Author: 3GKiliClimbers

I woke up in the night recently wondering whether I was being a total prat by thinking I can walk up a mountain for seven days!  It is so easy to get things totally wrong it seems these days – or do I just feel that as I am getting older?  It seems no effort at all to innocently do things that are open to misinterpretation, or perhaps in the case of me thinking I can get up Kili, just plain daft!

At Catching Lives, the charity for Canterbury homeless people, where I cook with three other lovely people every Wednesday, it seems easy for us to do things in innocence, which are open to misinterpretation.  For example recently, Paula made some really delicious home made fish cakes.  She decided once she had fashioned them and put them out in trays that they looked a bit dull, so brightened each of them up with a blob of tinned tomato in the centre.  When the rest of us stopped what we were doing and turned to look at the fish cakes, we all had a good chuckle together!  They reminded me of the iced buns, which Celia Imrie held aloft in Calendar Girls.

There are other things that can go wrong as we get older, with more potential for disaster.  Stew and I were out for a meal with my friend Susie and some others recently.  There were a total of seven of us round the table, all into our seventh decade at least. Susie told us about the new car that she had ordered.  She was really looking forward to picking it up soon.  She told her son exactly what she had ordered – a lovely new silvery Honda Jazz from a garage in Peebles, which had been super helpful to her. It was when she told her son that the registration number was to be SK15 VJJ that she started to realise she might have got something wrong.  He gently suggested to her that she might ask for a different registration number.  None of us round the table could see anything untoward with the number, but I put VJJ into Google on my phone, and immediately saw what her son meant!  We clearly have not been keeping up with our reading – though I don’t know whether “Fifty Shades of Grey” is exactly my thing.  Happily Susie has managed to arrange for a different number for her car: when she approached the garage to indicate why she wanted a change, they were very quick to withdraw that number.

So I am depending on those younger than me to keep me on the straight and narrow in respect of the trip up Kili.  If the time comes when I appear to have lost the plot entirely PLEASE TELL ME!

I had the most expensive morning I have had in a long time, on the Monday morning after our return from Walking on the Amalfi Coast.  I spent £278 at the dentist before 10am!  I was vaguely aware when I was at the airport about to get on the plane at the beginning of the week, that something was not quite right in my mouth: the feeling did not go away.  However, I was taking strong painkillers all week for my arthritic toe, so the drugs seem to have done a doubling up job on my teeth too – the pain was never terrible.  I suspected I might have an abscess, but have never had one before, so didn’t know what one feels like.  I was very comforted by the knowledge that two of the group of sixteen were young women GPs, who I am sure would have sorted me out with some antibiotics, if push had come to shove.  Half way through the week I emailed my dentist, who very obligingly emailed me back saying he had fitted me in for first thing in the morning on the Monday after my return: that’s what I call a result!  Of course, I felt hardly felt anything after that – Sod’s Law – but thought I had better keep the appointment in any event.  After the first Xray – two more followed – the abscess was diagnosed and the drilling commenced!  He said he had to follow the root for an inch to get to the end of it!!  So now I know I have exceptionally long roots in my teeth – not the most useful information – and have also discovered what root canal treatment is.

It got me thinking about dental treatment for generations before and after mine.  It seems that the generations after mostly have wonderful teeth – perhaps due to the presence of fluoride.  However, previous generations had nightmare times with teeth.  We visited Beamish Museum in the North East of England with the children when they were small, where there is a dental surgery with some pretty scary looking implements.  We were told there that it was common practice for young women to have all their teeth removed before their marriage, as a sort of dowry from the woman’s family to the new husband.  It meant that he would never have to shell out any money for any dentistry for her!

Scots have historically always had bad teeth – perhaps due to their liking for sweeties and particularly tablet, which is a Scottish delicacy which guarantees instant tooth rot!  My parents in law didn’t have a tooth between them, when I first met them, and they were only in their fifties then.  That was not considered very unusual then, particularly among the less well off.

I am very pleased my abscess has occurred now, and not when I am doing the real thing up Kili!  Maybe I will pop into the dentist for an X-ray however, just before the trip, just to make sure there is no repetition!

Twenty years ago, or so, a group of female friends and relations would take ourselves off for a warm week in the early part of the year.  We called them “Girls’ Holidays” – although the ages of the “girls” varied between about 20 and 80!  I often had at least one daughter along, and also my Auntie Elsie came a few times.  Other friends brought family members too.  I think on one occasion, there were as many as twelve of us, all staying in a cheap hotel on an all inclusive basis.

One of the first of these holiday was to Eilat on the Red Sea.  Eilat is in Israel and is tightly sandwiched between Egypt and Jordan: both countries are almost within walking distance.  The sea was warm and the weather was beautiful.  We spent quite a lot of time swimming.  Jae was with us and also her cousin Louise and they decided to acquire a couple of masks and snorkels – or maybe they brought them with them.  They were very excited to be able to see coral and told us that it was teaming with fish of all sorts of exotic colours and patterns.  One day, they decided that some of us oldies should go snorkeling too.  They put their gear on to us and pushed us into the sea.  It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life!  The coral was amazing, the fish and other sea life were like nothing I had seen before – and I loved the absolute silence and stillness under the waves.  We were so pleased that we had a younger generation along: we would never have discovered the other world under the sea without them.

When we got back home, we discovered that there was a Scuba diving course available, which was actually government sponsored!  It seems very strange to think now, with education like all public services being pared to the bone, that there was a government initiative to offer NVQ courses to adults at very reduced prices – and that Scuba diving came under this umbrella!  Having loved the snorkeling, we thought Scuba diving was a natural progression.  I signed up, as did Jae, her sister Gwen and my friend Mary.  We had five full days training over several weekends, which included both classroom study and practical diving in various bodies of water.

I recently dug out the paperwork from the course, which I have to admit has stayed in a cupboard untouched for nearly twenty years.  I did this because I have this memory of being taught by two young boys – well, I suppose they might have been about 20 – and that we students behaved like children, falling about laughing by some of the terms used.  The one thing I remember we laughed about was the continual reference to “sandy bottoms”, but couldn’t remember what else we had found so funny.  Well I now see that there were frequent mentions of backrushes, trapped air, reverse blocks, bottom compositions and water movement, which I dare say provided fodder for a few jokes.

The practical diving took place in three locations, that I can remember.  One was a local public pool, where I was horrified to see the amount of debris lying on the bottom.  When you are above the water in a pool, it looks so lovely and clear: not so below, I can assure you.  One dive took place in a pool in the back garden of one of the instructors.  The pool clearly had a bit of a problem: it was like swimming in semolina.  Well actually, that wasn’t actually the word we used to describe the consistency of the water, but the word starts off much the same.  This blog is intended for family reading!   The third location was a gravel pit near Maidstone.  It was cold, forbidding and dark – a far cry from the wonderful blue sea or rather Red Sea, which had initially inspired this venture.  The only wrecks we were able to see there were old cars, which had been dumped in the water – no romantic ship wrecks for us.  One of the most important things we were required to do was read the dials on the SPG – the submersible pressure gauge. (No – I didn’t really remember the name of it – I looked it up in the handbook!)  Mary was starting to get long sighted then, and needed to hold the gauge at arms length to be able to read the dials.  However, the water was so muddy that when she held the SPG away from her, it disappeared into the filth! The young lads teaching us just couldn’t understand this problem, nor did  they realise how horrified we were at having to swim in this cold dark dirty water.

Neither Mary nor I have been Scuba diving since that day in the gravel pits, but I have been snorkeling and loved it.  I also have jumped off the deck of quite a big boat into the sea and generally felt more confident in water, since completing the course.

How lucky am I to have had the opportunity to share such experiences with my family?  In August, I am going to go off again with two generations – I am the old generation this time, not the middle one, as I was on the “Girls’ holidays”. I consider myself privileged to have this chance to do something so exciting with my daughter and grandson.  You could say I have been to the depths of the ocean with my family – well the gravel pits at least – and now I am to attempt to scale the highest freestanding mountain in the world again with my family to hand.  I would and will go to the ends of the earth for them if that was what they wanted.

 

I have been offered lots of advice from all sorts of people when I have told them about the plan to climb Kili. Everyone seems to want to put in their tuppence worth – even the taxi driver on the way home from the airport after the recent trip to the Amalfi coast had advice to give me. He admitted that he had been sitting behind the wheel of a car for the last ten years and had rarely even walked a few yards. However, his doctor has told him to lose weight and he now runs up and down the stairs in the airport car park, while waiting for people to arrive from their planes. I hope that doesn’t result in a heart attack: his pot belly is monumental! He recommended stairs to me, as did my friend Maureen at Catching Lives: she has offered to let me into the very tall block of flats where she lives, so I can run up and down her stairs – but after Amalfi, I feel I have seen enough steps to last me quite a while. One of the other people on the holiday said their next trip would be to the Netherlands: it is all pretty much level there!

Maureen’s other suggestion was that I should always stand during adverts, titles and credits, while watching TV. Standing seems to be a highly recommended activity at present, with people ordering standing desks for their offices and studies. However, I am usually on my laptop and/or iPhone or knitting, sewing or crocheting while watching TV – sometimes two or three of these together, so the resulting tangle of cables and yarn might be fatal, if I keep getting up and down. Actually Stew and I did try it one evening, and ended up bopping about and giggling at the same time, which can’t be at all bad.

I have been told that standing on one leg is good for me: it is supposed to strengthen bones and improve balance. I usually try to practice that at bus stops, if I have a while to wait – along with a few pelvic floor exercises, which yoga and Pilates teachers always seem to recommend for bus stop waits. I try to keep my facial contortions within normal bounds on such occasions!

One of the staff at Catching Lives has actually been up Kili, and his recommendation was to try to put your foot down flat when climbing up, rather than heel first and rolling the foot. His philosophy is that this technique lulls the mind and body into thinking you are in fact walking on the flat – not up a mountain. Hmm – the jury is out on that one, but I will try anything!

I developed blisters during the recent training exercise (aka holiday) on the underside of both my big toes. One of the best moments of the week was having Paul, our leader, tenderly apply patches and bandages to my toes to enable me to keep going. I have been offered lots of advice from others as to how to stop this happening again, including having Footbalance insoles made – a very clever machine views your feet and how you walk from every angle and purpose builds them for you – to encasing each toe in a tube to protect it. I feel a need for a lot of shopping coming on!

So thanks, everyone, for all your advice. I am thoroughly enjoying every bit of it and I know some of it will be useful: keep it coming, please.

On our last day of our Walking on the Amalfi Coast holiday, which was a bit of a practice run for walking up Kili, I made the stupid mistake of putting on my long Johns underneath my walking trousers. I had needed them on some of the previous days – it had been very cold when we were up high – but I certainly did not need them on that last day, when sweat was soon pouring off me. I ended up stripping off my trousers and continuing in my undies. Some others in the group were very gallant, saying that they looked quite snazzy – as if!

It reminded me of another long John moment some years ago. Stew and I were in Glasgow one frosty December, walking through the centre of town. For a few years, he had been thinking about getting a kilt – mainly to wear to Burns Night and other such functions, which we regularly attend at Canterbury Scottish Society – but also for wearing to weddings and other celebrations. Normally men get measured for a kilt and get it made to those measurements in their family tartan. However on this chilly day, we spotted a sale of ex-hire ready-made kilts and thought we would have a look.

There were two or three kilts which looked like distinct possibilities and were very reasonably priced, so Stew decided to try a couple of them on. He came out of the changing room wearing a pale blue mix kilt. He looked quite dashing in it: he has always had lovely looking slim legs! We agreed that the kilt was definitely a keeper, but he would need the rest of the outfit to go with it. The shop assistant said it would be best to start from the feet up, so Stew was sat down, so she could help him with socks and shoes.

It was at this point that I realised that he was looking distinctly uncomfortable. The very young girl assistant insisted in helping him into a pair of long socks, while Stew wriggled to try to keep the kilt covering his knees. I then caught a glimpse of something white peeping out under the kilt and realised what was causing his embarrassment. Instead of taking off his long Johns in the changing room, as a true Scot should have done, he had pulled them up and they were all bumfled (look it up in the urban dictionary – it really is a word) up above his knees!! I was struggling to keep a straight face as the young girl kept yanking his legs about, first to get him into socks and then to try the special kilt shoes on to his feet. He wanted out of there as fast as possible, but she was determined to get everything just right, and was down on her knees at his feet, sorting him out.

I just about held it together until we got out of the shop, when I couldn’t stop laughing. Stew has never quite understood what I thought was so funny about it. In fact when I reminded him of that occasion today and he realised I was likely to blog about it, he said he would not be talking to me again until after August, when I come back from having climbed – or perhaps not having climbed – Kilimanjaro and the blogging has ceased! I hope he relents: it is all in a good cause.

Ma lost her mum when she was only twelve. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been. Some of my very best friends are also without their mums, and feel it particularly hard on Mothering Sunday each year. So, whether you’re as lucky as me, and have both a mother to say Happy Mother’s Day to, and children to say it to you; or you just have to find a way to remember the good times at this time of year, I hope you have a lovely day today.

This year I’ve been extra lucky as I’ve had Ma to myself for the last week on our wonderful holiday walking on the Amalfi Coast. In a change from our usual blog posts, I’ve written a Mother’s Day post about it on the Exodus blog. Please click here and have a look.

Happy Mother’s Day Ma. I love you. Jx

The rest of the Exodus group on the “Walking the Amalfi Coast” holiday decided to visit Herculaneum on the one free day in the week and hired a bus with the wonderful motto “Pleasure on Wheels” to take them there. Jae and I had decided we wanted to visit Sorrento, where Stew and I had come in 1972, when I had won a weekend for two in the Mediterranean as part of the Guardian’s “Date with the Past” competition. We were very happy to hitch a lift down to the coast with Pleasure on Wheels, and then to get the train along to Sorrento.

At the station, Jae showed the girl in the information kiosk the photo of me taken on the balcony of our hotel in 1972 and amazingly the girl was able to point us in roughly the right direction. We walked through the town and were pleased to see it seemed to be a real town with proper shops – not just places full of tourist tat, as we have seen elsewhere in the area.

We got to the far end of the town. I have a clear memory of walking into the hotel from the road, and finding that we were on the highest floor, with the rest of the hotel spread over about six floors, clinging to the cliffs below the level of the road. Eventually we came to a row of hotels, which seemed to be in the right place. As soon as I saw the name Hotel Belair, I knew that was where we had stayed forty three years ago. The hotels all seemed to be closed up for the winter, some of them having renovations done. It is strange that they were open at the same time of year in 1972. However, I suppose then, holiday weekend flights were in their infancy, and Italy was fairly exotic. Nowadays in March, if you want a few warm days, you are more likely to go to the Canaries, Morocco or Egypt, where it is properly warm.

We wanted to try to locate the exact balcony where Stew had taken a photo of Jae (in utero) and me. We found a gate on the closed hotel which slid open and were able to make our way down a few floors on the outside of the hotel, using the balconies. It was blowing a bit of a gale – our chilliest day yet, with snow on the top of Vesuvius – but we managed a bit of a photo shoot.

When we got up again to the road, we were pretty cold, so Jae suggested that we cross the road to the very splendid, if deserted, upmarket Hotel Bristol for a cuppa to warm us up. At least it was open. We went in and were escorted up to a truly splendid dining room, with wonderful painted tiles on the floor and floral murals on the walls. It had the same fantastic view across the Bay of Naples, that I remember from my first visit. There is the bay in front, Vesuvius centre stage, hills all around and the fishing village of Sorrento almost at our feet.

We showed the very friendly waiter and the manager, who was maybe his father, the photo of me on the balcony in 1972. They were immediately convinced that it had been taken on a balcony of their hotel and delighted that Jae and I had returned! They talked about exactly where it must have been taken, explaining that more floors had been added to the hotel, which accounted for the slightly different aspect.

Jae and I spent an hour or so looking out over the amazing view, which had seemed to me to be something out of this world, on my first visit. We had warm drinks, which they brought with petits fours, then we moved on to limoncello, for old times’ sake.

Having thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this gorgeous hotel, which I had quite definitely never visited before, we asked the waiter for the bill. He said we should pay downstairs at reception, and walked us to the lift: the geography of hotels in this area is complicated, because of being up the side of a cliff.

At reception, we asked for our bill, and were told there would be no charge! They were delighted we had come and hoped we would return in the future. So we both came out feeling very well treated, slightly embarrassed, and with big grins on our faces. We have got into blogging of late – but now seem to be getting into blagging too! The Kili 3G plan has a lot to answer for!

We have walked on paths along the side of many citrus groves during our perambulations on the Amalfi coast. Some of the fruit is absolutely enormous and grows very densely. I was very surprised to hear that they can get up to four crops of lemons in one year! Why do we only get one crop of apples off our apple trees in Kent? I have found it very hard not to stop and pick up the oranges and lemons that have fallen on to the paths, but it doesn’t make sense to have the weight of them in my back pack all day – a missed scrumping opportunity!

When Stew and I were in this area on a walking holiday twenty odd years ago, we did one walk which ended on a citrus fruit farm. They showed is some of the most bizarre trees growing several varieties of fruit on each tree. I particularly remember the big grapefruits which were like oranges inside.

They made limoncello on the farm and they pressed the group to sample it. Stew decided to buy a bottle of it, and it was sold to him in a lemonade bottle with a crown cap on. However, when we got home, we couldn’t find the bottle. We couldn’t understand how we could have lost it.

It was about two months later that we found it. Stew had put the bottle into his back pack in a very little-used pocket. When he got home, he didn’t check the pocket and used the bag to carry his books up to the university every day. That bottle must have been carried up and down to the university a few dozen times before Stew found it! Sad to say, it didn’t taste anything like as good back home as it had in that sunny orchard with the trees heaving with fruit around us.

Jae and I have been getting lots of good hill walking practice in in Italy. Every bit of leg muscle aches. It must be good preparation for Kili.

Ma and I have attempted Vesuvius. If you haven’t read the post for the 10th of February on this blog, I’d recommend reading it now – it’ll make a little more sense of what’s to come in this one. You can find it on the calendar (on the left side bar on a laptop or desktop, or scroll down when you’ve clicked for the menu on a phone).

After the 2000+ steps walking down to Amalfi, every member of the group was “oof”ing as they sat down and stood up at breakfast. There was plenty of discussion about whether bums, knees or calves ached most. I was definitely in the calves camp – i tried to stand with my heels off a little step to stretch them out and my calves just said “no”! I’m somewhere in the middle of the group age-wise and I could only imagine it was feeling even achier for the older members of the group, but everyone seemed ready for whatever the day threw at us.

We left on the bus at 8.30am as Paul, our guide for the week, said it would be a long day. We drove to Pompeii and met up with a tour guide called Detori who showed us around. It’s a huge place – far larger than I’d ever imagined, and at the front gate there would have been public baths, with complicated heating and steaming systems, that all entrants to the city had to purify themselves in before they were allowed into the city walls. All of Detori’s talk of sitting, chatting in the warm pools, made me wish they were restored, and I could plunge my body – aching calves and all – into the steaming water. No such luck though, and on we all went, completely unpurified!

Pompeii was fascinating and, right at the end of the tour we were shown into a villa which Ma recognised from her visit when she was pregnant with me. We ate lunch and then jumped back in the bus to head up towards Vesuvius.

We changed into our walking boots and all piled out of the bus to start the climb. As the bus pulled away I said to Ma, “Have you got Grandma?”, at which point she hollered, “Stop that bus, we’ve left Grandma on it!” (which rather answered my question). The lovely Paul looked a bit quizzical, but jumped in front of the bus while Ma went on and retrieved Grandma (or, more accurately, a fifth of Grandma’s ashes). They were in a small, pretty cotton bag, and had been sitting on our headboard, adorned by Mimosa, under a picture of a view Grandma would have loved, for the previous few days.

We walked up the volcano to the edge of the crater, and then started to work our way around the crater. At one point, before the highest peak, our guide – Stefano – said, “This is probably the spot with the best view” and he went on to explain something about the crater. But I wasn’t listening. Our drive for bringing Grandma to Italy was to find her a brilliant view, and here was one looking out at the Bay of Naples, and across to Capri – she’d have loved it. So, while Stefano chatted on, I checked the wind direction (I’ve heard some bad ash-scattering stories!) and threw the ashes to the side of the volcano. Vesuvius is covered in ash, so it made not a jot of difference to anyone. Except us. A few of the men in the group doffed their caps to my gorgeous Grandma, and we all walked on. And we made it to the top!

So that’s another mountain Ma has under her belt. And Grandma can forever look at Capri and the beautiful, glittering sea around it, and imagine herself passing the time of day with Gracie Fields. A good day!

On our holiday, the Exodus group walked from Bomerano to Amalfi. As Bomerano is halfway up a mountain, it involved a lot of downhill, as well as some ups. The mountain paths seem designed for mules rather than mortals: they mainly consist of steps – about 2000 in total down to sea level – quite demanding on the legs. Our guide recommended when we were about three quarters of the way down that if one of our legs was suffering more than the other, that we should lead with that one on the steps. Most of us had been doing the opposite and were pleasantly surprised to discover he was right! My left leg was starting to feel a bit worse for wear after several hundred steps, which is perhaps not surprising, given that I broke it about sixteen months ago. I was gardening at the time, wielding the electric hedge trimmer, when my left foot got jammed against the edge of the path, causing me to lose my balance and fall gracefully over, making sure I did not damage the trimmer on the way. Happily the electricity cut out – but my leg snapped as I went.

As I had heard the snap, I knew my leg was broken, but didn’t want to leave the garden a mess, so I hopped over to the nearby green wheelie bin, which I was able to use as a Zimmer frame, while I gathered up the branches I had cut and put the trimmer in the shed. I then went indoors where I had to crawl, as I didn’t want to bring the handy wheelie inside. I got to my computer to look up what facilities there are in Canterbury for managing a broken leg, and was delighted to discover that it is considered a minor injury and could probably be dealt with at the Minor Injuries Unit at Kent and Canterbury Hospital. I had no wish to end up at A&E in Ashford or Margate unnecessarily. I phoned for a taxi and having grabbed Stew’s trekking pole from the hall as I crawled out, was at the hospital in five minutes. I managed to walk in using the stick, but was pretty miffed when the triage nurse asked me “Do you usually need a stick to walk, dear?” After an X-ray, my diagnosis was confirmed, the leg was plastered and I was ready to go within about an hour and a half. Stew had been out walking with his chums that day, but I reckoned he would be home by then, so I phoned him and asked him to fetch me home, which he did – although not very promptly because he managed to get involved in a very unlikely traffic jam on the way. He is still sticking to his story about that, however!

I am very lucky that I had such a straightforward break that was not displaced. I can think of three friends who have also broken their left legs in the last year or so, who have not had it so easy. One broke hers in the shower, one walking down her garden path and one of Stew’s walking chums broke his walking through a wood. It does seem that extreme sport is not necessary for breaking your left leg! I don’t know about the right.

I think my leg will serve me alright. I understand that there are no stone steps on Kili, so I don’t have to worry about that one. So it’s onwards and upwards.

Well Jae and I have been up a mountain: my first as far as I can recollect. We can do it – and what a fabulous day!

We are on our first Exodus holiday – Walking the Amalfi Coast – based in a village up from the coast called Bomerano. There are sixteen people in the group ranging in age from about early thirties to seventies and they are a lovely bunch of people. Most of them are fairly serious walkers and unlike us, have done many such walking holidays before. We all chatted to each other all day, and I have got to know everyone’s name.

One of the guys has actually been up Kili. I was rather alarmed to hear he had to spend his first night in a hut rather than a tent because there were cats about. It was a couple of hours after I had spoken to him when I started to think more about this and asked him what sort of cats they were. He said they were leopards!!! I didn’t realise that was a possibility.

My alarm was compounded by someone else who was talking about climbing another mountain in Africa who said she stayed in huts which were overrun by rats. In my book, that’s just as scary as a leopard. She said they stole her socks to make hammocks for their babies. I await hearing about what other wildlife I run the risk of encountering.

The mountain we climbed today – Monte Tre Calli – is apparently higher than Snowdon, which is pretty impressive – although we did start from well above sea level. It was a gorgeously sunny day and the mountain had masses of bright purple crocuses with yellow centres growing alongside our path. When we got to the top we had our packed lunch looking out over fabulous views. The village of Positano was nestled underneath us, looking out over the azure sea. I remember my first glimpse of that village forty three years ago, when the bus Stew and I were on stopped for five minutes for people to take photos. I had spent lots of holidays in Scotland looking out over the North Sea, which was often grey and forbidding looking. The colour of the Mediterranean here is amazing and I was so struck by the light brightness of it both then and now.

I am so pleased to be seeing it again in such happy and exciting circumstances. A week of walking up and down the mountains here should surely stand us in good stead for Kili – though the wildlife we encountered today consisted of dogs, cows and mules – not leopards or rats.

After the walk we stopped in the village for a drink sitting outside a bar. Although we only ordered drinks, they brought us all sorts of other things. Portions of pizza appeared, plates of salad, and yummy hot chestnuts. They also plied us with some exotic liqueurs, one of which was made with carob and chillies. It had quite a bite! They then presented each woman in the group with a sprig of mimosa. I suspect we might drop in there again on some other days this week.

I think this training for climbing Kili is a pretty good idea!

I thought I hadn’t  climbed a mountain before, however I was reminded recently that once when we were in the Isle of Man, Stew and I went up Snaefell.  I remember being at the top and being told that it was possible to see seven “kingdoms” from there – but we could see nothing, because there was a howling gale and it was very foggy.  We hung on to the “trig point” to stop ourselves from blowing away!  I felt quite chuffed to think that maybe I have climbed something before, until I was told there is a tram that goes nearly to the top.  So that’s why we were there: for the tram ride!  Stew would travel across a continent to have a tram ride, and for sure, that is how we got up.  We just walked a few yards from the tram stop.

I have ridden a bike of some sort all of my life, but other than that, I did no voluntary exercise at all that I can think about, during the first half of my life.  I always tried to avoid PE at school, and was fairly successful in that.  However, in my mid 30s, my friend Pat told me one day that we were going to start jogging and that I had to buy some running shoes.  I did as I was told and we started jogging, mainly over the local army range.  We went at it quite hard.  I remember coming back to her house one day after doing a few miles absolutely red in the face and exhausted.  Pat’s mother met us at the door and took one look at me and said “She’s sweating like a bull”!  I don’t think my step mother would have been impressed with that: she always told us that “Horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow”.  Well – I ain’t no lady!  I am proud to be a woman.

I continued jogging with various friends for about twenty years, until my knees told me it was time to stop.  I am eternally grateful to Pat that she pushed me to start, as I don’t think I would be in any state to even think about climbing Kili now otherwise.  When I stopped running, I started going to Pilates classes in Canterbury, and have been going ever since.  I have really enjoyed that and it hasn’t made me too sweaty!  I have done every kind of Pilates, including mat, ball, studio and reformer classes and know that I am stronger and more flexible as a result.  I will continue with that in the next few months, but need to step up the more aerobic activities, such as walking and cycling.  Come the warmer weather, I will go swimming in the sea too. I’m not a big fan of swimming pools, since I was taught to scuba dive in a local pool, and saw the delightful variety of debris on the bottom!!!!

I have been going around looking a bit like the Cheshire Cat lately, directly as a result of the Kili project. Three days running, I had lovely things happen.

On the first day a friend, a highly respected academic, who has written well researched books on diverse topics, mentioned in an email that she was enjoying our blog and thought I was a good writer! I was really chuffed that she would even read my stream of consciousness ramblings, let alone praise it.

On the second day, I received a real letter in the post from someone I did a PGCE with more years ago than I like to think about. She had read about our proposed Kili climb in the Kentish Gazette and sent me a truly zany letter explaining that she had not been in touch for years because her personal life had been completely subsumed by her demanding job – she was a brilliant headmistress in a school in a very deprived area. However she has just left work and was reclaiming her life and friends. We have since agreed to a walk and a pub lunch so we can catch up on the last few decades. Yippee – I feel truly blessed.

On the third day, a friend came up to me at the end of a Pilates class, saying she would like to give me a cheque for the charities we are supporting. I thanked her, but mentioned it would be worth 25% more if she could do it on line through our site and Gift Aid it. She said she could not manage to do that. I said that perhaps I could do it on my iPhone for her – so she pulled out her bank card, so we could try. When I asked her how much she wanted to give, she said £200! The Cheshire Cat smile was out big time at that: I had anticipated a tenner. And I did it: five minutes fiddling with my phone, and I had increased the money for the charities by £50. I was pleased to be able to tell her that the money gets sent to the charities at the end of every week, so already there might be one more client of Catching Lives with the prospect of finding a home and maybe a woman in Tanzania a step further forward towards a career as a guide. And many thanks to my honorary daughter, Katie Vermont, who adopted our family as her own many years ago, for giving me her old iPhone for Christmas a few years ago, having the patience to go with me to a shop to transfer it to me, and then sit with me to show me how to use it. I love you, Katie!

Today Ma and I are heading to the airport. We are off on an adventure.

Last Autumn, having just started at Exodus, I looked through the brochures, listened to what other staff spoke about, and looked at the number of guests booking each trip. Time and again I heard mention of “TDA” which is the short code for a trip called, “Walking the Amalfi Coast“. I still don’t know many short codes yet – some people have them all in their heads – but TDA went in and stuck quickly. I’ve never been anywhere near the Amalfi Coast but it sounded like a great combination of daytime walking, and evening eating and drinking, so I decided to try it out.

I knew that Ma & Pa had been to Vesuvius at some point, long ago, because I remember there being a piece of lava, with a parcel label tied to it with string, around for all of my childhood. Ma is a good walker, so I thought I’d give her a ring and see whether she fancied it too. Quick as a flash when I proposed the trip, she said, “Ooh yes, I’d love to. In fact I go there regularly!”. Apart from the small chunk of Vesuvius I didn’t realise we had any relationship with Italy, so I was a bit confused:

J: “Regularly? You don’t go to Italy regularly do you?”

S: “Yes I do, or at least I will. I went there when I was pregnant with you, again 21 ½ years later for a weekend with Stew, and this will be 43 years later. So that’s regular. Not frequent, but regular!”

J: “Right enough!”

So it turns out I have been before – although only as a foetus! To maintain mum’s regularity we quickly got TDA booked. We both started to look forward to our time together. I realised that I’ve never been away with just my mum before. We’ve been on holidays together lots of times – with family and friends – including the “girls holidays” (with up to 12 girls aged something like 18-80) that Ma used to organise at the end of February each year before Gwen and I started having babies. It’s a fantastic time of year to have a holiday booked for. I always feel like January, with its dark mornings and evenings, and chilly wet weather, is a bit of a struggle, so having something to look forward to in late Feb / early March is an emotional talisman to get me through.

Since we booked it of course, we’ve decided to attempt Kili. Eek! What we’d planned to be a stroll and limoncello, has now taken on the mantel of a training week. We’ll see how our walking boots get us through, and I’ll learn whether I can get up and put them back on again for another walk every day for a week. It’s something Ma does regularly (and when I say regularly I mean every six months or so, rather than every 21 ½ years!) but I don’t think I’ve ever walked every day for a week in my life.

I think I’m just about packed – bizarrely, I’ve been considering what I’ll need for Kili so much that I’ve not thought about this holiday. I threw some stuff in a suitcase at 10pm last night which I think will do the job. All that’s left is to make 28 packed lunches by 9am for Ivor’s 7^th birthday party which is today – I made up the party bags last night – and put everything in the car. First stop: Northall Village Hall; then the train from Tring to Gatwick to find my gorgeous mummy, and then Amalfi here we come!

The husband of a very good friend died recently, and Stew and I decided to attend his funeral in the Scottish Borders. My kind brother Robbie, who was also going with Mary, his wonderful wife, offered to give us a lift to Scotland from the south of England, which made the whole thing so much easier.

It reminded me of another occasion forty two years ago, when he and his car came to our rescue. I had won the prize of a weekend for two in the Mediterranean in the Guardian competition in 1971. I was pregnant with Jae at the time, and for some long forgotten reason, we decided to take the holiday in March 1972, when I was 29 weeks pregnant. At that time, the airlines had a rule that no-one was allowed to fly during the ten weeks preceding the expected date of delivery. However, we were just off for the weekend, so no problem, or so we thought. We chose to go to Sorrento on the Amalfi coast and were enormously excited, never before having had a holiday together anywhere more exotic than the weekend honeymoon we had enjoyed in Oban.

We were on the plane, when Stew started to complain of feeling unwell. I was my usual brisk self with him, telling him that everyone feels a bit odd in a plane.

However, he started to get what looked like blisters on his face, and by the time we arrived in the hotel, even I had to agree that something was wrong with him. I said it looked a bit like chicken pox. That reminded Stew that a week or so previously, he had taken a group of students, who were studying housing policy, to visit some homes in Salford: he was a lecturer at Manchester University at the time. While there, they had gone into a house where they saw a woman dabbing calamine lotion on to a naked child, who was covered in chicken pox. So we were pretty sure that must be what was ailing Stew, but realised that if we told anyone, that we could find ourselves stuck in Italy for quite some time, and that would mean I would be too pregnant to fly home!

We had absolutely no savings and no insurance. There was nothing for it but to pretend everything was alright and fly home as planned, at the end of the weekend – probably spreading illness throughout the area and to those on the flight! Stewart girded his loins and did the trip up Vesuvias, a bus tour to Amalfi and a walk round Pompeii and we got the plane back. The plane landed in London and the plan was to return to Manchester by train: but Stewart could barely stand upright. I contacted his uncle and aunt in Harrow and they agreed that we could go there. Stew barely made it through the door before collapsing. He stayed in bed there for several days and I realised there was no way he could return home to Manchester by public transport.

My brother Robbie – only 21 at the time – rose to the occasion. He showed himself to be a star by picking us up in his car in Harrow and driving us all the way home to Manchester. We were so grateful to get safely home. Stew was off work ill for almost a month.

So that was the first occasion on which Jae and I were on the Amalfi coast. We are off there again soon to do some walking training in readiness for the Kili trip. Fingers crossed for a less stressful visit!