24 Hours from Snowdon

So, both my rucksacks (one for the mountain, one for all the rest of my kit) are packed and waiting for me. There's no going back now, the mountains await. In just 24 hours time I'll be stepping off the train in Bangor and, along with the rest of the team, be taken to the foot of Snowdon and sent forth to the peak under the cover of darkness.

Well I say darkness, we have head torches to light our way. I like the head torch, it makes me feel like I'm a robot.

Once Snowdon is accomplished we are taken to within a two hour trek of Scafell Pike the next morning, and then Ben Nevis in the wee small hours of Saturday morning, and be expected to conquer these as well. It's relentless.

I've probably overpacked whilst at the same time forgotten something vital. I do have wet weather gear and, given the forecast, I'm going to need it. We're expecting rain, and lots of it. Oh, and high winds, there's going to be a fair bit of that. Oh, and thunderstorms. 

So if I don't get hypothermia or pneumonia, or be blown off the mountain by a hurricane, I'll probably be struck by lightning whilst drinking from the metal water bottle the present Mrs Hayward bought me for Christmas. Maybe this is why she was so keen on me taking out some insurance for this event.

Weirdly though I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm going to get soaked, my feet will ache and by Saturday I'll probably smell a bit musty and my hair will be stuck to my head but at least I can look forward to returning to my own comfortable, warm bed in the early hours of Sunday morning.

As you may know I'm putting myself through this to support The Railway Children, and they in turn support homeless children who won't be going home to a warm bed tonight or any other night. 

I know there's always someone waving the tin around for a few quid but I think this is a very worthy charity. Just think back to your own childhood, or think of your own kids, or kids you know, and think about what it would have been like for you or for them to be living on the streets. 

Think about the fact that there are kids, perhaps the same age, sleeping rough somewhere tonight. Then think about my aching, bleeding, blister-ridden feet come Saturday and click on the link below, or drop me a text or an email, and donate some money to a worthy cause.

The Railway Children will be grateful for whatever you can spare, and so will I.

Thank you :-)

Please visit our fundraising site here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/noblewarriors 

Weighty Matters

Has it really been so long? Well, yes it has. I needed to take a break, collect my thoughts, and re-group. Not so much writer’s block as I’ve continued to write about all sorts of things, but most have been just too crazy or too personal to blog about.

My recent musings have been more of a cathartic thing for me which one day I’ll re-visit and transform into a seminal piece of literature about the complexities of the human condition. Or, more likely, after I’ve expelled my final breath, someone will find my journal of weirdness, sift through it, tut loudly at the mixed metaphors and unnecessary exposition, and chuck it into the recycling where it will be transformed into rough toilet paper for use by inmates of Her Majesty’s prisons.

Back in the real world I have just a couple of short weeks until I found myself facing three immensely large mountains in the space of a day and a bit. This would be OK in itself if it wasn’t for the fact that I have to wend my way to the top of them and, presumably, back down again.

I’m not built for hills. I lived on a hill when I spent a year in Sheffield and it wasn’t very long before I got fed up with dragging my carcass up it every day, especially when there was a handy bus service to my door. Mind you, the bus used to struggle as well. It was a very steep hill.

I have, in all fairness, been in training. No, I haven’t actually climbed a mountain to practice as my view on this is that it won’t make the challenge any easier. I’m just happy to climb the three mountains and then never do anything quite so daft ever again. Well, unless I get the taste for the mountain life. Perhaps I’ll build a wooden hut and become a goat herder, who knows?

So, in an attempt to ensure I don’t end up on the side of Snowdon, five minutes into the ascent, screaming “No, leave me, I don’t want to hold you back, let me die here, tell Emma I love her, etc…” I have become a regular at my local gym where a sturdy looking chap called Ed put together a training regime designed to ensure I am fit enough for the task in hand, or that I’ll injure myself so badly that I’ll never walk again, it’s pretty rigorous.  

I even have to spend time in the weights area with the top heavy looking chaps who grunt a lot. Some even shout words of encouragement at each other such as “Do you wanna get fit??”, and I even saw two young fellows high five each other, without any hint of irony, after they’d tackled a particularly challenging weight. I promise you I’m not making any of this up.

Personally, I tend to keep myself to myself and I don’t follow the required etiquette as I usually scoot around the weights area and get on with various exercises with no pause to admire myself or anybody else in the big mirror. Therefore I can be done and dusted on the more modest weights while the regular muscle heads try to noisily lift a humungous weight just the once.

So I think it’s done some good and I’m now in a better place to attempt these mountains than I was a few months ago but the prospect is still causing me some concern, mostly the lack of sleep I will experience and, well, the whole ‘uphill’ bit.

Some would say I went into this without thinking about it but not me, oh no.

Yes, I know I’m rattling the tin again but if you’d like to sponsor me then please do so here. The money goes to a good cause as you’ll see when you click on the link. It doesn’t go to me so I can invest in blister plasters and Deep Heat, I promise.