back - but steep uphill stuff? Hadn't the 'oomph'...
Then, I wouldn't have considered walking by myself. A different thing, roaming round the foothills of the Pentlands with my dog. But to tackle hills in my late teens, I'd have wanted company... Probably a good thing - I'd no doubt have got hopelessly lost on my own! Or twisted my ankle or something...

So the sense of achievement on getting to the top of Skiddaw... I didn't even attempt to describe it fully in my journal. (Not like me to be understated!)

'It's lovely walking with a group. You can push yourself more than you'd dare on your own... The VIEWS! Across the Solway Firth to Scotland, across to the Pennines, over toy-town Keswick and Derwent Water beside it. Hills as far as the eye can see...
Space. So much SPACE!
Going down, I look back.'

A steeply winding trail that makes me think of the hell of the fire and brimstone crew - a Sisyphean task; the higher you get, the more there is to climb. If I'd been faced with that as an ascent, my heart would have quailed... As we joked with Jeff, it could have been 'you can keep Nepal! - sod this for a lark!'

'Back at the Blencathra Centre, I'm full of sugar and caffeine and endorphins and achievement - I feel like Tigger...'

I want to bounce off the walls with excitement.
But of course, I don't.

'A shower proves nearly as good as a soak to sluice away the aches...
Hauling myself up on the poles, I get into the zone in the wake of Sergio and Jeff, walking solo between the clots of walkers toiling upwards - safe but solitary. Lovely. Just how I need to be for concentrating on the ascent.'

Another metaphor for my life... The above excerpts were taken from my scribbles on our return. I did manage to write more before going to sleep - which I may have a chance to return to...

As a writer, I can't fully express how hard this time constraint business is. The longer you leave writing about events, the 'colder' they get - and besides, MORE writing stacks up as time marches inexorably on...
I wanted to document the quiz night... setting the questions for the music round with Crysse, 'helping' Jill's team on the night... Brendan's brilliant Retro Cafe night - I was so thrilled at all the effort he'd been to, and profoundly touched by the beautiful poem Alan dedicated to me... the weekend in Totnes - Sam and Sally's unique wedding celebrations, our glorious river boat trip, the Russian ship moored at the mouth of the River Dart, later watching the herons through my newly acquired binoculars (thank you, Mike!) ...

All those things that I listed in my catch-up post have been languishing sadly, awaiting reflection and processing... which hasn't happened; life whirls on and slips through my fingers as through they're coated with lard...
There are about 40 emails in my inbox, and a pile of mail to wade through... Catching up seems impossible, let alone preparing for the next few hectic weeks...

And there's the issue of training. Having climbed Skiddaw, I have a far better idea of what to expect - and how much more time I need to devote to training if I'm to avoid a great deal of pain while trekking in the Himalayas.

The writer in me is hugely frustrated and marginalised - neither wonder I'm more than a bit crazed right now and uncontrollably weepy sometimes...

On a positive note, there's something indefinable about all this walking that clears the mind and helps the process of prioritising. It generates energy and positivity.

If the lesson I learn from all this is how to junk the unnecessary, that's a precious gift.

the Solway Firth

I haven't been to Maryport during such fantastic weather...

It was idyllic.

And check out the dearth of crowds... Just how I like my landscapes - call me greedy, but having all this to MYSELF is the most wonderful way to walk in the world...

Golden Cap

with time at a premium, it's a swine when uploading pix can be such a hit or miss affair...
...is half the world on the net, or something?

I have to say, this was a phenomenal walk. My first time with walking poles - they make SUCH a difference...

IF TIME IS A MERINO WOOL JUMPER...

... then someone has put mine in a boil wash.

Repeatedly.

Four weeks since my last post.


this is the view from the hostel Sam & Sally hired to hold their wedding party... see (much) later below - no way to position these pics that I can find...

A whistlestop tour, then, of the last month:

the Griffin quiz was great fun, & raised about £40 or £50 quid (the actual amount will be on Peter's spreadsheet)
I took the advice of the debt line, and wrote to all my creditors (with a slightly different outcome than anticipated - I'm now paying late payments in addition to the amounts I already owed, but we won't go there for now).
I'm delivering the Frome Times once a fortnight - might as well get a tenner while I do a bit of training...
I had a date, which was an interesting experience (but I'm not going there for now, either).
Mike lent me a digital camera, which I've been practising with.
Rod lent me some equipment for the trek - it's beginning to feel more real, now - horribly so, at times!
(Work, of course, goes on apace during all this).
I went to Sam's film screening at the Cube in Bristol - fantastic! He's SO talented... (well, would a son of Crysse's be anything else?)
I climbed Golden Cap (hope to come back to THAT one, too with pix).
My last class in Swindon was swiftly followed by the Retro Cafe Poetry gig in Bath (we raised £82 -THANKS, BRENDAN!) and on to Sally & Sam's wedding in Totnes - which would be great to get back to at some point, it was the most BEAUTIFUL setting... (see pic above).
Back to Bath from Totnes, met up with Karen and Mike, drove to Cumbria with them (sharing space with my baggage & theirs - the boot was given over to the new fairing for the Triumph Cosworth Daytona).
A few days with them in Maryport was just what I needed. OK, I smoked more than I have for a while, but to be away from all demands was just WONDERFUL. Especially as we had fabulous weather, so I walked along the Solway Firth nearly to Allonby - 'toughening my feet' (!) in the sea... (otherwise known as paddling...)
And on to Blencathra (which I WILL come back to...)
Home to a week's worth of washing-up and laundry - not to mention being short on the rent... (though number one son DID wash up on Monday, and made up his shortfall on pay day). Back to work, and it felt as if everything started to go horribly pear-shaped there, too... I think I was probably more exhausted than I realised from Skiddaw. It got better later in the week - at least, my positivity came back!
So, at least I'm kind of caught up...