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