Day 4 – Started early to head up (and up!). Despite our anxieties for the day, it turned out to be one of the best! We covered 1,600m of ascent and then continued along a long path to the cabane to Mont Fort. The weather was warm and we relaxed in the sun.”

Chilling out at Clambin, Half-way

At the top of the Ascent

Cabane de Moiry at Sunset

“Day 5 – We set off early again as this was billed as the hardest day o the walk. I was grumpy as we decided to have breakfast a couple of miles in. The weather was good and the views were the most spectacular of the trip as we traversed 3 high passes and to the next cabin”

On arrival I refused to pay the £80 per night fee for staying on a matress in a shared room. We wild camped outside instead.Some parts of the Alps are a spectacular rip-off.

View of the Grand Combin Massif

Col Termin (2,634m)

Col De Prafleuri (2,965m)

“Day 6 – I hardly slept a wink and didn’t feel comfortable at all wild camping. We were on the move early and started walking at 6.15am. We knew the weather was not going to be good and decided to get down to Arrolla”

“The Walk around the lake was long, but nice to pot the Marmots. Big bums v. fluffy. V. Cute”

“We started the ascent, we were tired from 2 days hard walking and a lack of sleep. The ascent seemed to last forever and the rain began to pour. I was v. miserable!”

“The choice at the pass was a latter which was 20m high or 1-1.5 hours of extra walking. I dispaired, I held on to the ladder and started up. 10 steps up I was petrified, we had to go round. It was a well priced hotel that night as we were totally soaked and needed to dry our gear”.

View from Our Wild Camp in the Morning

My lordy this has been a busy few months, so little time for writing or spending any time on a computer at all, that I have actually forgotten how to use WordPress. Although I don’t want to make this a boring journal of my life – I would like to post some thing up from our mammoth Alps trip this July just gone. I think the last time I posted was just before we left.

Boy was it an experience, hauling heavy bags including camping gear, tents and provisions across 180km of ridiculously mountainous terrain. The kind of terrain such that we were ascending twice the height of Ben Nevis in a day – and then were descending again. All with 15kg on our backs.

To be honest, I am not sure quite how we did it. I am even more unsure how we managed to stay on speaking terms, with just one raging screaming match, when Lucy refused to ascend a 3,000m pass in the sno (I had to go it alone while Lucy took the bus).

The days have pretty much merged into one in my memory now, we had thunderstorms, snowstorms, constant rain, burning sunshine and everything in between in our 12 day journey.

Luckily, however – Lucy wrote in the margins of our guide book on a daily basis and I can directly quote from some of that now:

“Day 1 – Epic starting day! The sun was blazing and 30 degrees. We realised we had packed way too much”

Mont Blanc from the Col de Balme

“Day 2 – started at Triente was v. nervous as I knew it would be hard and I suffered yeasterday. So I was a bit stroppy for the 1st hour! However when we got to the glacier – I started enjoying myself – fantastic view!”

Glacier du Trient

“We had our bread and after hearing the thunder we made a move down the mountain. Long trek down with tired legs, no stops and the rain pouring and pouring down. When we came to Relais D’Arpette we looked at their rooms – 47 CHF for a dorm was just too much. We walked the next 30 mins as fast as we could and reached the campsite. We decided to stay in the hope that the rain would clear. The hot shower was bliss!”

“Day 3 – This was supposed to be an easy day but I still found it quite a slog. I had been suffering from a cold and I think the wet the previous day had made me feel worse That night we stayed in a converted bomb shelter. Splashing out on the luxury of eating out, Chicken fajitas felt like the greatest meal I had ever had.”

The Streets of Sembrancher

 

 

The light hits the trees in a pretty spectacular way in the late evenings at the moment. One of the reasons I love our move to the countryside!

On Saturday we came home to the news from our neighbour that our cat Lenny had been hit by a car the previous night and was last seen hobbling off into the bushes, and despite a frantic search – was never discovered.

We discovered the poor little sod, however – hiding under our bed, not really moving and with these weird dilated eyes which made us think that perhaps he had received some damage to the skull or whatnot. Lucy was distraught, as it was around two years ago when our last cat, Beau had been runover.

I would have thought a move to the country would make these incidents a little less common!

We rushed Lenny to the vet, who proceeded to inform us of all of the various problems which little Lenny may be facing. Internal bleeding, head injuries and a definite broken leg. Of course we consented to them keeping him in overnight and taking whatever ex-rays required to sort this out.

Around 3 days and £300 later (they are more expensive per night than 4 star hotels, these places  – the room service is great … but the whole place stinks of cat piss!), we found out that our poor little Lenny didn’t have a broken leg, nor any internal injuries at all.

In fact, he had made friends with all the veterinary nurses and didn’t really seem like he even wanted to come home! Probably something to do with the fact that they fed him much more expensive food than we do.

So we got him home in the end after the obligatory sales pitch about getting pet insurance. I pointed out to the vet that we would have to get our cat run over once per year to make insurance financially worthwhile, and that I already had insurance – its called a credit card.

She didn’t see to understand.

He has some sort of nerve problem with his leg which is preventing him from extending his paw, which makes walking a little difficult (and a little comedic!) but I do feel sorry for the little blighter…

So now I am 30 years of age – and I am not at all at odds with it. At 29 and 28 I faced my birthdays with dread, I didn’t want to get old. However I have battled my demons over the last year and have actually been calling myself 30 even before this day… and besides, I pretty much deserve to be 30 being as I have been alive for 30 years. No excuse.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the weekend which Lucy arranged for me on my birthday weekend! I knew she was taking me somewhere, and figured out that it was somewhere south of here and that we were taking camping gear, I deduced that it must be North Wales. I was prepared for that.

What I didn’t expect was for Lucy to arrange a very perfect day on Saturday. Perfect for me that is, for Lucy the day she arranged was probably her worst nightmare!

Up we rose early from our camp site, in the rain, after a fitfull night of sleep. Last year I acquired a very expensive down sleeping bag as I was so fed up of being cold when camping with my rubbish old one. What I didn’t account for was Lucy waking up cold and robbing said sleeping bag from me and giving me her own rubbish, only slightly better than my old one sleeping bag. So cold I was.

On Lucy’s instructions, we set off up Tryfan – a peak which I previously had little knowledge of. And it was glorious.

The sun came out to help us on our long haul up around 650m of rocky ascent. What Lucy probably didn’t account for/understand is that the route we took was a grade 3 scramble (for those not in the know, that is one grade below a rock climb and often needs ropes!), and we had to do said scramble with full backpacking gear (to the bemusement of other climbers), including tents, rollmats, food and sleeping bags. I was in my element! I would recommend Tryfan to anyone looking for a bit of an adventure.

Lucy, who is scared of heights – not so happy, but coped valiantly.

After around 3 hours of ascent, I asked Lucy to show me the map and the rest of the route to our next site. It was only around 8 miles away. 8 miles that is, over 3 more 900m plus mountains. Obviously contour lines were not one of the factors that went into the decision as to which route we should do!

All told, it took us approximately 11 hours, over 4 x 900m peaks, with full backpacking gear, in the driving rain and mist (it started around lunchtime) to get to our next camp. Around 3 hours was added to the journey through losing the path, owing to the fact that the only compass I had was the crap one on my iPhone (never to be trusted again) and we couldn’t see more than 10 yards ahead of us.

Surprisingly we both kept our humour at 6 at night when we were sliding on our backsides down rocky outcrops and heather and we pitched our soaking tent in a soaking field and climbed into it with our soaking clothes on. There was a pint waiting for us in the pub though – which we proceeded to use as a public drying room.

A proper adventure.

Just what I wanted!

Its been a long time coming and a battle of wits for about a year. How do you surprise someone when they are constantly expecting (and everyone around them is expecting) to be surprised?

Yesterday morning I decided that the only way to do it was to surprise myself! When I woke up I made the decision that I could wait for all the perfect times and moments in the world, but the fact is that whenever we go anywhere the expectation of proposal is there.

So when Lucy came back home from her family holiday I whisked her away for a walk and a surprise engagement…

I thought about doing it last year in Italy, I thought about doing it last summer and over Christmas when we had the opportunity to go away, I got in trouble for not doing it in November when we went to Derbyshire for the 6 year anniversary of our meeting. But in the end I thought that with our new home and our new life in the country – why not do it a little more close to home.

We are heading up to 6 and a half years together now – and have  collected a fair few joint memories already. I have had a loo at some of the old photos of our times together and this is one of my favourites. We had just trekked across and island of the coast of Croatia and we huddled on a rock trying to warm up from our dip in the sea in a remote rocky beach. I guess this is around June 2006.

Lucy never needed a ring to show her how much I love her.

Its a secret pleasure for me. Getting away from the D.I.Y and the B&Q and the W.O.R.K and heading for the countryside.

Today I got up early and bundled my outdoor box into the car. Ripping a page from a magasine and filling my bag full of peparami and rubbish oat biscuits I headed onto the motorway northbound. It was raining an cold, which didn’t matter but for the fact I wouldn’t risk my camera to the dampness. I wasn’t going for the view (though the view was good).

I got lost but my trust sat nav brought me through in the end.

The Yorkshire dales was my destination and escape was my goal. The only time I get to completely forget about work and the house. The only time I get to listen to full albums of music, start to end. The only time I get to completely disagree with my brothers appraisal of modern comedy on his podcast and literally swear out loud, though there was no-one there to hear. This only happens when I go solo tramping.

I parked the car up and set myself a goal. The torn page I had told me it would take 5 hours, but I told myself I would do it in 3 and add a bit to it. In the end there was a massive extension, but I didn’t mind. I was there to walk, not to arrive.

I saw only three people in a whole 5 hours. It proved to me that there are still some lonely places in this country, albeit only in the winter and in the rain. The solidarity is absolutely the best bit, however I was joined along the route by a pair of rabbits, which were galloping about the moors together, seemingly disturbed by my progress every 10 minutes. It made me smile.

Of course it was more than likely it was completely different rabbits, but in my mind they were the same. Locked in some kind of weird winding race. Bobbing throught the heather. I wondered how a fox would have to be slightly retarded not to spot them, given that I snuck up on them in a bright blue anorak, Adele blaring from my headphones (a guilty pleasure).

All in all a good day.

Wow, I haven’t posted for a while. The primary reason for this being that I have just moved house and been completely without internet for a period yet again.

This time however – it is finally into a house I own! … well actually, the bank pretty much own it, so not too different from being a renter really … except I pay much more rent … oh, and I have to fix the leaking wall myself.

There have been some interesting experiences in my new life as a own owner. One of the first was discovering a pile of Hello and OK magazines, up to my waist (and weighing a ton) dating back to 1990. Years and years worth of pages filled with nothing but the life and times of Princess Diana. What a waste of paper. Although, there could have been some money in those mags … could have been, except I never found out as I slung them in the tip.

The next exciting part to being a home-owner was the fact that I got to remove a stud wall. With a sledge hammer of course (despite the fact that the vibrations probably dislodged half of the external walls). That was fun. At that point, feeling all manly, and with adrenaline pumping through my veins – I declared that I like DIY.

Then I got onto some painting…

Boy do I hate painting. I can’t get my head round having to put second and third coats of paint on a wall when my lazy nature just wants to say bugger it and live with some patchy pattern. We could claim it was meant to be like that, couldn’t we? A new style! If everyone refused to put second and third coats on their wals, then it could become a new fashion. After all, that pretty much what a fashion is – a bunch of people all doing something at the same time.

It would also save me some bloody time and I could go climbing.

I am as proud as the next Brit of our glorious NHS. I think the model is great, it works and I would quite happily sacrifice a little more of my salary for NHS improvements (being the woolly left winger that I am).

I do, however have a bit of a bone to pick with this, most appreciated of services. The bone comes with the seeming inability of the NHS to pick the correct people for the correct job… Actually thats a lie – the real issue is that the NHS cannot remove people who are no good / bordering incompetent at their jobs.

Often I have heard the complaints of my friends and family working in the healthcare sector about poor managers and poor colleagues making unchallenged mistakes (including a 1 year epic battle to get rid of one particular member of staff) but rarely have I felt it.

This week Lucy went to the doctors to get her hearing checked out. She has always been a little hard of hearing following operations which she had as a child, she relies very heavily on lip reading and uses subtitles on the TV (which means that I always read the punch line in any comedy – before the joke happens).

In her job as an assistant psychologist in the NHS, she has been struggling recently to hear what the children she works with are trying to tell her – and in the types of consultations she is in, it doesn’t work to ask the kids to repeat themselves. The doctor told her, she has scarring in her ear and that a specialist may be able to help her.

This was so frustrating. For five years Lucy has not had her hearing checked out because one useless GP wrongly diagnosed excema and told her that there was no point seeing a specialist as if she was going deaf there is nothing she can do about it.

Thats GP interpersonal skills for you!
What do you reckon? £70k a year for a 4 day week?

Its become a new tradition amongst friends of mine in Sheffield to take to the local park on New Years eve for an epic ‘jumpers for goalposts’ football game. The game is ‘however-many-can-be-arsed-to-turn-up-a-side’ and lasts from about 1 in the afternoon to whenever the risk of leg breakage becomes too much to bear (i.e. when it is so dark that one cannot see ones opponent).

The best thing about football in New Years Eve is that both this year and last, the game was played immediately after a large snow thaw. This means two things:

The first is that the pitch we use (which isn’t actually a pitch, its just a park) is totally and utterly saturated, thus creating an uneven surface pocketed with large puddles/ponds (I clearly remember last year being tackled by a puddle – I can do without that). Last year this enabled us to clearly see the pitch as after bout an hour of play, there was a nicely marked out rectangle of brown visible against the green grass of the rest of the park.

The second is that the mud is a massive leveller on the field. Especially for me – for I am in possession of that golden item – something which is held in high esteem and regard in the world of NYE footballers. I own a pair of football boots (I think left over from my university days of inter-mural rugby).

Last year I was up against a great many regular five a side players. That is, five aside astro-turf players. And they weren’t in possession of lovely boots such as mine.

Those poor souls in trainers could barely stand up, let alone change direction or apply any skill. I, despite the fact that I am absolutely crap at football, utilised my standing up and changing direction abilities and was actually one of the better players on the field! It was a shortlived feeling, but fulfilling none the less.