Day something-minus-zero

As you can see from the above, we successfully dragged ourselves up the mountain. Fortunately enough, apart from the final ascent, it was less of a drag than we had feared in the darkest midnights leading up to our Big Walk and more of a walking catalogue for Cotswold, mingled with games, chatter, soup and a smattering of show tunes.

I managed to get away with no more altitude sickness than a bit of shortness of breath, slight blue lips at the summit and a throbbing headache when singing show tunes, but the way the rest of our group managed to pull themselves to the top while suffering a variety of complaints, with one even hospitalised, was an inspiration. Particularly considering that PhotoShop covers a multitude of sins these days.

Many thanks to everyone who supported us, both in the UK and Africa. I have passed the charity giving target, last at £3,495, but I’m sure they wouldn’t knock a few nuggets more.

http://www.justgiving.com/Katherine-Doggrell


What we have learned:
You don’t NEED to sleep. Not really.

No-one can remember more than the chorus of any show tune.

Boot update:
All hail. No blisters, no leaks, apparently no impact on them at all. No thank-you, Mr Chap-at-the-bottom, I don’t want them cleaned.

28 days to go - one mountain down, one to go

yes, that's right, Wendy rules. Even if the shirt doesn't. Go team :)

28 days to go

With less than a month to go until The Mountain, and pretty much all the medicines/equipment/training achieved that one would allow us to be effective help in most disaster zones, we are perilously close to being prepared.

But, as I am reminded on most working days, there’s always something you can learn (and yes, maybe it is something I have already been told, in capitals, in an email) and last weekend’s equipment test at the Reading Festival (it’s what the SAS would do) was an excellent test of our mountain skills.

Now having reached twice the average age of the other attendees at the festival, I am something of a pro at the old tent-pitch. Indeed, such a pro am I that this year I pitched all our tents in the drizzle on the Thursday, before retiring to a soft, fluffy hotel for the night. Plus flag, on pole.

However, I suspect there’s a difference between lying around in a puddle of cider all night before transferring yourself to a chair in the sun, and having a hearty night’s sleep before walking for six hours.

Largely what we discovered was that yes, we will need pillows, unless we want to do our walk all Gladstone Small (where’s your neck, Gladstone?). We will also need twice as many wet wipes, and sun screen, but fewer members of The Youth asking us what Commies are.

The learning must have sunk in, because Wendy went back to Snowdon yesterday to take that bitch back on, or something, and won. I’m very proud, and jealous, and waiting for her to approve using the photo on here....



What we have learned:
A comfy sleeping mat will be key to mountain sleeping, given that we won’t have the luxury of using our own body weight in cider to get us to sleep

Apparently the insect-repelling shirt does not repel insects

Boot update:
The state of Wendy’s after Reading made me very envious indeed

46 days to go (until our flight)

Now I’m usually a bullish sort of person - I’ve rubbed the shiny balls of the one near Wall Street and everything - but I’m afraid that, as of tomorrow, I will be fully bearish. Bring on your double dip, the end is nigh.

Unusually for a commentator rather than a market maker, I can attribute the imminent economic collapse to myself. In mountain-milestone news, I have finally acquired all the bits of kit that I need. Right down to the rubble bags (I shied away from going to the vet and asking for dead-dog-bags. Largely because my vet would have charged me £20 plus a £15 consultation fee).

Last stop was Boots, for a collection of preventatives and curatives that would have had the checkout girl reaching for 999/the pop-up isolation room if they hadn’t had the good sense to install self-checkouts.

Sadly for the wider economy, it is now unlikely that I will ever go into a Millets/Cotswold/Mountain Warehouse again. Next camping event is Reading next week, but as any aficionado of festival camping will tell you, less is less. No staff for carrying things after all.

Sell, sell, sell....

What we have learned:
EVERYONE is up the mountain at the moment. The hire company has run out of sleeping bags.

Boot update:
Utterly filthy after walking in the rain on Saturday. Result.

69 days to go

As someone who spends a decent percentage of their time reporting on the world of finance, i should be able to add up. I've been on courses. I read The Economist. I have a calculator function on my computer.

It won't some as too much of a shock to those who have actually met me to learn that I am about 10 days out on my countdown. Sticky diary pages? Maybe.

More time for lunges.

What we have learned:
Nothing we didn't know, deep down

Boot update:
They stop me being able to use my toes for counting

58 days to go

I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike.

Well, I don’t, not since I had it stolen from Brighton station. And by ‘stolen’ I suspect I mean ‘removed by station staff after I decided to informally store it there'. Well you can walk everywhere in Brighton, so after I moved from London and my daily death run through the City during the morning rush hour, I had no immediate need for it.

Since we went to Wales and our attempt to use our bodies as human sponges to keep rain from the delicate slopes of Snowdon, we’ve had more mountain chums on Facebook. And more mountain chums means more exposure to what everyone else is doing training-wise.

Since the pre-mountain hot tub I have been doing more swimming, but that makes my hairdresser angry, angry, angry, despite the lovely swimming hat. And I don’t know what Zumba is, so I won’t be doing that (I also find it impossible to commit to classes at the gym. Particularly classes in front of a mirrored wall - never happened in French GCSE).

Cycling seems to be a theme though and, what with all the staycationing and people finding ways to enjoy the rich and varied countryside of the UK now they can’t got to Disney World, there are cheap bicycles available aplenty.

I’ve been in two minds about getting a bicycle - one mind which was sure it would be good for the endurance training, the other which was concerned about getting smeared across the nearest central reservation.

The answer to this is a cycle helmet, I realise this. The dilemma is similar to the reasons why so many people have dreadlocks for so long - you know where it’s going to end up and that look only worked for Sinead O’Connor.

The clincher was that, when I look on my CV, it doesn’t say ‘Page 3 model’ or even ‘optometry model’. I need the contents of my skull to work and thus feed Satan’s Animal and pay the hairdresser. I tried to avoid the worst aerodynamic multi-vent options and get a skateboard helmet, but it’s really two sides of the same hair consequence.

As a distraction, I got the most festive bike there is - and a week before Pride in Brighton. I may be able to make the money back by renting it out as a float.

What we have learned:
The temptation to become a bike path fascist is strong

Boot update:
The one place on earth they don’t work. That or the cycling terrain in the kitchen is not optimal.

68 days to go

Just call me Typhoid Mary. Well, Hepatitis A, Diptheria, Tetanus, Polio, Yellow Fever, Typhoid Mary. As time ticks closer to the hour that we will be boarding our flight (in our boots, from Heathrow, could there be greater shame. Or more possibility for people to see it and spread the world globally), our minds turn temporarily away from doing lunges and rubbing on poultices and towards paperwork.

We won’t be allowed near the mountain without two things: a Tanzania visa and a Yellow Fever certificate and in the spirit of organisation (and putting off analysing a really huge pile of Excel tables) I frolicked down to the post office with my passport and £38, then frolicked up to the doctor.

It turns out that the NHS can see you same day, same hour even, if the purpose is to ram you full of disease. I suppose it’s a pleasant change from constantly trying to prevent it. Either way they were speedy and efficient in a manner that would stun The Daily Mail, leaving me with more toxins in my arm than (insert name of pop star here - lose 10 points for ‘Pete Doherty’).



What we have learned:
Top secret NHS tip - go to the Caribbean, there are no kids there...


Boot update:
Boots? Boots? There is no room for boots in the land of paperwork

77 days to go pt.1

From this...

77 days to go pt.2

To this...

The UK can often be a game of two halves. Not, happily, like the World Cup and its game of three halves, but a definite split nonetheless. North vs. South. Town vs Country. Guardian readers vs Everyone Else. We are not as United as we seem.

So, on one of the hottest days of the year for the south east, it should have come as no shock to learn that, while all our little friends were sitting in Victorian copper baths full of Pimms, flinging pork parts onto the barbie, Wendy and I would be up Snowdon, visibility hindered by lashings and lashings of rain flooding into our faces and mist that often stopped us from seeing the rest of our group. Not because we were rubbish at walking or staying on paths, y’understand.

Our ‘attempt on the summit” (see? we’re proper mountaineers) was called off with around an hour left to go, just as we were simultaneously thinking “this is a tonne of fun/potential Health & Safety debacle”, but it did give us the chance to get onto the second most important part of trekking - eating a lot of biscuits.

The weekend wasn’t just about testing out the wetter end of our performance outerwear (very good, since you ask. Only casualty was my wallet and its vast loyalty-free collection of loyalty cards. I’m a long way away from a free coffee at Recipease, once again), but also the first time we got to meet the organisers, other people we were going to Africa with and a giant pile of kit.

The people from our group who were there this weekend seem like just the kind of people we could go mad and get covered in our own vomit with (you learn a lot about yourself when you’re sharing a dorm full of bunk beds) and we learned a similar amount about what powders to put in our water and that there are worse jobs than chicken plucking - you could be the porter who carries the toilet.





What we have learned:
It is all about thick plastic bags for all your items. Possibly also colour-coded.

The Diamox vs. Viagra debate rages on

‘Summit’ is a verb as well as a noun

Boot update:
I proper love them, I do. More that I would have thought possible for shoes. Obviously I won’t be wearing them when next in New York. Or any area with a population of more that six.

95 days to go

Climbing up mountains is life-changing in so many ways. The contemplation of man vs. The elements. The journey of self-knowledge. The relentless battle in the wardrobe of substance over style.

And yesterday I came across a new one - no more giving blood for me this year. Apparently when I come back from the mountain my blood will be sloshing with malaria pills, sleeping sickness and pox from eating monkey brains like in Indiana Jones.

They don't want me there for six months afterwards it seems, lest they be tempted to consume me into a giant biohazard bag.

Begs the question: "where am I going to get my free Wagon Wheels now?"

What we have learned:
I'll have to get through almost 10 months without being congratulated on my veins

Boot update:
The NHS does not believe in their protective qualities as much as it could

99 days to go

One thing that I learned in Austria is that a mountain is a lot more hospitable if you cater it. It’s even more hospitable if you stick a cable car on it too, but while I can hope that I might remember to take some Maltesers up the mountain, I have come to terms with the idea that all that performance footwear might come in handy for something more than swinging around in a metal box making Moonraker jokes.

But it’s been a long week, full of days riddled with people talking about revpar in the budget hotel industry and lectures on social media where our un-awesome selves were repeatedly assured that we were, in fact, fully awesome.

So I wasn’t ready for a return to the wild lands of, well, the South Downs and it was Wendy’s turn to pick a route, so Urban Hiking was born. So great was Wendy’s skill that she was able to take us past an estate by the name of Wendling. A personalised training regime indeed.

Rather like Austria, Urban Hiking was riddled with excellent catering, leaning towards the cake in Highgate and Primrose Hill, although leading to fears that fatter, rather than fitter, was a likely conclusion.

It certainly was efficient though. In a mere two hours we saw hills, forests, cricket pitches, running tracks, people in Hunter wellies on tarmac’d paths, more than you’d see in an afternoon or more on an average hike. But then an average hike usually ends with an anonymous slink back home in Richard Hammond’s trousers, rather than a mainline train full of shoppers wondering why none of their trousers zipped off at the knee.

What we have learned:
There will be no cupcakes in Africa.


Boot update:
We avoided bothering Bill Nighy on our Primrose Hill latte stop, on the grounds that he might not share our enthusiasm for our matching boots.

116 days to go

Heaven forfend that, the day after England’s first World Cup match, I should start to claim that there are some things other countries can do better than us. Certainly not, say, stopping balls meandering into goals. Or having a striker who can’t recognise a ball at all.

But what we lose in actual sporting ability, we gain in barbecuing, frosty drinks and amusing England-branded boob tubes. We recognise our failings and compensate in other ways, maintaining that essential balance.

So, bearing in mind our way with the performance outerwear, but lack of craggy outcrops, I took myself, the boots and the mosquito-proof shirt off to visit Our Graz Correspondent to see what a mountain was really capable of.

What it was capable of, it turned out, was a great pointiness. And bears (apparently). And, as a warning, churches featuring withered corpses on display as, one assumes, a cautionary tale against excessive hiking.

Ignoring that, OGC towed me up an extreme hillock a quarter the height of The African Mountain (it’s starting to take on Macbeth-stye mythology the closer it gets), then a series of smaller hills/staircases in the area. They like a romp at an angle those Austrians, thinking nothing of banging in a staircase when some would say maybe installing a church at street level wouldn’t be the worse thing.

However, they too, like the English, know how to compensate and are aware that sometimes a person needs more than just a feeling of overwhelming smugness after staggering their way to the top of a mountain. Sometimes they like a beer, maybe a meal featuring some pumpkin seed products. And they don’t disappoint, making sure all peaks are fully catered. A lesson for all.


What we have learned:
Flying over a mountain range on the way in, I noted a subtle shift in my mindset, almost three months into the training. Instead of looking around at my fellow passengers to see who I’d eat in the event of an Alive-style calamity, I considered what angles I’d take to descend to safety*.



Boot update:
That’s right, Ryanair, I do wear them as regular shoes. Not just because they’d take me over your 10kg limit in my suitcase. Honest.





*Like I’d have the foggiest....there’s just no-one delicious on Ryanair.

123 days to go - the sequel

All this talk of performance outerwear, combined with a sudden turn to the overcast, caused me to ditch my Sunday afternoon plans in favour of putting on all my mountainwear at once and seeing how many pockets I would have at my disposal.

Thirteen. Hopefully not unlucky, but not including the as-yet-unconfirmed number on my backpack (I keep finding new ones - should have kept the explanatory leaflet). I was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t more. The outer-outer trouser has zips, but just to get to the main, dominant trouser and its pockets.


What we have learned:
I will be up the mountain with gnawed gloves, courtesy of Satan’s Cat

Boot update:
All-terrain includes carpet

123 days to go

The smashing thing about the performance outerwear is that it can do so many things at once.

In the excellent Top Gear Bolivia challenge, which I consider to be the ultimate Kilimanjaro how-to (what? They go in a jungle AND up a mountain, makes sense to me...) Jeremy Clarkson spends some of his time wearing Richard Hammond’s unzippable lower trouser leg as a hat.

Practical that may well be, however, as I was informing The Brain only yesterday during our nine-mile frolic in Hampshire, I will be transforming my own Richard Hammond trousers into shorts on pain of, well, nothing. There is no scenario at all when I would tolerate such a thing. Not even panda/dragon attack. Any joy I would take from a sudden breeze around the legs would be negated by the terrible fashion consequences of a mid-thigh-length short.

Fortunately, hats are not something that I am lacking, with, at at the last count, four plus two matching moustache bandanas. What became apparent from our stumble up Butser Hill under the noonday sun was that the time has come to go for the all over performance approach.

While I have embraced the boots and the performance trouser (but not its transformational capacities) I have clung to my array of assorted hilarious band t-shirts. However, they lean towards the black and away from the sun-proof.

I have found it simple to ignore the need for any kind of summer clothing for the past three years, as we have failed to have any kind of summer. However, having had one this weekend, the threat is becoming great that we might have one this year. I am informed by Our Graz Correspondent, who myself and the boots will be visiting this week for a Travels With My Latte overseas special, that it will be 34 degrees on Thursday.

So, preparing myself to hear an awful lot about wicking, I went and availed myself of some suitable attire, which is how it came to pass that I am now the owner of a shirt which has as its key skill, the ability to repel insects. Secondary skills include being easy to pack, quick drying and antibacterial.

To be fair, all my clothes, even the underperforming ones, are easy to pack. They do not all repel insects. In fact, I don’t even repel insects myself, meaning that my clothes are now outperforming me.



What we have learned:
When you buy performance outerwear, you may find yourself having a conversation about stains with the assistant at paying time about stains. This does not happen in Top Shop.


Boot update:
Having acquired another two pairs of liner socks I must be done by now. Seriously.

129 days to go - well, really 130

Raise the Severn Bridge and brick up Hadrian's Wall, it's time to be English again.

Egged on by the first home Test and the proliferation of tiny St George’s flags on taxis, England has been backcombing its mane and is getting the honey and lemon down to lubricate the roar.

So it should have come as no shock that our Bank Holiday walk from Eastbourne to East Dean via Beachy Head would end in a jamboree of Englishness that all but ended in a call to the bulldog farm for a rush order of puppies.

It started in a morbid interest in seeing Beachy Head - after all, there’s every chance our mountain shenanigans will mess with our heads, and mess with them at altitude. So, much as we’ve been testing our boots, fleeces and amazing 76-pocketed performance outerwear, it pays to test our mental capacity. It’s what the SAS would do.

So, as you can see from the above, we gave it a good look and chose life. Then we chose to have a slap up roasted feed at journeys end, just to seal the deal.

Journeys end turned out to be the Tiger Inn in East Dean, a village seemingly parachuted in by Visit England specifically for sunny bank holidays, but no doubt flat-packed on rainy Thursdays or times when the pound is too strong to attract the Europeans.

A village green with un-defaced war memorial surrounded by cottages, one of those delis selling organic fruit presses to the London folk, even a gathering of veterans and a bag piper. All illuminated by a traditional pub.

However, unlike most traditional pubs, it didn’t come complete with greying roast beef, but a menu of smoked haddock pates, homemade ice cream and of course, lashings of ginger beer.

Of course, no picturesque village is complete without a who-lived-here blue plaque. And who should live(d) in East Dean, but Sherlock Holmes.

It couldn’t have been more Disney if they’d piped Land of Hope and Glory through the privet hedges.



What we have learned:
If Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, but has a house in the real world, then it must be a portal to the fictional world. OR, it’s where Robert Downey Jr lives. Either way, I shall be getting onto the estate agent


Boot update:
Wendy’s are bothering her ankles and not in the way that young men of racy sentiment in Olden Times bothered ankles.

129 days to go

Hiking boots are in vogue. In Vogue, in vogue, in fact. This means that we are officially trendsetters. Next time you see Kate Moss she will be in a Hooters t-shirt, Richard Hammond’s trousers and two-pairs-of-socks-one-thick-for-warmth-one-thin-to-stop-blisters.

What have we learned:
Fashion will come to an end. And it looks like it might be soon.

Boot update:
Stylish for summer with a Marc Jacobs tote

138 days to go

When Wendy and I were traversing the Arun valley and its delightful array of B roads last week, she remarked, as we pondered the Green Cross Code for railway lines, that being with me was not unlike being in Final Destination.

For anyone who isn’t a fan of sketchy films featuring US high schoolers and the perils of not getting on the correct flight, the basic premise is that you shouldn’t fight too much if your number is up. And if you do feel the need to fight, make sure you don’t then start going on rollercoasters/playing with knives and fire.

So it’s not a terribly reassuring thing to be told. But despite the stubborn cows, deep-flowing rivers and duelling motorcyclists, I don’t think that you could count anything as near-death. Even though some of the train track crossings were on blind corners, it wasn’t as though our reaching the other side was then followed immediately by the whooshing of grotesquely overpriced cider heading to the coast.

So I wasn’t concerned when The Brain suggested a walk around Ashdown Forest. It’s the home of Winnie the Pooh after all. The worst that could happen was that we could have our moods lowered by a grumpy donkey. Or eat too much honey and get temporarily stuck down a rabbit hole.

But, just like those perky high schoolers on their tour of Europe, you can speak too soon. The wheels grind extremely slowly, but they grind extremely fine, as I believe it goes. So there we were, fresh from Piglet car park, when we come across an adder in our path. The only venomous snake in Britain you know. And despite growing up in the New Forest, I’ve never seen one before. Still, it didn’t leap into our faces spitting poison, so no harm, no foul. Then we saw a slow worm, but they’re not dangerous and are only mentioned here because I sometimes wonder if they couldn’t be the equivalent of a tequila worm for sloe gin.

Then I found a rope swing (see photo) which had all the classic death-trap markings, but failed to deliver me to a watery/armless grave. Then the route guide wanted to take us into a field which was surrounded by the kind of security last seen in Jurassic Park. So we went round it.

It was only when trying to get through the angry metal sibling of the normally obliging five-bar gate that the weight of it dropped onto the tip of my middle finger. I could see why it was so commonly used for swearing. Instant swelling, black nail, bruise on the back of the finger and destruction of manicure.

After it became apparent that I was going to live, and live without having to do a Ranulph Fiennes and amputate anything in a potting shed, I was able to get on with my life and think about whether a complete recovery might be effected with the aid of an ice cream. Until The Brain said she was amazed I hadn’t hurt myself more in training.

What could happen? I’m just walking about a lot?

She refused to elucidate.





You may be wondering why no photo of the offended digit. Like all good tabloid photographers, I’m not happy unless it’s truly horrifying and I’m hoping that will be tomorrow morning. I’m a bit of a puritan when it comes to Photoshop you see.

What have we learned:
Nothing about what terrible wounds I’m likely to suffer next

If you pick up a slow worm, his tail will drop off (I’m told - not allowed to actually do it)


Boot update:
Although directed to a likely bog to make them look more authentic, I didn’t. I must be growing fond of them...

141 days to go

So there I was, Sorting Stuff Out (pilates was cancelled, there was an hour until Glee and that’s not long enough to watch the Top Gear Bolivia special) when what should I come across, but my Marlene Bar 2007 badge. I was thrilled, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Wendy and I had only recently been speculating on what, in addition to moustaches, we could bring to the top of the mountain, and here it was.

For those who don’t attend the annual International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin, and I am informed by the organiser that there were fewer Brits this year than normal, so that must be some of you, the Marlene Bar is the hub of all conference activity for three days.

Containing a lovely indoor pond, which, for health and safety reasons is covered over for the duration, the bar includes, at any time of the day or night, at least three lawyers, four bankers, 67 agents and a scattering of development executives, representing, if nothing else, a considerable proportion of tax payers’ wealth.

Described by one enterprising chap as ‘Glastonbury in suits’, the sheer strength of will required to attend ‘the Berlin conference’ and live to drag your expenses back to the office is an example to us mountain climbers.

Even more relevantly, the Kilimanjaro book says that mild altitude sickness is rather like operating with a hangover. As someone who has looked down at her watch and realised that she was going to have to put down the gin because morning had come and it was time to go to a panel on sale and leaseback, I am seeing close to a decade of Berlin as the equivalent of around 20 million lunges.

The good news for our party of adventurers is that Wendy has attended Berlin on several occasions and is also adept in the black art of thinking quite deeply about yield compression without having slept for three days and subsisting on green apples from the decorative displays.

It MUST count as training. They hand out commemorative badges to the bar, fer crying out loud.


What have we learned:
Don’t drink the clear spirits, you will confuse them with water next to your bed in the morning

Boot update:
Genius idea for next year’s conference

142 days to go

There comes a time, though we fight to delay it, when we are forced to realise that Barack Obama may not be right all the time. There. I’ve said it. It was a shocking revelation, but one that I had when it turned out that, despite his eCampaign, President Progress is a bit twitchy about technology.

In a speech earlier this month he complained that iPods and iPads and Xboxes and whatnots were making information a ‘form of entertainment rather than a tool of empowerment’.

What tosh I thought. Clearly the man doesn’t have the Starbucks app, one of the most empowering tools ever to be created. Nearest outlets, opening hours, muffin availability. The power goes straight to my head.

But apparently Obama doesn’t wake up in the morning and wonder where his nearest latte is coming from, which is the benefit of having staff. The rest of us have to harness our virtual servants.

I had a chance to test out who was right: me or Obama, this weekend, when Wendy and I were due to do our first Big Walk. The first time that we had walked for six to seven hours - the kind of time we’ll be doing in our trailing up the mountain.

To this end, I had looked on Google and found that Arundel to Brighton was 21 miles. Perfect. And Arundel the home of hiking an’ all. I then looked up a suitable route on MapMyWalk. However - and this is where the human error part of any disaster comes into play - I had failed to back up my online route-locating skills with OS real-world skills. Largely because I already have an OS map of the general area, which I thought was bound to cover it.

A check the night before revealed that it didn’t at all, and because I don’t live anywhere near a 24-hour Millets, there was no chance of getting one before the next morning. Never mind, I thought and I got an untroubled night’s sleep safe in the knowledge that Obama was wrong.

I had an A4 print-out of the MapMyWalk map. I had my OS map which, although it didn’t include the majority of the route, nonetheless it did cover the final few miles. I had the iPhone, which had a compass, a map with locating and routing ability, an OS app and a pedometer app to track our general fitness and smugness.

The compass came in very handy immediately, for working out which way we were meant to be headed along the twisty turny Arun river. A river so twisty turny that it took us an interminable time to leave Arundel at all with the castle seemingly playing Simon Says behind us, very successfully, for at least two hours. Certainly long after the pedometer gave up the ghost.

The MapMyWalk map was good for as long as it followed the route of the river, but once there was a need to identify anything smaller than a massive river - a pathway, say - it was too small to speak up. At this point, the OS app also found itself mute, lacking the huge gobbet of bandwidth to operate in the middle of a valley. The iPhone map was more enthused, but, despite having a ‘walk’ option, very much wanted us to walk along the nearest B road. Technology is attracted to its own, it seems.

More worryingly than that was the map’s insistence that, despite having clearly walked around five miles by this point, we had 22.73 miles left to Brighton. More than we’d started out with. Although I was sure I could smell the sea/stag nights.

Shortly after that, our worry came in the form of the B2139, which was less pavements and more motorcycle race-track. Happily, there was a ditch full of stinging nettles which we could walk in to stop ourselves being smeared across the road. Eventually we also came across a track that would allow us to cross the fields next to us without getting double-barrelled. We then had merely to scale a sheer cliff face (see photo) to get onto the South Downs Way and the familiarity of performance outerwearers, large-calved cyclists and, oddly, given the lack of sofas, a herd of bichons.

Seven hours in, we decided the next sighting of dwelling which could support more than two people, even just a roof, would mark our exit. Despite walking for around 23 miles, we failed to make it onto the actual OS map.

I’m going to consult Obama when it’s time for my next software upgrade...

What we have learned:
An acquaintance, who has actually climbed the mountain, managed to do so without the madness/vomiting, although admitted to singing nursery rhymes. We are going to put together a repertoire of TV themes, starting with The Littlest Hobo.

Boot update:
After seven hours, they seemingly walk on their own. Handy.

146 days to go

If there was one thing that was drilled into me as a child, it was that all your body’s heat is, at any given moment, flooding out of your head. Even more than the importance of finishing your greens, or not swimming for an hour after eating, hats were imperative at all times. Odd, given the lustrous locks pouring out of my head, which would seem to do the job, but I know better than to mess with Science.

It should therefore have come as no shock to students of genetics that my sister should make me a hat for the task ahead and jolly lovely it is too. It combines perfectly with my tiny child-like head to allow me to wear my furry bear-hat and still see out.

But can you really have enough hats? I’ve been reading the book on Kilimanjaro again and I can’t help but think it looks nippy. So, when The Brain and I were in an outlet mall in Fareham (because it was the nearest Starbucks to the New Forest, alright?) it was but the work of a moment for me to snap up the above. And, as you can see, it was easily adapted to keep with our moustache theme.

I tried it out walking round the Cissbury Rings and right toasty it was.


What we have learned:
My head is the same size as a child aged 8-10. The balaclava was, in fact, a bit loose...

Boot update:
I also acquired some discount socks. Success will be sock-based, is my feeling

150 days to go

Practice may mean perfect, but not at the cost of a bit of book learnin’. As I’m sure that Touching the Void fella would attest, if you’re going to look down and see your shin bone poking through your knee, you want to know what it is, why it’s there and what type of fisherman’s knot you’re going to need to tie a nearby piece of vine into to restrain it.

To that end I have been reading a series of survival guides. And not any survival - 1950s RAF survival. Where the SAS Survival Handbook is a good source of rabbit-peeling tips, this will keep you alive and ensure that you remain a fine, upstanding representative of the Empire at the same time. Ideal.

Some edited highlights

Jungle survival (relevant - we will be travelling through such terrain at the base of the mountain)

Whatever type of country into which you are unfortunate enough to crash-land, or bale out, or if after a successful ditching you make a landfall on some small tropical island, your chances of survival and eventual rescue depend on a few definite factors. By far the most important is determination to live.

If you wish to attract attention, do not wear yourself out by shouting. Hit the trunk of a tall tree with a stout stick

Never rush blindly forward

Take things easily, giving yourself a break every hour or thereabouts. This break of five or 10 minutes should be utilised to discuss your route, take refreshment and de-leech

Natives:

Treat natives like human beings and don't 'look down' on them; after all, you will be wanting their help sooner or later

LEAVE THE NATIVE WOMEN ALONE

Entertain and be a good audience

Take practical jokes in good part

When you depart be sure to leave a good impression

Hunting:

Learn to attract animals by kissing the back of your hand vigorously and making a squeaking noise, which indicates the presence of a wounded mouse or bird; that should definitely attract some hungry animal. But learn to conceal yourself.

Conclusion:
The jungle is by no means as formidable a place as the average person imagines. There are many difficulties and snags, but the large majority of these can be surmounted, and eventually, with due care, consideration and perseverance, one can expect to arrive amongst friends. Undoubtably a little weary, worn, unkempt and certainly sick of jungle foods, hard rations and the irritating forms of jungle life; but nevertheless, safe and sound, ready to carry on as before


What we have learned:
More than we thought possible and that it’s all going to be OK in the end, probably with tea.

Boot update:
Leeches. ‘Nuff said.

153 days to go

Election days lose their thrill once you've voted, you've watched the potential leaders vote and you've laughed at the leaders' wives lie about who they've voted for. So, as it's a sunny day, I'm freelance and I was planning to be up all night anyway, I decided to cart myself off to the Downs.

Rumours have been swilling round Brighton of late, not only that everyone who said they were going to vote Green had failed to register, but also of a butchers which did homemade scotch eggs so amazing that you would immediately want to tattoo your face with the St George's cross. Or rather the St Andrew’s cross.

All this babbling about the wisdom of wrapping eggs in pig flesh is relevant to the wider goal. Our two A4 pages of Stuff We Need is not solely Stuff To Boost Millets Share Price. It's Compeed and drugs and snacks to eat between meals that won't ruin your appetite for pasta.

We haven't really road tested anything yet - although I'm telling you now it won't be Kendal mint cake (or that carb paste) - so why not start with a series of delicious English delicacies?

And delicacy it was indeed. Herby sausage meat with a crispy crumbly shell and a perfect egg. They had scones with clotted cream and strawberries in too, but the iPhone doesn't have a defibrillator, so I steered clear.

Next time out: jellied eels

What we have learned - election special:
Well, more ‘what have Green Party canvassers learned’: Just because I’m walking back from the station in performance outerwear, do not assume I voted Green


Boot update:
White clay mud still intact, now with brown topping. Bootiful.

156 days to go

Carrying Compeed in your backpack may mystically protect you from needing to use it, but the same can't be said of an OS map and iPhone with compass and GPS.

I had wondered what the difference between rambling and hiking was and I think I may have found out today. Actually I hadn't at all, it's all to do with real ale, but that would ruin the story.

I had headed out planning on going to Hassocks or Lewes, but when the bus to Devil's Dyke stopped next to me I took it as a sign and got on. Plus, next to Curry Mallet in Somerset, it's the UK's best place name, which is enough of a reason for me.

I had also been somewhat surprised in our to-ing and fro-ing along the Downs that I hadn't come across it yet and was curious to see where it went. Geography fans will realise I hadn't seen it because it is west of Hassocks. Now I did GCSE Geography, but we all know that's less actual places and more alluvial plains. I used to teach orienteering too, but you didn't see me getting out the map and compass (likewise I taught sailing and archery - but having me on your yacht caught in a storm surrounded by Red Indians will not lower your insurance premiums).

I understand that, if I had one of those round-the-neck map holders then I could easily look at the map, but that raises a whole other set of issues. So I left the map in the bag and headed in what I suspected might be the right direction and yes, Devil's Dyke turned out to be a but ravine-y and a little heavy on the gorse, but when I eventually popped out at our old friend the A273 I knew all would be well.


What we have learned:
In the Top Gear Bolivia special, Richard Hammond was wearing the same performance trousers as me. I was tremendously reassured - his legs stayed on and he was able to operate heavy machinery. And I can say that I am climbing a mountain in Richard Hammond’s trousers. We’re about the same size, it could well be true.

I was also very covetous of his head torch* that was shaped like a dinosaur and roared. Mine merely has the choice of white or red lights - the latter presumably for reversing down the mountain.

In the same hugely informative piece of programming, it turns out that Viagra is a treatment for altitude sickness. I can’t say this has been mentioned in any literature that I’ve been given so far.


*Turns out it’s from M&S. “Not just any mountain, this is an M&S mountain...”

Boot update:
I gathered a fairly glutinous volume of chalky clay. It looks very impressive. And permanent.

158 days to go

As part of my so far hugely successful attempt to develop a lovely t-shirt tan, I was back romping from Lewes to Hassocks this afternoon.

And, it being a Saturday, there was a fair amount of the Youth released into the wild, looking all Duke of Edinburgh Award'd up. Nothing wrong with that, as those pro-National Service types would no doubt attest. That said (and I didn't DofE myself) I would be prepared to bet that at least part of the weight they were toiling along under was probably illicit cider.

But learning to outsmart authority, or sobriety, is a key life skill. So is orienteering and, as you can see from the sign, there's none more necessary a skill needed on the Downs. It's all very 'this way, that way' a la Alice in Wonderland.

What disappointed me about DofE is that it could be so much more. When I think of the Duke, it's not his outdoor skills which spring to mind, it’s his stunning way with words. Most teenagers have a creative line in insults, but while they’re boning up on tent pitching and late-night sleeping-bag-swapping, why not also chuck in something a bit more cerebral?

It’s long been my dream to be insulted by the Duke, although I fear my opportunity has passed. I met the Queen when I was three and was so overwhelmed by shyness and terror that the flowers I was due to hand over had to be prised from my hands. I assume the Duke was there - I had my eyes shut for the duration - so could have swooped in and insulted me at any point. There’s no record of this, however, which saddens me.

What we have learned:
Gordon Brown may be the first candidate for the new-style DofE, judging by this week’s antics

Boot update:
Smug comes before a fall and sure enough, I was on the verge of thinking they were the best shoes I'd ever owned when something happened to one of my big toes. No idea what. It felt like it was trying to separate out into its constituent molecules. Just goes to prove what I've long suspected - I'm not breaking them in, they're breaking me in.

161 days to go

It’s not too bad, doing your training for the madness/vomiting in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Even if the AA man who has to jump-start the car to get you there comes complete with tales of friends who climbed Kilimanjaro and wanted to vomit all the way.

It having turned out that The Brain wasn’t opposed to prowling the verdant every other day, we thought we’d look into Ditchling Beacon, mythic horror of the London to Brighton bike ride. And look into it we did. From the edge. It looked awful. Almost as bad as the cyclist at the top, chest heaving, standing as though his muscles had suddenly spasmed in shock around his bike. I assume the emergency services found a way to cut him loose, because he wasn’t there when we got back and I don’t think he was capable of getting home on his own, unless he had recently moved to a nearby ditch.

We took the four-hour route around it, which did feature its fair share of vertical climbs and learning why putting your ancient fort at the top of a hill was so effective. When you consider the lack of five-a-day and aerobic exercise in that era it’s amazing that anyone managed to get murdered and pillaged at all.

But, with early summer clinging on, it proved a generally stunning backdrop to fitness, even when you’re checking your Sky News app for Gordon Brown’s apology update(s).As PG Wodehouse would write: "It was one of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away."

With England, I have noticed that what you are given with one had is less taken with the other than accented with, say, a bit of local colour. Morris Men, illegal back-field rodeos, Morris Men. On this walk, someone has studded their privet hedge with the heads of toy dogs. And, as you can see from the photo, there was a gathering filming themselves roaming around with a boat.

It’s all very value-added, proving that the election is never very far away. But, given that this is the second walk in a row that we’ve failed to notice the ‘pay and display’ signs until leaving, this is a bargain so far.





What we have learned:
I won’t be moving to Milton Keynes

At afternoon tea tomorrow I will be having the cream tea. With English breakfast tea.

And yet I’m not tempted to vote UKIP

Boot update:
All this early summer is keeping them clean. Even the cow pats aren’t bothering them.

163 days to go

You can go too far of course. I spent much of yesterday in the big leather armchair snorting chocolate milk out of my nose laughing at The Thick Of It. Today I feel that, while that may be excellent preparation for kicking the Labour Party back into shape after it gets vivisected next week, it’s not going to flex the hamstrings.

So I leapt out of bed at 6am to go to the gym, all the better to be back in time to work before going on ‘a walk’ with my best friend, The Brain*. She duly took me out to Seven Sisters, where we tested both our map reading and hill walking skills, in a prime example of English countryside done up festive with Vote Conservative posters.

The Brain’s motivation for taking me up hill and down dale was, I’m sure, majority-weighted in favour of supporting my training. She certainly doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life hearing me moan about the fake leg I have to wear because I had to saw mine off halfway up a mountain. However, by her own admission, she was itching to see me in performance outerwear. So maybe 80:20 generous trainer to laugher/pointer. OK, 60:40.

Having admired the spectacular setting (complete with dead rabbit surrounded by exchange students looking to supplement their all rock/doughnut diets) I got back to Brighton in time to scurry off to pilates. By the time I had reached the Hove border marker that is Farrow & Ball (don’t let the council tell you the Hove marker is the Peace statue. It’s Farrow & Ball) my body had started to seize up.

For those who favour the Terminator series of films, and who doesn’t, it was very similar to the scene in which the, I believe, T-1000, is caught in a pool of molten metal, but continues to struggle forwards, limbs fusing and snapping, until it is merely metal crumbs leading to a sinister flexing finger.

Happily pilates was able to make me more liquid metal, less like the casts of those poor chaps from Vesuvius.



*Apart from Wendy, who is culpable in this whole adventure**, everyone who comes into contact with us will remain nameless, thus protecting the innocent. What constitutes ‘innocent’ will of course remain open to interpretation

**/debacle, delete as applicable


What we have learned:
The Brain also bought me a trekker’s guide to Kilimanjaro. A generous act, for which I give thanks, but I’m not sure the massive photo of a plaque commemorating a climber who died of altitude sickness was necessary
If you build your house on a cliff, the government may not act as insurer
Check out the shade of performance trouser. Wherever that is effective camouflage must be the most boring place on earth.


Boot update:
I kept my coveting of The Brain’s broken-in boots to myself, for fear of boot reprisals

165 days to go

I woke up this morning with a pressing need to blow the cobwebs away. And for ‘cobwebs’ you can read ‘stinking hangover’. Billy-oing students. As I considered my options from my vantage point face down in bed, the eyes of a judgmental cat boring into the back of my head, I suspected that bacon sandwich/writing a feature about hotel check-in machines might not cut it.

I was also aware that, with the average British summer lasting around 72 hours - much of that at night - if I wanted to remedy the truckers’ tan that I acquired last week going east to west along the South Downs, I was going to have to get onto it.

A mere several hours later I found myself walking west to east, all the better to even up the scorching. All the better having managed to avoid last week’s adventure along the hard shoulder of the A273 too. What I also discovered was that, much as you can’t traverse Mayfair without bumping into a member of the hotel financing community, neither can you walk along the Downs.

When I wasn’t discussing RBS’s labyrinthine corporate structure, I considered to myself the international language of backpack wearing. Here in Brighton, we are not quite a multicultural haven in the manner of, say, the Green Lanes, but we do have an awful lot of French people rocking up every summer. And good luck to them. I can’t imagine what the Gallic palate makes of Brighton rock and deep-fried doughnuts, but they seem to enjoy it. And how do I know that these doughnut-eaters are French? They’re wearing their backpacks over both shoulders.

It’s better for the back, I know, but for the English, it’s something of an anathema. However, in this, the performance-outwear devotee has come over all Continental. And not just over both shoulders, but with a little strap that attaches across the front. Over the whole 11 miles, I didn’t see a single moment of jaunty one-shoulder action.

I decided to compromise - one shoulder in the city and car park areas, two shoulders after checking carefully for other people and in front of sheep. I’m happy to be part of the EU, but I’m not ready to join the Euro just yet.



What we have learned:
You know how trees at the top of hills are all slanted from the constant wind? That happens to your hair on the Downs
Confused hikers can rest assured that, if they don’t know what a sheep is, there are handy pictures
Scotch eggs are back


Boot update:
Carrying a pack of Compeed all the time is to blisters what carrying an umbrella is to keeping the sun shining. Thus far
Actual mud touched them today. They look marginally more credible

171 days to go

In my line of work you learn that great wisdom comes from unexpected places. Do not discount the 16-year-old in the Elvis wig and jumpsuit or the lawyer in the tailored suit. One can teach you how to keep your hair glossy using only iced water and the other may well have top tips on getting discounts on circus acts.

I had, I admit, snapped my mind closed on sources of hiking knowledge. People who hiked and people who hiked plus sold performance outerwear were my fonts, like the fascist I am. However, after our first real-life outdoor adventure today, I see that I should be getting myself onto some trucker websites. Not for the tips on long-distance travel, or coping with minimal amounts of sleep while possibly under the influence of assorted narcotics, but for what to do with ‘truckers’ arm’.

Yup. It transpires that, if you walk east to west in the middle of the day from Lewes to Hassocks along the ridge of the Downs, you will pick up a rosy glow, but just on the one side. The obvious answer would be to turn around and stroll the 11 miles back to baste the other side, but having expertly prepared for today’s hike by going to a gig in the London and then getting four hours’ sleep the night before, that was less of an option.

Fortunately there’s a spray tan place at the end of the road - I’ll stick one half in and get them to turn it up to ‘toasted’.

That dealt with, I am shocked to report that, until I wake up tomorrow frozen in position like so many railway sleepers, we seem to have got away with our first practice run. No blisters, no animal attacks, no madness/vomiting.

OK, so it took us an alarming amount of time to find our way out of Lewes, with a map. And we had to ask a man where the prison was, while standing in front of a sign saying ‘prison’ next to a large stone building accessorised with razor wire. And we may have taken a wrong turn outside Hassocks and had to dive in and out of the bushes along the A273 while walking around an endless blind corner.

The only disappointment came in the lack of injuries, after I conjured the lines yesterday:

How are your calves?
Like they only just escaped the veal crate in time

It would have felt good to work them in. Wendy said hers hurt a bit, but I know she was just humouring me.


What we have learned:
Scampi is not a fish, but a type of lobster, or method of preparing fish

Boot update:
11 miles over open country and apart from a light dusting, not a mark on them. If we’re going to be taken seriously by other hiking/climbing/walking-at-an-angle aficionados we’ll have to leave them out in the road for a few weeks to break them in.

179 days to go

I’m currently reading The Trouble With Markets by the hugely-entertaining, if a little doom-y economist, Roger Bootle. It’s marvellous in many ways, not just because he once told me that my Queen of Hearts theory of the downturn was “probably about right maybe anyway I’ve got to go over there” and so every time I turn the page I think I’m going to see it mentioned without my consent and can sue.

The main joy of the book is Bootle’s bracing way with words. When he’s not being staggered by the antics of the Japanese economy, he’s distributing ‘ghastly’ and ‘topsy’ (“private equity expanded like topsy”) around the place like Sir Ranulph Fiennes eating lashings of hard-boiled eggs with ginger beer on a warm summer’s day at a cricket match outside Cirencester (speaking of Fiennes and his influence on our own trip - fingerless gloves: yes. Fingerless hands: no).

Having already eschewed the more festive sections of the English dictionary on this no-watershed blog, it occurred to me that Bootle and Fiennes might be onto something with their linguistic choices. During the more madness/vomiting moments, what could be more reviving than a dash of “well, must buck up” and “huzzah! pasta for breakfast!”?

Plus, we’ll be English folk in Africa. Top hole!


What we have learned:
Nothing about the Queen of Hearts theory. I shouldn’t even have told the Bootle
It’s OK, I’m reading the new Modern Toss too

Boot update:
The long laces have encouraged the cat to use them as maypoles

180 days to go

Now this is going to come as a shock to those of you with eyes, but I’m no slave to fashion. OK, so I read InStyle and I’ll pick up Vogue in the hairdressers (well, the alternative is Heat) but jeggings? Really? No.

As you will have noted in this blog, following fashion isn’t really a priority in the climbing world, which is troubling, even to someone who has no intention of buying a shiny grey suit with 3/4 length sleeves just because the 80s are back.

I don’t understand why this should be. It’s perfectly possible not to look like a Grade A billy-o on the ski slopes, where you’re basically strapping bits of duvet to yourself, and skateboarding clothing has been on the catwalk (I know, I read Vogue). So why, when it’s just trousers and tops, can’t there be options other than beige? Beige with odd sagging.

Solutions, not problems, as problem-causing line managers tend to say and here at two-go-mad-up-a-mountain we’re prepared to see this as an opportunity to fill the vacuum and be trend setters. As mentioned last month, we will be taking our moustache-theming from last year’s Reading festival beyond badges and flags, to every possible realm. My sister gave me a lovely pair of ‘tache earrings last week and today I took delivery of two moustache bandanas, for myself and Wendy.

The terrible thing about being a two-person trend, however, is that we look like twins. Potentially idiot twins and not dissimilar to those poor twins seen weeping in supermarket aisles because their parents have dressed them in the same clothes. And to what end? I hear having twins is the fastest possible way to lose all your sleep. Faster even than suspending a beef joint just out of reach of next door’s dog. Surely with all that sleep deprivation you’re at risk of double vision anyway, why ram the point home?

The bonus for us is that, should one of us succumb to the madness/vomiting, the other one can stand in for all the photos. Genius.



What we have learned:
Skateboarding is a sport
Wendy’s bandana is black
The 80s are so not back

Boot update:
The four socks have been tucked into the boots in preparation for next week’s rescheduled walk

188 days to go

Never one to shy away from a multitasking opportunity, I saw the inclement Easter weather, matched it to my need to go outside and identified an opportunity to test-drive my performance outerwear (sadly my hugely palatable snowboarding jacket Just Won't Do).

Not since technology advanced to allow you to personalise your desktop have options been so overwhelming. But for the unreasonably demanding nature of public transport, I would still be varying the widths of cuffs, bending the peak of the hood or considering any number of venting options.

After blocking off a suitable chunk of my diary to deal with these issues, I headed cautiously for the station, aware that wearing anything remotely linked to the cagoule family was likely to conjure a parade of friends and acquaintances eager to judge my fashion crimes.

I had nothing to fear, however, as the hood dropped so far down my face that only aficionados of my nose tip would have been able to pick me out of a line-up.

This is not to criticise the manufacturers, fine, upstanding lot I'm sure - they advertise in the Telegraph after all - but more my freakishly small head. Seriously, I'm amazed I can even remember my PIN number.

Reverse bobble-head aside, Wendy pointed out that I have now transformed into the midget from Don't Look Now. I had no idea what she was talking about - I don't watch scary movies. Called it Don't Look Now? I can take the hint. A quick google confirmed that yes, I now look like a murderous midget (top tip - don't search 'murderous midget' on public transport unless your fellow travellers look like they might get a kick out of you screaming and vaulting backwards over the seats). At least this should help deal with the panda/dragon threat.

Having made it to dry land and been generally appalled by the reflections in shop windows, my science friend, who has a vast collection of performance items (including the near-mythical 'normal-looking black base layer'), had the audacity to ask: "did it keep you dry?"

Yes *sulk*

What we have learned:
Personalised desktops? Yes, that's right, I'm old

My sister is knitting me a hat out of qiviut - musk ox underhair - the warmest substance known to man that can't also be used as a weapon. More importantly than the heat, it will help fill the hood

Boot update:
Wendy was planning on wearing hers to pop out at lunchtime. That I haven't heard from her yet bodes ill

189 days to go

People like to shop. They do. And good job - the recovery of our whole economy is based on it. The collapse of our economy was similarly based on it.

And yes, I don’t want to conform too much to type but there are some shopping experiences out there that bring a flutter to a girl’s heart: (some) shoes, anything with the Apple logo and a Flat White from the delightful young man at Jamie’s Recipease spring to mind.

However, there are some items which turn the most hardened shopper into a Scrooge McVoucher-clipper. These are the Unnecessaries. The National Insurance of the high street world. Sandwiches after you left your carefully-crafted lunch in the fridge. Laptops when you’ve kicked the screen in because you left it on the floor. And of course socks. There is no joy to be had in socks.

So, as we’re involved in something of an extreme sport, it should have come as no great shock to learn that sock buying would be similarly extreme. No pack of three for a fiver down the Gap for us. Think closer to what you used to pay for a CD before the EU got all heavy on everyone’s ass. Or, as I said to the sock vendor: “You’re billy-o-ing billy-o-ing me”.

He wasn’t, of course. And neither was Wendy’s sock vendor (see above). And neither were the playful gods, for we have been advised to buy very thin liner socks to go with those socks to stop them rubbing.

You don’t get this kind of nonsense at M&S.


What we have learned:
Far more than we expected about socks

Boot update:
No socks please, we’re British

194 days to go

Now I don’t want to get too closely into the science of this - and there are scientists out there who will be glad to hear it - but it occurred to me that if our main problem is going to be the lack of oxygen, then maybe we should take some oxygen with us. Call me Stephen Hawking.

Look away potential sponsors, but, on closer research (see? just like a scientist) Kilimanjaro is too much of a soft persons’ mountain to warrant it. The cure for altitude sickness on our particular mountain is to come down again. A cure that could be applied for most things - lion attack? Take your leg out of the lion. Doctor, doctor, my leg hurts when I poke it - stop poking it.

Unlike your Everest or other such fancy mountains where the skills involved include knowing what crampons are and how to climb using only a pointy hammer, it’s easy to get back down our mountain. You turn around and walk back down.

But this is the era of Facebook. Indeed of blogging. It’s important that we get our photo at the summit and to do this I don’t think we should be denied access to science. So if anyone could invent a chewing gum that releases oxygen, cut of the winnings to you.

What we have learned:
Oxygen is a drug (see photo). I am fully prepared to do this on drugs. I’m on drugs right now. So are you.


Boot update:
Wendy informs me we are now nasty-boot twins. Photo to follow...

195 days to go

In line with our ‘climb every mountain’ policy of training, Snowdon looms. The degrees of separation between us and people who have done it are considerably fewer than Kilimanjaro - i’ve been in cars, bars and automobiles with these hiking gods - but the separation between their thoughts on it is wide indeed.

There’s a decent 50:50 split between the ‘a mere frolic through the daisies with a slap-up tea’ and ‘abandon hope all ye who enter’. Without seeing these people and their lack of prosthetic limbs, you can’t know it, but trust me, they’re all capable of outrunning an average-sized axe murderer, no worries. So what's with the debate.

In ‘more than one way to skin a cat’ news, turns out there’s more than one way to get up Snowdon. There’s the two hour stroll and the six hour burning, tearing muscles, fighting off mountain lions and clawing at the bleached bones of those who have gone before for sustenance.

Now, I know that nothing worthwhile is easy and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but really, if the view from the top is the same (man), why take a route that is three times as long and 15 times more likely to leave icicles on your eyelashes?

I don’t want to ascend into philosophy, not until the oxygen really thins, but the road less travelled better had load us up with character. And not the heavy type that’ll weigh down our backpacks.


What have we learned:
We’re doing the six hour version
Stairs are the new mountains. Sometimes they also lead to coffee shops



Boot update:
Wearing them while watching The Budget may not break them in, but it’s more satisfying when you kick the TV

197 days to go

In this fast-paced world of 24-hour rolling news, 45-second boiled rice and 8.5-hour train trips from Brighton to Portsmouth, we rarely get the chance to just sit back and well, not smell the coffee (see Starbucks’ AGM tomorrow for evidence of how ALL we do is smell the coffee) but perhaps take time to look at the flowers and so on.

Rather than wait until we’re ill, or stuck on a train to Portsmouth, it transpires that extensive hill walking is the way to go. Slow and steady wins the race and hiking up Kilimanjaro takes place at the kind of speeds that would make the shifting of battle lines across the Somme look like the Anglo-Zanzibar war (45 minutes - the navy was one yacht).

This is a concern for someone with high-level qualifications in walking around London, whose natural walking speed tends towards the blurry-for-onlookers. Blurry with a threat of violence at the edges.

The reason for this is to try and prevent the onset of the madness/vomiting. I, however, have concerns that it will instead foster the madness, not to mention a bought of rucking amongst the London residents in the fashion of Northern Line commuters.

Our one hope is to develop a series of hobbling foot wounds. To this end, we will be hiking from Hassocks to Lewes this weekend (nine miles) in our new boots. Job done.


What we have learned:
There are many, many websites that will plot hobbling walks for you
If you walked at normal speeds, you could get up Kilimanjaro in your lunch break. Perhaps


Boot update:
Almost heavy enough to slow movement to required speeds

198 days to go

To prepare for something potentially unpleasant, I would be inclined to look on Wiki a bit, eat a hearty meal and maybe take a nip of something medicinal. However, as is becoming increasingly apparent on this trip, normal does not apply and the reasoning is that you should do alarming over and over again until, well, until what is not clear. I call it the ‘kissing a frog’ theory.

To that end, we have been ‘encouraged’ to climb Snowdon in July, to familiarise ourselves with going upwards and possibly also the going crazy and throwing up at the summit part. But closer to home, so that we don’t provoke an international incident. I can see glimpses of their logic and, as we will have done at least this Sunday’s three-hour walk by then, we should be super-fit hiking gods who know what to put in each of the 34 pockets in our hugely efficient clothing items.

The key difference to the Kilimanjaro climb seems to be the food. I was warned by someone who knew someone who’d once been up the mountain that you were more than likely to find yourself staring down the barrel of a bowl of pasta every morning. So far, so pleasant, was my thought. It’s not so different to the student pizza breakfast after all. I could see how it might get wearing after a few days, although I assume that the giant pepper grinder must fit snugly and easily-accessibly into one of my pockets.

The Welsh, being wise in so many unexpected ways (and having dealt with their dragon issues years ago) favour something a little more enlivening. Information about the trip is punctuated with references to ‘varied and plentiful’ food, heavy on the cooked breakfasts and two course dinners at local pubs. I assume this extends to waving a pie on a fishing rod in front of us on the ascent.

It also features a stay in a Youth Hostel, something I haven’t done since the German GCSE trip. Presumably we’ll be cutting loose with some ping pong, illicit card playing and accidentally ripping our earlobes by catching our earrings on our watch straps.


What have we learned:
Our insurance includes evacuation from the summit by helicopter. In case there’s no nuttering/vomiting, may practice acting skills to ensure rapid descent to hotel
‘Pyg’ is the name of a route down Snowdon


Boot update:
See above. The first offering to the boot gods.
The trick, I am told, is wearing multiple socks. Of multiple thicknesses. I foresee a need for multiple feet

199 days to go

The great thing about mountaineering - or prolonged walking at an angle, which we will be doing - is that you don't have to explain why.

Let me explain. There's no reason at all to do it, unless the only career plan you have is to tour the motivational speaker circuit displaying x-rays of how your leg bones criss-crossed through your knee cap like so much cat's cradle. Yet people keep doing it and showing off about it down the pub, even though there's google earth to let you see what it looks like from the tops of mountains while you're at your desk wondering why the person opposite you doesn't shut up. Or, for home workers, why the dog downstairs doesn't shut up and will the postman bring anything for you today when he makes his delivery at 12.17pm.

So the stock reason is "because it's there". Fair enough. It IS there. And that sounds pseudo-profound enough to deal with your pub audience.

For us, it was more of an evolution following our 5km Gorilla Run through the City. Admittedly that's the kind of evolution which would see Piltdown Man wake up one morning with the ability to spacewalk without equipment, but never mind. That's why.

Such an evolution comes at a cost in the modern world and not just the cost that keeps the town of Arundel in cobbles and scone boutiques. Paperwork. We have a stack of it and in an attempt to beat some of it into submission, I have been giving consideration to my Tanzania visa. As I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my life on public transport, the obvious first step was to get the required passport photos taken at the train station.

Of course, when getting passport photos taken, it's tremendously important to be hungover and looking like crap. As you can see from the photo, I decided to go for a Kristen-Stewart-in-The-Runaways mullet. Oh to be a visa processor. How we ever built an empire is beyond me, i wouldn't let us over the Channel, let alone to a farm in Africa.


What we have learned:
You can save money by buying trousers which unzip into shorts. Sadly.
Tanzania is a country, not a beauty salon named by Peter Andre

Boot update:
Sunday. Day of rest.