Obsessed about the weather

It's easy to be smug in the south east at the moment with such wonderful weather. Like everyone else I am really enjoying it and my girls had their first outing in the paddling pool yesterday but as D-Day approaches my attention is turned towards next weekend as our prospects for success are so intrinsically linked to the weather.

So far so good, a bit of a breakdown on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, long term i.e. next ten days look calm and clear. Hopefully it will stay that way.

My conversation with Spike our guide on Wednesday should yield more information, but here's hoping and praying for good prospects!

Obsessed with a week to go

Once again the sun is out and on a daily basis I go on to a few websites to check the weather hoping beyond hope that the settled state remains. All I ask is no rain - is that too much?

Yesterday I decided to have a look on my favourite forum to see if anyone had done the ridge recently and found this. It's not recent, but is a great narration of whats involved.

That prompted me to do some further research to see if anyone had done what might be described as a "par" score for it in terms of time taken to do it broken down in chunks. I am a bit anal in that regard I am the first to admit and I found this handy little piece.

So there we have it, one week today Guy and I will be in a car heading for Skye, ready to undertake the challenge of our lives. In the past when I have undertaken the previous expeditions I have felt more than a little nervous, this time as it comes closer I feel more and more pumped if I am honest - can't wait, bring it on.

Thanks to all of you who have supported me to date.

There is still time to donate

Packing suncream?

Today's post is just a short one.

The sudden arrival of summer here in Londinium is clearly welcome, albeit last night's squash sessions (4 x 40 mins back to back) left me predictably dehydrated.

This morning it did prompt me to have my first look at the weather forecast for Skye given there seems to be a view that we are now in a fairly stable period. Two things struck me on the back of it, first up was that we will get a proper go at the Traverse if it stays like this straight off on Saturday morning, secondly, we may have to pack the factor 50 suncream - worthy of a headline in itself!

Going Solo

Last night it was time to test our knot and climbing skills sans instructor.

The only experience I can only liken it to the first time you get behind the wheel on your own in a car after passing your driving test - daunting doesn't do it justice.

I got to the Mile End Wall about half an hour before Guy and decided to practice some bouldering (that's climbing without ropes).

In all honesty I was both nervous and somewhat intimidated. Nervous at the prospect of doing this on my own and the potential harm I may do falling down and intimidated by the large number of confident climbers already there moving like monkeys seemingly attached to the wall - they do may it look very easy. I waited for a gap, as there is a strict etiquette about these things, and went for it. I didn't have the fluid movement, in fact I felt like a giraffe frankly, but in my own ungainly way I made progress around the lateral wall and got further than ever before, so I left that feeling pretty good, and uninjured!!!

Next up was an upward climb, a considerably more daunting challenge given my previous "dislike" of heights. (Hats off to Adrienne Hunter of www.seeconsultants.org who recently qualified as an NLP Practitioner along with me who, appears to have relaxed me considerably using techniques we learned) Much to my own amazement as much as anything else I made it pretty comfortably, albeit when I went over the top I was a little dismayed as it appeared the ladder to get down had been moved, thankfully it was just hidden.

My confidence was high by the time Guy arrived. I don't think he will mind me saying that he was a bit worried about what he called his "knot dyslexia". Thus we focussed as much on tying and untying the knots as we did on actually climbing up the walls. By the end of the evening Guy had cracked and just as importantly we had a good session of climbing, challenging ourselves on harder climbs as the evening went on.

This morning I ached in my shoulders neck and fingers, other than that I feel ready to take on next week.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, over £100 raised so far, it would be nice to get a total of £500. If any corporates reading this, I would be happy to sell some space on here for a contribution :)

Final Countdown

Well there is just over a week to go before Guy and I embark on this adventure. We have one last session at the climbing wall to do before we depart - a last chance for Guy to perfect his knot tying skills and me to stop falling off quite so often!

If you have followed the blog you will know that we have hired a guide and as a result I get a regular newsletter. Imagine my horror when I saw the latest one in all honesty I wondered whether or not I ought to post it as there is a serious chance that Debs, my long suffering wife would veto it even at this late stage!!!!

Now is the time to really try and start to get some financial support.

I appreciate times are hard, but two great causes will benefit.

Firstly, a tiny charity doing great work with a little know condition Rett Syndrome will get 50% of funds raised and the remaining 50% will go towards my squash club's junior section as we try and raise funds towards video coaching software.

Giving is easy, just click on the link below to donate through paypal

Many thanks.

Part 3

Well just over 4 weeks to go and the slight amorphous weight at the pit of my stomach is beginning to take a bit more concrete form in the shape of ice in my bowels. The fitness training has been going well and my upper body strength is definitely improving.  I have even started going to the gym and that will be stepped up in the coming weeks once I finish my NLP Practitioner Course.

I mentioned in my last blog that Guy and I had signed up to do a beginners climbing course at the Mile End Climbing Wall. The aim was to learn the basics so that we could minimise the time in the hills wasted faffing around tying knots etc.  

From the outside the place seemed like a simple warehouse in the middle of nowhere, but stepping inside was like entering another world. To be honest I was pretty intimidated by the mix of beautifully toned muscular bodies (men and women) and what you might describe as those who appear to live an alternative lifestyle. One thing was for sure I didn’t feel I would fit into either constituency particularly easily. (At the risk of upsetting my wife, I would say that if you are a young single man then there are a lot worse places you could go if you are trying to hook up with someone!)

It was with some relief that our instructor was about the same age as me and whilst clearly stronger, he wasn’t Sylvester Stallone – just a normal guy with a passion for the outdoors. It speaks volumes of JR that I offered to advertise him on here and he declined because he already has more work than he can handle!

Once we had been given the introductory Health and Safety speech I, and the other members of the group, was introduced to a wonderful new world – the world of knots!!!! Now I am a man of a certain age and remember being taught knots at Boys’Brigade - I believe there were more in the Scouts. It was all done from personal instruction, practice and dog eared books or notes.

To be told by JR, “Don’t worry if you can’t get it yet, visit animatedknots.com.” was a bit of a surprise, albeit in retrospect probably shouldn’t have been and says more about my advancing years than I would like to admit! On the way home I looked the site up on my i-phone and was staggered to find that not only was there an app for that, but several – Guy later told me that the knots books at Anness, our previous employer, were amongst the biggest sellers.

In addition Guy and I were introduced to the weird and wonderful world of carabiners and belays!After week one it’s fair to say I really was bamboozled by the knot, double figure of eight with a double stop I think it’s called. I THINK I have now got the hang of it, but I think it’s fair to say that I am not sure Guy has quite conquered it yet, the litmus test though will be when we return in May to have a go sans instructor!

As someone who can get quite nervous about heights and exposure I found that I really grew in confidence with the rope attached to me, to the extent that I didn't even hesitate in week two when we were told to throw ourselves off the wall to show how much control our partner has and how easy it is for them to arrest the fall.

Once the belay techniques were learnt it was onto bouldering, basically climbing without ropes. All I will say is that I am glad that there were soft landings. Guy’s height certainly helped in the trickier walls. The experts make it all look so easy, trust me it’s not and I would urge anyone reading this to have a go as it’s a lot of fun as long as you can handle the brief moment of embarrassment when you tumble down into an ignominious heap!

Guy bouldering

All in all it was a very successful venture.

In terms of the fundraising there have been a couple of events aimed solely at raising funds for the junior video coaching technology which have realised a few hundred pounds including the visit of squash legend Peter Nicol MBE. Now that they are done it’s time to focus on this.

Donations are easy just click on the paypal button below which will allow online support, or else contact me if you wish to give direct or corporately sponsor this page and have your company logo posted in an appropriate place.

My final comment for now is that whilst all of us based in the South have been moaning about the rain, it’s more than a little disconcerting when you see that as recently as Friday avalanche warnings were being issued in the Highlands!!!!

Please click below if you would like to support us.


 

Skye Blog Part 2

It’s been too long really since I last blogged on the expedition later this year. I could claim that it was because I have done nothing in preparation except maintain or maybe increase my levels of fitness
by playing squash; a lot of squash. Frankly that would have been boring for non-squash addicts. However, it would also be a lie. I have just been a little, well actually a lot, lazy.

In August last year I did some actual hill walking. I had a lovely day with my two daughters, Lily 6 and Natalie 5, on Ben Wyvis. Not the most challenging of hills, but it was good to get some height into the legs. It was also refreshing to have such a lovely day for it.

Guy and I did Ben Wyvis several years ago, eleven to be precise. It was Guy’s first ever trip to the Highlands and we had a glorious day on Beinn Alligin on the Saturday, real t-shirt and shorts weather. However, Sunday was brutal with horizontal rain and sleet. It’s perhaps a sad reflection
on me that I can recall the date not because of the hills, or the great company (Robert Woodcock and Richard Craig provided the hilarious entertainment for the weekend) but for the fact that Celtic beat Hibs 3-0 to lift the Scottish Cup on 26th May 2001 and I was racing back to the car to get back to see it.

There are many other tales to be told of that weekend, but in respect for the living and the desire to keep this as a family friendly blog, I will take the 5th!

Guy waxed lyrical on the Saturday about how beautiful Scotland was and that he found it amazing that such a place existed in the UK – I often wonder if in retrospect if the weather had been reversed whether he would still feel the same.

In addition to Ben Wyis I climbed Conival and Ben More Assynt sans the rug rats. I had a great day there on my own, the weather was pretty decent and by pure chance, as is often the way in Scotland, I bumped into a fellow walker and chatted for the day. Interestingly he had been to Skye and done several of its Munros and gave me several good pieces of advice. Or at least I hope it’s good!

Firstly get a good pair of gators because the scree can often be so deep it goes over the top of your boots. Normally if scree does that then it’s bad enough, but his second piece of advice made it even more pertinent – “if you want to rob a bank, do it straight after your trip, because the scree and other rocks are so sharp you will have no fingerprints left – or get a decent pair of gloves!” I am not sure I have the wherewithal to rob a bank, certainly not straight after this particular jaunt….

After I returned from holiday it was back to my usual fitness regime of several hours per week of squash, coupled with daily sessions on the Wii Fit Plus (I am a huge fan I just wish they would sponsor us!!!!) paying attention in particular to my upper body strength. My fellow walker on
Assynt mentioned this to me too. I have even gone one step further and joined a gym – it’s a by-product of the newly refurbished courts where I play in Luton as much as anything but I certainly intend to try and put some muscle on my puny body over the coming weeks.

The only other thing I did in relation to the trip was read a tremendous book about Mallory’s attempt to conquer Everest. A truly outstanding book which I would wholeheartedly recommend and thank you Guy for gifting me a copy. The irony is that it puts our impending efforts somewhat in the shade, albeit the thought of vintage brandy or champagne does have it’s appeal!

For those of you who have indulged in looking at what is in prospect for us in June you will know
that there is some proper climbing to be done and with that in mind we have booked ourselves on a course to learn the basics at the Mile End Climbing wall. It won’t be the same as the real thing, for instance it won’t feel quite as daunting when the prospect of a fall doesn’t lead to almost certain death! Hopefully, it should give us the basic moves and rope techniques to improve our chances of surviving and completing the expedition.

The trip does seem to be getting ever nearer now especially as we have now booked our accommodation, now it’s the time to try and get some sponsors and raise some funds for a great charity and a great cause.

Giving is easy just click below to make individual donations or drop me an e-mail if you want to give direct. The amount given will initially be collected in the LDS Junior account and then, once the collections are complete, 50% will be handed over the Rett UK Please be generous.