Wow, what a hectic 6 weeks! It has seen me chasing more Duke of Edinburgh students around both Scotland and Sri Lanka, I’ve mixed cement by hand to help build a sports pavilion, I’ve been whitewater rafting, helped to cook 12 different curry dishes, carried a cuddly blue parrot  around Norway and played with Thomas the Tank Engine for about 6 hours.  Obviously a lot to cover, so I’ll try not to bore you.
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One thing that has progressed well is my nights under canvass (unfortunately, I’m lacking in many photos, as the camera broke on Day 1 of my Sri Lanka trip.) After another 2 nights with Duke of Edinburgh (where I met another interesting person, Paul, the store manager and mountain bike leader), I had about 12 hours to sleep, post my postal vote for the Referendum and pack for a 2.5 week expedition to Sri Lanka, via Dubai to pick up 19 school kids and 3 teachers. (2 of whom I’m claiming as old friends I have reconnected with, as I led with them last year to Ethiopia – Sean and Andrew. The 3rd teacher I’m counting as one of my interesting people – Mallory is Canadian, just started her first ever teaching job on her first ever trip abroad in Dubai, and had now signed up to a Sri Lankan trip. We got to know each other fairly well through sharing tents and even a double bed for a week in one hotel!) I also met the interesting Ronnie Robb, one of the other expedition leaders, who was working 10 months this year on foreign expeditions (and wondering why he found it hard to hold down a long-term relationship.) 

While in Sri Lanka, I managed 5 nights under canvass – 3 on our trekking phase through tea plantations and rice paddies, and 2 at the rather cool Borderlands, where we did white water rafting. Although I’m claiming it as a night under canvass, it was the most luxurious night I’m spent in a tent, with a campbed, a light and a 4-way extension lead for all my electronic needs……perched on a wooden balcony overlooking a beautiful river and the jungle.
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Sri Lanka also saw a fair number of different restaurants, although I have only included the ones that I can remember the name of……we had a lovely posh meal in the Royal Oak (old British colonial), lunch every day at our project site in Shan’s Rest, dinner most nights during our project phase at Kandy View Hotel, and our last night extravaganza in Tusker’s in Negumbo. Each served delicious Sri Lankan food, and sometimes traditional British cuisine, such as a hot dogs. 

​We also had a fabulous opportunity to learn to cook some Sri Lankan food – 23 people working in pairs to cook 12 different dishes, all organised in the front room of a local Sri Lankan lady. The experience was fantastic for team building, and produced the best meal that we ate on the whole trip, which given the kids previous cooking disaster during our trekking phase (no, I still don’t know how they made pasta have the look and texture of mash potato….) was a very pleasant surprise. I personally was involved in making coconut roti, which involved cutting down our own coconut with a machete from the tree in the garden, husking it, and grinding out the inside. 

Sri Lanka saw a few opportunities for random acts of kindness too, from saving the teachers food before the kids descended for seconds, through to flicking leeches off the kid’s boots while walking. (Leeches are not actually that bad once you get used to them…..and provided you have a spray bottle full of Dettol to get them off you if they bite.)

During our project phase where we helped the locals to build the foundations and walls of a sports pavilion for the local community, I took the opportunity to learn how to mix cement by hand, after the team carefully measured 45 palettes of sand from the sand pile, 2.5 bags of cement and 3 randomly sized buckets of water (plus a few extra sloshes) and a lot of digging over. We also passed rocks along a line from the rock pile delivered by a pick up truck, to the local workmen building the wall – this is a form of exercise I wish never to repeat!
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I also took the opportunity to try lots of ‘interesting’ looking snacks at the project site, cooked by the local women. This ranged from what I think was mashed dates and potato in a leaf, to the rather delicious sugar and cinnamon something-or-other, to Vadi, a spiced, sun-dried dumpling made from ground lentils and chickpeas. 

While on the plane to Dubai and Sri Lanka, I also read 2 books – the rather fascinating ‘Leader Manual’ (all the policies and risk assessments for World Challenge) and the interesting ‘Medical Handbook’ containing all the ways you can die or getting horribly ill in developing world countries. Not what I would have chosen for pleasure, but ‘books’ for my challenge nonetheless. I also managed to watch 2 films: The Dressmaker (a rather random story of Kate Winslet goes to small town Australia and is accused of murder) and the rather trashy ‘How to be Single.’

After coming back from Sri Lanka, I had barely a week to recover, watch a film (‘Chappie’ – robot becomes gangster) and attend a few networking meeting (coffee with the company I’m leading some Arctic Treks with next year, coffee with a lady who wanted to book a navigation course for her and some friends, and a Skype chat with someone I met at another networking event) before taking another big opportunity – a cruise to Norway.

​We were invited by Matt’s brother and his wife, who do regular cruises. It’s not the normal sort of holiday that we do, as we’re normally on action holidays – walking, kayaking etc, but decided to give it a go. Despite some initial apprehension about feeling sea sick and being stuck on a boat, we had a really lovely, relaxing holiday. Fair to say, I have now well and truly smashed my ‘drink 30 types of alcohol’ challenge, after working my way through the cocktail menu. My favourite was Raspberry Crème Brûleé, - a mix of baileys and what appeared to be some raspberry-flavoured yoghurt.  I also completed the ‘eat in 30 restaurants’ challenge after eating in the main on-board restaurant (The Oriental) and specialist on-board restaurants, The Glass House and Michelin-starred Indian Restaurant, Sindhu.

​The cruise provided a bit of time for chilling out, including reading a whole book, borrowed from the on-board library, called The Girl Who Came Back (which was mildly entertaining) and also watching a film in the cabin, called Focus, with Will Smith as a con artist. Due the boat’s dress code, we also got dressed up for dinner each evening, including 2 black tie nights, which provided a great opportunity for some fancy hairstyles too. I tried the hard-to-achieve French Twist, with some success. 

On the way back from Southampton, we stayed overnight with Matt’s friends Rich and Em, and their 2 delightful children. Their 5-year-old son Alfie had just got new trainset, which included a brilliant twist in the track, where the engines drove into a cradle and were catapulted down a 360 degree twist before trundling on their merry way. Alfie found this fascinating, and kept asking me to play with him, so in an act of kindness, I probably spent a good 6 hours over the 2 days playing with Thomas the Tank Engine.
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The week back home has been fairly quiet, but I have managed to watch a new film ‘Now You See Me 2’ – good if only for Danial Radcliffe playing a baddie, try out a new exercise class Fitsteps (a ‘Strictly-inspired dance exercise class) and do all of Matt’s washing and pair up all of his socks, and make another ‘What’s in the Fridge’ Soup of broccoli and butternut squash. 

Some things I have learnt:

1. Against the advice of our local guide, it is definitely not “better to wear shorts as you can see the leeches climbing up your legs and therefore flick them off before they bite you.” This led to a  leech bite on my inner thigh about 5cm away from my ‘important places’ that I wouldn’t have got if I’d worn long trouser legs tucked into socks like everyone else had who had ignored his advice.
2. Not many people seem to know about the Monty Python ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch…..or at least know it in enough detail……we carried a Norwegian Blue (cuddly toy) parrot called Sketch around Norway with us, surrounded by British people, and only one gentlemen chortled at it….everyone else (I must say, including me, at first) looked blankly at us taking photos of this parrot.
3. Pasta, cooked for long enough, will eventually look and taste like mashed potato. Well…..it you close your eyes and imagine its mashed potato, not some starch-filled sludge. Don’t trust 16-year olds to cook for you unattended!

So, I’m writing just a one-week update for the first time in a long time, mainly because I’ll be away for the next 3 weeks, first on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, then straight out to a World Challenge expedition to Sri Lanka, so I wanted to write about this week now.

This week has been very busy with work, leading Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. Saturday and Sunday saw a Bronze assessment expedition up near Ben Vorlich. This involved 2-days walking in glorious sunshine and one night camping among the midges. Despite getting into my tent in lightening quick time, through a cloud of midges, the next 10 minutes were spent squishing a large number of the little buggers that had managed to sneak in with me, and my new one-man tent is now decorated with little black squidge marks. As this was an assessment, I was remotely supervising the group, which was particularly fun on the first day, as we started them off walking, had time to get an ice-cream in Comrie, and then drove alongside the opposite site of valley to their pathway and spied on them with binoculars. When then took a short walk down to a common navigational error junction, and hid in the bushes to watch them pass. I felt like a spy!
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Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday followed (as they often do, after Saturday and Sunday) with a Silver practice expedition. I had a lovely group of 5 girls, and spend some time teaching them navigation skills, although they were already fairly competent from their bronze. This also involved 2 nights out in my tent, bringing my nights spent outside to 11. I also got to spend considerable time with the other leader, Bill, who counts as one of my interesting people. He is an ex-police chief inspector and now works part-time on his outdoor business and spends the rest of his time in a little cottage north of Inverness. He has strong (positive) opinions on encouraging women in the workplace and is an enthusiastic outdoor instructor, if a little ‘old-school.’ He also spent much of the down-time on expeditions napping.

The weather was stunningly beautiful throughout, with sunshine and blue skies, except for one day of thunder and lightning, which was less good...

In an effort to up my colouring count, I took my small colouring book on both expeditions, much to the bemusement of the other leaders and have nearly completed another picture – however, my pink pencil broke, so I have a few bits left to finish off. What a hardcore mountaineering instructor I am…..

The Friday before embarking on my DofE work, I had the opportunity to cook a Thai Green curry – again one of the Simply Cook recipes. It was pretty tasty, although I bulked it out with a bit too much veg, so the flavour was diluted somewhat.
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The Sunday night in between expeditions was a chance for a nice dinner out with Matt, where we tried out another restaurant – Café Andaluz – a tapas restaurant on George Street. The food was lovely, accompanied by the traditional jug of sangria. We then stayed on to enjoy some cocktails, and I therefore got 2 new types of alcohol for my challenge. One was called Strawberry Punch with a Punch, which was a champagne base (I apparently have expensive taste.) The second one was called Lust, and combined Baileys with a butterscotch flavoured liqueur. It came in a shot glass, but it was delicious! This brings my total different types of alcohol to 29……!

Finally this week, I took another opportunity to treat myself from my virtual jar of 30p per day savings, and treated myself to a much needed haircut, costing the grand old Groupon price of £18! So, I also have a new hairstyle this week, bringing my total hairdos to 21.
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Things I’ve learnt this week:

1. Even in Scotland, it is possible to get sunburn to the point of blisters on your skin. One of the DofE girls forgot to suncream her ears and ended up with a blister.
2. Being on top of a peak, and then walking down a ridge, in a storm of thunder and lightning, is indeed, in the words of Queen, very very frightening.
3. It’s possible to improve the flavour of Baileys! Already pretty tasty, by adding butterscotch to it, it’s fantastic!
4. I’m almost over my fear of the hairdressers. After a doorstop-fringe incident when I was 15, I have always been scared that hairdressers are going to hack your hair to pieces, even if they seem to know what they are talking about. Still, I put my trust in this hairdresser yesterday, even when she asked if I wanted my hair to look ‘choppy.’ No, I still don’t know what she meant. 

So I am once again writing about a 3 week block of time, as a) its been a busy few weeks, b) I’ve forgotten to write it and c) I’ve been binge watching some TV which seems to have the effect of time passing without me realising it. (Britain’s Got Talent, Marcella and Making a Murderer in case you’re interested – the latter two are highly recommended for thought-provoking, thrilling and suspense-filled drama.)

So, where to start? I’ll start with some networking events that I’ve attended, as they filled the early part of Week 29. I went to Cambridge Weight Plan meeting (I am a Cambridge Consultant as a part time business) and met lots of other Scotland-based consultants and heard from some of them about their own personal award-winning slimming stories. I’d like to tell you that I took inspiration and have been strict at dieting, but alas this is not the case. The next day, I attended an Expedition Preparation Conference for World Challenge, ahead of my upcoming expedition to Sri Lanka in June. This was a good opportunity to meet other expedition leaders and talk through some scenarios, adventures and get some tips.

The following weeks were also busy with networking events, with a meeting organised by Coachmatch with one of their main Scottish clients, as an opportunity for the client to meet some of the coaches. I then attended the Heartabiz networking morning, which is a group of ‘heart-centred’ business owners – I found this quite useful and have made a number of follow-up meetings with people that I met. I then also attended a Edinburgh Businesswoman’s Club meeting on ‘Turning Pressure into Power,’ run by a Sports Psychologist who predominantly works with competition horseriders. My final networking event was another Cambridge Training Day, focused on Building Your Business – some useful hints and tips picked up. This also gave an opportunity for an act of kindness, as one consultant had contacted me asking for a lift, and then found he was unable to make the training day, so I offered to pick up a spare workbook and spend some time with him to talk it through.
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In the middle of May, I ran another Wellbeing Retreat with my yoga-instructor friend Lindsey. This led to a lot of cooking and baking activity. I made Parsnip and Apple Soup (thanks to Madeleine for the inspiration – it was lovely and not one I would naturally pick to try!) While making a butternut squash stew (that doesn’t count towards recipes as I’ve already done it) I was left with some spare butternut squash, so decided to try and impromptu Spicy Butternut Squash and Coconut stew. As this was unplanned, I didn’t have all the ingredients from the recipe book, so had to improvise on a few. Let it be noted that the amount of ‘chilli flakes’ needed to substitute for ‘one red chilli’ is significantly less than you might think…..The result was a tasty yet highly spicy soup. Note the difference in presentation for meal on my own, vs meal served to retreat guests. 

​From a baking point of view, I made some things I’ve made before for retreat, e.g. copious amounts of flapjack and a cheesecake. And I also made some of ‘Grandma’s Easter Biscuits’ (an old family recipe) of cinnamon and mixed spice biscuits. I had to make 2 batches, due to my friend Kristina coming to stay, seeing the first batch cooling and us both (mainly me) demonstrating a complete lack of will power and self-discipline when faced with warm-from-the-oven biscuits. I also made her one of the Simply Cook recipe – a Hungarian Goulash Soup……which seemed to be a posh way of saying Sausage Stew. Tasty though. 

The retreat went exceedingly well, with 4 lovely clients enjoying a weekend of yoga, walking and NLP coaching, some sunshine, lots of tea and cake. Nobody seemed to want to go home at the end of the weekend, so we went for an additional walk up to MacGregor’s Cave, did some yoga poses by a beautiful tranquil loch, and then went for lunch at Queen’s View café. All 4 clients were fascinating people, and I was privileged to share in some of their journey of self-discovery throughout the retreat. I won’t share any more than that here in the interests of confidentiality, but they are all counting towards my list of ‘interesting people’ met.
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On retreat, I also managed to find some time to chill out and complete a page in my colouring book, bringing the total of coloured pictures to 11. More action needed here!

One of my challenge items was to save 30p a day in a jar and use it to treat myself. As money as been fairly tight as I’m still in the early days of building my business, plus the practicalities of having 30p in change each day, this has been more a virtual exercise than I had anticipated (there is no jar) but I did decided to tap into my virtual jar for a treat and bought a ticket to see Mary Poppins the Musical for £39. I am so glad that I did, as the show was spectacular. The show was full of magic and joy from start to finish, with particular mention going to: the magic handbag which things keep appearing from; sliding UP the banister; a fantastic, energetic tap dance routine to ChimChiminee, walking along the ceiling of the stage, and watching the whole show being signed for the hard of hearing by an extremely expressive interpreter, who got the loudest cheer from the audience during the bows. Go see it if you have the chance as it travels around the UK!

The weekend just gone saw a hive of activity on the challenge, with a 3-day munro-bagging expedition through the remote peninsular of Knoydart. This involved driving to Fort William (with dinner at Mhor Fish restaurant in Callendar on the way,) camping in Fort William (a night under canvass,) full Scottish breakfast in Nevis Sport (another restaurant,) an hour and 20 minute taxi journey around to our start point at Loch Quoich (with a hilarious attempt by the man in the booking office for the taxi firm to spell my name, and also where we were going, so we were met by a man looking for ‘Captalinco to Loch Oich.’ instead of 'Cat Trebilco to Loch Quoich.')

​We then set off into the wilderness, and climbed one munro on Day 1 (Gairich) and camped very close to the summit of the next one, Sgurr Mor (another night under canvass,) to be met by a fantastic morning view and a 5-minute walk to bag our next munro. We then climbed 3 more munros (Sgurr nan Coireachan, Garbh Choich Mor and Sgurr na Ciche,) complete with a thunder and hail storm on the top of the final (and most pointy) of the 3. We then had a looooooooong descent to camp another night next to Sourlies bothy where I got to style out my midge net... (my nights outside now at 8, and my munros at 16) before a morning walk to Inverie village, lunch in the Knoydart Pottery & Tearoom, a ferry across to Mallaig, dinner in The Fishmarket, and then a train back to Fort William to meet our car and drive home. Oh, and a bit of sunburn from the glorious weather. Phew! 

Matt’s birthday had also been the day before we set off, so I made him a chocolate cake, we ate half in the Fort William campsite, and then cursed how dense and heavy the cake was as we wrapped the rest up in tin foil to carry with us. Delicious though.
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This period of 3 weeks also saw some progress on other challenge activities. I read a book! An actual adult book, called Dark Places, written by the same author who wrote Gone Girl. It was pretty good. I also saw 2 new films. One was the musical ‘Into the Woods’, and even though I love a good fairytale musical, I have to say that it is 2 hours of my life I am never getting back. As a boring and rather uncatchy start, I kept going in the hope it would get better and can categorically tell you that it does not……..don’t waste your time. This was slightly made up for by a trip to the cinema to see the new version of The Jungle Book, which is excellently done, with some very realistic animals. I had promised Matt that there was no singing in it (as I hadn’t seen any in the trailers) but I’m pleased that they did manage to sneak the 2 best Disney Jungle Book songs into the film, (and also secretly pleased as the withering looks of disgust I got from Matt, as I’m not sure he would have agreed to see it if he’d known.)

I tried out 2 more fitness classes at the gym. One was Latin Rythyms, which was pretty good fun, dancing around to salsa, swing and cha cha music, and the other one was ‘Body Attack.’ Although rather scary sounding, it wasn’t too bad – the group was really good fun, and I learnt that I need a better sports bra if I’m to do that class again. I did ache the next day though!
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My hair has also seen a few different styles, as shown below. These range from the slightly sensible pony in a comb thingimydodah, pony tail clipped up by grabby clip thing, 2 pony tails giving the illusion of really long hair, to the slightly girly ‘I have a bow in my hair,’ to the rather ridiculous ‘been in old-fashioned curlers overnight.’

Things I’ve learnt in these 3 weeks:

1. The amount of chilli flakes needed to emulate one red chilli in a recipe is far less than you might think. Fire extinguisher on standby please!
2. The sign language for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is even more interesting to watch than the superb choreography of the dancers.

    2b. I have now also just learn that Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is in the           Microsoft Word spell-checker, and that I can’t, in fact, spell it  correctly, as           the red, squiggly line of incorrectness appeared underneath my attempt             (now corrected)
3. My name sounds so much more exciting and mysterious as Captalinco.
4. My sports bras that I bought several (perhaps 10) years ago are no longer fulfilling their purpose.
5. Despite my previous belief, not all musicals are worth watching! 

Week 27 started with a trip to the Isle of Skye with my mountaineering club. We were staying in a remote hut only accessible by boat or a 4-hour walk in. I walked in on Friday. The aim had been to add to my Munro count, but unfortunately the weather didn’t play ball – it was very windy, with snow, sleet, hail, and rain. We did, however, get some good scrambling at lower levels done, and had a fabulous view of the Cuillin Ridge from the hills just out the back of where we were staying.

​As the hut was full on one of the nights, ahead of the trip, I had opted to camp to save money. However, given the weather forecast, the other hut occupants offered me the floor to sleep on. However, my tent mate Franklin decided he was still going to sleep outside, and after watching him struggle with my tent in the wind for a bit ,I undertook an act of kindness to go out in the rain and wind and help him put it up. Once it was up, I thought I may as well take the opportunity to add to my new challenge item, of a night under canvass. At 6.30am, after no sleep and a night of being slapped in the face by the tent in the wind, I wish I hadn’t!

Over the weekend, I was mainly cooking bog standard hill ratios of pasta and sauce. However, I did take in custard powder and some muffins, so given I had to do something to the custard powder to make it edible, I’m claiming that as a ‘dessert made’ for my challenge. The weekend finished with a very long walk out, as the stepping stones across the river that we’d arrived over where now deep under a fast flowing torrent of water from all the rain 

The middle of Week 27 saw 3 letters posted – one congratulations card to a weight-loss client of mine who had reached her goal weight, one wedding invite acceptance card, and an application to make my vote for the EU referendum a postal vote, as I’ll be in Sri Lanka when the vote happens.

The following week saw another act of kindness. I used to be Treasurer for a charity called Be United (I’m still a Trustee) and stopped as I found I really don’t enjoy doing accounts and it was making me procrastinate on doing any work at all. However, the new Treasurer was at the point of submitting his first Annual Accounts and was a bit stuck, so I spent 3 hours of my time with him, teaching him the knowledge I’d picked up from doing it the year previously. While he was in my house, I also gave him a bit of coaching about what he wanted to do with his career, so he also counts as one of my free coaching sessions.
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Last week, I finally managed to progress on my Munro count, with a weekend away with Matt to claim a long-sought-after set. We had a leisurely start from Edinburgh on Saturday and climbed 2 easy munros on the East side of Glen Shee (Glas Maol and Creag Leacach) in the afternoon. We then headed to the Deeside Inn for the night, and for a delicious dinner (who’d have thought a blue cheese scone on a top of a steak and ale could have been quite so delicious.) The next day saw an early start to do the Lochnagar round – 5 munros and 32km in a day. We were blessed with terrific sunshine (and hence a bit of sunburn) and finished the round within guidebook time, which is unusual for us as we like to bimble slowly. As I’d already done one of these 5 munros before, I can now claim an additional 6 munros for my challenge from both Saturday and Sunday.

The rest of the week didn’t see that much action, although I did complete another colouring picture. I also went back for a visit to my NLP tutor for one day of the Practitioner course and met an ‘interesting person’ – Amy Gray. Amy is in the final stages of her Practitioner course and currently works for the council in Aberdeen, but would ultimately like to move to the countryside and run a campside. We connected on a love of nature and hillwalking, and I have every confidence she will graduate the course on Sunday. As the day involved a lot of coaching, she also counts as one of my free coaching sessions.

Finally, the week ended with a Zumba class this morning, adding to my different types of exercise. My experience of Zumba is that you spend an hour looking entirely ridiculous as you desperately try to follow the latin movements of the instructor. You are both performing the same moves, yet there are some differences……she looks awesome – sexy, sleek and rhythmic……you look sweaty, confused and like you’re having some kind of twitchy allergic reaction. If you ignore the mirrors, its actually a lot of fun! I also saw Judy Murray going into the next-door tennis centre, and took some solace that I am least a better dancer than she was!
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My learnings for these 2 weeks:

1. You really can get trapped by rivers in the mountains. Water rises fast and really can make rivers uncross-able. I have learnt about it all my Mountain Leader training, and have turned back from rivers before when there’s been a 15-minute detour uphill to find an alternative route, but Skye was the first time I’ve had to turn back from a river and opt for a much longer route. A 10km day actually turned into a 20km day to stay safe. Safe, not even dry – our ‘safe’ route involved wading 3 rivers at knee-height, but thankfully not the one torrent that had already reach waist height on one of our group before he even reached the deepest point. This was a river I had easily crossed with completely dry feet 48 hours before, and with one slightly damp foot 12 hours before, and was suddenly a waist-deep white-water death-trap.
2. Balmoral House and Estate (near our Lochnagar round) is open for visitors between Easter and October! That’s entertainment for my Mum’s next trip to Scotland sorted.
3. An odd glance at the mirror has taught me I really don’t look as cool as I imagine I do when doing Zumba.

So Week 26 was a week and a bit ago, and it marked my 30 and a half birthday and also the half-way mark of my challenge. So I took a bit of time to reflect on where I’ve got to, (and will write about week 27 next week) with some mixed results. But first, a wee update on what Week 26 held.

I started off going on retreat with a good friend, and fellow coach, Saffron. The venue had originally been booked as a retreat for clients, but after a lack on marketing on my part, I took the opportunity to go on retreat myself and focus on something I’d been meaning to do for months (perhaps even over a year) – write an e-book. The reason I’ve delayed it so long is because I find the whole idea rather terrifying and memories of writing essays at university, chained to my desk until 3am in the morning to finish it ahead of the deadline, did not help. As there was no deadline set by someone else, it hadn’t yet happened. So I took the opportunity of a beautiful venue, and good company of someone else who wanted to work on something to write an e-book, called 4 Simple Steps to Solve Your Biggest Problem. You can sign up to receive a copy here: http://www.reachthepeak.co.uk/sign-up.html

We took the opportunity to coach each other on what we were working on, so Saffron counts as one of my free coaching sessions.

While on retreat, another opportunity presented itself – to go feed some lambs! The retreat venue is on a working farm and out of one of the windows, you can see the farmer’s house. I saw him carrying several small fluffy bundles into the house, and the next time I saw him come out of the house, I took the opportunity to ‘get something from my car’ as an excuse to bump into him and ask him. He then said he had a barn full of lambs that needed to be bottle fed, and would I like to help? Yes, yes, I would!

Richard, the farmer, also counts as one of my ‘interesting people’ – he was a school teacher by day, and a sheep farmer the rest of the time, also helping out with his sister’s cows and brother’s pigs. He had 4 extremely well-trained sheep dog and a clear passion for lambs. He normally tried to time lambing seasons with the 2-week Easter holiday, but due to a cock-up (some might say, literally) – his lambs started coming a week early, meaning several long nights picking up hypothermic lambs, his daughters having to take a couple of days off school to cuddle them and keep them warm, while he went in to teach.
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I also cooked 2 new recipes for myself and Saffron, again from the Simply Cook flavour pots. We enjoyed a Thai Red Prawn Curry, and a Mapo Sichuan (beef, aubergine and rice) which is a Chinese dish. Both were delicious! I also baked some cupcakes for the retreat (and another batch when I got home to use up the left-over buttercream icing.) Now, this totaled 24 cupcakes…..In the interests of my diet and weight loss, I am tempted to count each individual cupcake as one towards my total of 30 cakes/desserts……slightly cheating I know, but it’s my challenge, my rules! I will continue to bake different cakes/desserts, but that eases the pressure on making 30 different ones! In a random act of kindness (and totally something I’d not normally do) I left 3 cupcakes behind for Matt while I was away. 

The day that the retreat ended, given I was already in the highlands, I decided to go and grab a near(ish) Munro, taking my count to 5.

So, at the half way point, here’s a round-up of how I am getting on.
Make 30 recipes - 11
Make 30 soups - 8
Climb 30 new munros – 5
Read 30 books - 6
Visit 30 restaurants/cafes - 16
Do 30 acts of kindness - 9
Reconnect with 30 old friends - 12
Create a playlist of 30 favourite songs - 0
Drink 30 different alcoholic drinks - 27
See 30 new films - 19
Lose 30lbs - 11
Try 30 different hairstyles/hairdos - 16
Write 30 letters/postcards - 11
Learn to say hello/thankyou in 30 languages – 0 (well, I just need to record them)
Say yes to 30 opportunities - 22
Meet 30 new ‘interesting’ people - 20
Bake 30 cakes/desserts – 28 (including 24 cupcakes!)
Give 30 coaching freebies - 10
Do 30 different sports/exercise/classes - 20
Ski 30 ski-runs - 0
Attend 30 networking events/meetings - 18
Colour in 30 pictures - 9
Add 30 new bands/artists/albums to my iPod - 0
Write 30 blog posts - 17
 
Weekly or One-Off Challenges
Play piano for 30 minutes a week – Hmmmm – have only done this once in 26 weeks!
Go for a 30 minutes walk at least once a week – Yes, every week except post-surgery recovery
Earn 30k – still some way to go on this one!
Cycle 30 miles – not yet
Walk 30 miles in a day – not yet
Put 30p per day in a jar and treat myself – Hmmm – jar is currently empty – I have some catching up to do with paying in – it should be £54.60 by now.
 
So, I’m at or over half way on some challenges: Restaurants, films, alcoholic drinks, networking events, exercises, blog posts, hairstyles, opportunities and new people. I basically need to get Cooking, Colouring, Climbing and Coaching.

As you can see, I’ve made no progress on skiing 30 ski runs as I didn’t get around to skiing holiday this year, and given its now summer, I’m unlikely to. So, I’ve decided to change that challenge item to spending 30 nights under canvass/outside/snow-holing. Given 2 nights over new year, and 2 nights in a snow hole for my winter ML, that puts me at 4. And I can add ‘Camping’ to the list of things I need to do above. Cooking, Colouring, Climbing, Coaching and Camping.
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If anyone fancies joining me for a 30 mile walk or bike ride, give me a shout! For the walk, I’m thinking of something flat and easy to follow, either walking from Edinburgh to Falkirk (plus a bit) along the canal, or walking the length of the Water of Leith and back (plus a bit.) Any other suggestions of where to go?

I’ve felt really happy this week. Not sure whether it’s just because the sun is shining and spring is truly up and running now.

The week started with a couple of films – firstly Eye in the Sky. This is Alan Rickman’s last outing, and also stars the fabulous Helen Mirren, although in a role that you don’t normally see her play. The film follows a UK military plot to capture some terrorists (using a drone, hence the Eye in the Sky), but the mission turns to a ‘kill’ mission, which is likely to have some devastating effects for the local civilians. It’s full of suspense and ‘what would I do’ thought-provoking moments and I can highly recommend it. We then also watched the more light-hearted Eddie the Eagle. While not outstanding compared to Eye in the Sky, it certainly had its moments and was just a generally uplifting and inspiring story. 

​We tried out a new tapas restaurant in Edinburgh (well, new to us) called El Quijote, near Tollcross. It was pretty good food-wise, but the main thing that kept me happy was the huge jug of Sangria we ordered. Alongside the Spanish dessert wine they brought us with our dessert, this takes my different types of alcohol to 27……only 3 more to go to complete one of my challenge items!

Over the weekend, I also cooked a new recipe, another Simply Cook invention of Malay Laksa. It didn't look as well presented as the picture on the recipe card, but it was really delicious!
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Monday was my Mum’s birthday, so another card opportunity, taking me up to 11. I’m going to have to get moving on some of these challenge items, as I’m nearly at half way, time-wise, but not half-way on most of the items.

Monday also saw another opportunity taken, where I volunteered to be supervisor for a Duke of Edinburgh group. Although I am now trying to get more paid work in the outdoor industry, the school were in desperate need of a volunteer, so I signed up to help. And it did pay off, in that one of the other volunteers was actually an MIC (super-guru mountaineer) in charge of hiring freelance staff for an outdoor centre in Edinburgh, so I now have 5 days paid work from him. 

During the week, I had another networking meeting, with a guy called Geoffrey Baines, who calls himself a ‘DreamWhisperer.’ He helps people to discover their unique talents and strengths and support them in following their dreams. He also blogs every day, with a doodle included.
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The middle of the week then saw one new hairstyle, of rope plait pigtails. Given last week’s step class injury, I didn’t do any new fitness classes, but I spent ages finishing another colouring picture, which I like to call An Explosion of Colour. This one tested my OCD tendencies by not having a set colour scheme for the whole picture, instead doing each little section with a colour scheme of its own. Crazy, right!?

On Wednesday night, given Matt was away with work, I indulged myself in another new film and got entirely caught up with the fairytale of Cinderella. Knowing the old Disney animated version quite well, I thought the live action version was a brilliant adaptation that really captured the magic and romance of the whole situation. It left me longing, once again, to be a Princess, and reinforced my unrealistic expectation of romance, but I really enjoyed it.

My learnings this week:
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1. Volunteering can really pay off, not just in the feel-good factor of doing some good and worthwhile, but you never know what connections you’ll make and where it’ll lead you.
2. Its amazing how ‘out of your comfort zone’ a colouring book can make you feel. Orange, next to pink! My, my……
3. Secretly, I still want to be a princess in a fairytale. 

So, 4 weeks worth in one blog post…… I’ve been very busy!

Week 21 was my Winter ML Assessment. This involved being away for a very intense week of navigation through white-out and night-time, security on steep ground using a rope, ice-axe and crampon skills and digging and sleeping in a snow hole! I didn’t tell many people I was doing it as I was scared of failing, but in fact, I passed with flying colours! I added a new type of exercise to my challenge – snow-hole digging! It took us 4 hours of hard shovelling to dig out a hole big enough for 4 of us. By the time it was finished, and decked out with battery-powered fairy lights, it was really quite pleasant.
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On my assessment, I also met some interesting people also being assessed, in particular Matt and John. Matt runs an outdoor company in the Lake District, has summited Scafell Park over 200 times in 7 years, and was great fun to be around. He was a very competent mountaineer and helped to put me at ease throughout the course. John worked for Matt’s company and was responsible for the fairy lights in the snow hole. Also a very competent mountaineer, I feel he was robbed of a pass-mark by an over-zealous assessor on his navigation. Matt and John are both married (to women), and are not, as one of the other candidates assumed, a gay couple!

My Winter ML qualification then led on to another ‘opportunity.’ Late one night, just 5 days after passing, I saw a post on facebook requesting a last-minute Winter ML person to lead a group up Ben Nevis the next day. I jumped at the chance to use my new qualification, and before I knew it, was up at 5.30am to drive up to Fort William. This day then led to 2 further days guiding on Ben Nevis the following week. This also gave me the opportunity to meet more interesting people.

Dean, my client on the first day, had just finished the West Highland Way with 2 mates (they were also interesting, but I didn’t speak to them that much, as I was mostly keeping Dean company at the back of the group.) He works in the city in London and had once done the 3 peaks, in his fitter days. Dean was ‘slow and steady’ up the mountain and we enjoyed great conversation all the way up. My clients later in the week were 2 guys and a girl from Lebanon (James, Mary and Samy) – we discussed life in Lebanon, the war in Syria, religion, politics and all those other things you shouldn’t discuss when first meeting someone.

And my final client was Aisha, a young Malaysian women. Within about 10 minutes of leaving the hostel to start up Ben Nevis, Aisha was sick. A further 100metres on, she was sick again, and we decided it wasn’t the best idea to carry on. After a slow descent back to the starting point, she then decided she felt better and could try again, so we made our way slowly up. After summiting, Aisha admitted that she’d come to climb Ben Nevis to ‘do something impossible’ and prove to her mum that she wasn’t ‘fragile.’ She asked me to record a video to her mum saying how well she’d done to summit in full winter conditions. She was rightly very proud of herself and hopefully left with a greater sense of self-confidence in her abilities. 

After a short week to recover from my Winter ML, I then joined the scouts at Lochearnhead for their mountaineering course, and caught up with some old friends, many of whom I saw at Christmas, or didn’t get much chance to speak to. However, I’m counting Mark Tullberg and Geoff Brown as ones for my challenge, as I had a long chat with each of them. I also managed a bit of ‘ninja coaching’ with Geoff on our descent, so that’s another free coaching session given.

Next came my Mum’s Wedding down in Ely, near Cambridge. It was a fabulous day, a really joyful occasion full of family, and also a chance to catch up with some very old family friends. I met Hilary Barnes, who had been my Year 5 and Year 6 teacher. She’s now very happily retired. She recognised me, but didn’t recognise my brother, who looks quite different from his school days (a few too many beers and pizzas.) I also saw Mike and Christine, old family friends who are very special. Mike was my mum’s physics teacher, so has known her since she was 11, and my Gran worked for him as his secretary. Also there were Debbie and Les, again old family friends that we used to go on holiday with, and Clare and Paul, who I remember used to have a tortoise. I also saw my Godfather, Dave Crow, a lovely cheeky chappy who makes everyone smile.

​The wedding also provided an opportunity – my Mum asked me to sing Fields of Gold. However, as there was no piano at the venue, I worked, via email, with the classical guitarist who was playing for the wedding, to get him to play an accompaniment. Given that he doesn’t read music and learns everything by ear, this was somewhat challenging, but judging by all the tears from the audience, we nailed it!

The wedding also provided the opportunity for a fantastic hairstyle, done by a professional, and some focused weight loss efforts, although with everything else going on, I only managed a further 2lbs. I also added to my alcohol count with some prosecco and white wine. And also an act of kindness: at the end of the night, my cousin Michael, my brother Matt and my partner Matt put on the song ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen and performed (rather drunkenly) along to it at full volume. To protect their dignity, I have (so far….) not uploaded it to Facebook despite an overwhelming urge to do so!

Back in the real world, I’ve managed some different types of exercise this week through my fitness classes at the gym. I’ve done pilates, Synergy 360, Step class, and I was the only person under 60 in the Line Dancing class, which was great fun!
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Finally, I’ve also completed 2 more colouring pictures in the period, and also made a new recipe (using the Simply Cook posted flavour pots) of Dukkeh Spiced Salmon. Mmmm, tasty.
 
My learnings from these 4 weeks have been:

1. Its amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it and have confidence in yourself. I never imagined that I would be a Winter Mountain Leader and I’m really proud of myself for getting it.
2. The warm-up part of an exercise class is actually really important. Yesterday, after missing it at Step class due to bad traffic, towards the end of class, I felt something ‘twang’ in my calf and haven’t been able to walk since. Lesson learnt
3. Even full grown men (or perhaps, especially full-grown men) love ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen. 

Gosh, time flies through a year doesn’t it? Feels like I’m approaching half-way, with way more than half the things to do on the challenge!
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This week feels a bit quieter than previous weeks. On Saturday, I took an opportunity that presented itself, and at the grand age of 30, found myself babysitting – something I hadn’t done since I was about 16. A lady on a Facebook group I’m part of commented that her babysitter had cancelled and could the group recommend anyone – and I found myself thinking that I had a free evening, some work to do, and a few extra pounds could come in handy, so I offered to step in. So off I went, to babysit for 5 young boys (it sounded daunting, but they were all in bed when I arrived, reading books, and were the politest, most-well-behaved kids I’ve seen in a long time.) I then got nearly 3 hours of work done, a free piece of cake and £30. Not a bad for an evening’s work.

In the hair stakes, I found myself determined this week to master the French plait – it has long evaded me, and even evaded my mum, who used to get mummy friends round to teach her how to do it and who all commented that my hair was really difficult to separate when trying to deftly scoop extra strands up with one’s little fingers. After some determined practice, I ended up with a fairly messy pair of French plaits, and despite several attempts since this photo, I’ve not got any better. I have therefore stuck to traditional pigtail plaits this week. I also tried a ponytail with the band wrapped in hair too. Results below. (If anyone dares agree with Matt that I look a little bit ginger in some of these photos.....there'll be trouble....)

On Wednesday, I had a networking meeting with Bonnie Clark, a fellow NLP student and director at a recruitment agency. I asked her for help on getting my retreat business into the corporate market, and she gave me lots of good advice how I can progress it.
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Friday night saw a flurry of challenge items met all in one evening. I met up with an old university friend, Phil Whitby (also known in the olden days as the Whitby Monster) who was visiting Edinburgh with his girlfriend, Beth. Phil hasn’t really changed at all, and we had some interesting conversations catching up on news from those we used to know in the mountaineering club at uni. He also bought me a fab gift – a small colouring book, meaning it’ll be much easier to get pictures completed as they are A5 instead of A4 sized. Thanks Phil! Beth counts as a ‘new interesting person met’ – Beth sounds entirely Irish, but grew up in Scotland, and now lives in Ireland and is training to become a personal trainer. The most interesting thing about her is that she puts up with Phil! We went out for a meal at a new restaurant, Tutto Matto, where I had a Moroccan pizza (tomato sauce with cumin and cinnamon added, Moroccan sausage and goat’s cheese.) I also accompanied this with a Frozen Strawberry Margarita, which was a delicious new alcoholic drink for my challenge. 

Despite the pizza, a week of ‘being good’ after my retreat last week has seen me knock another pound of my weight loss. Its very slow, and not very steady, but is at least going in a downward direction!

This week, I have actually played my piano for 30 minutes as well, one of my most neglected challenge items. I am trying to re-learn Fields of Gold to sing at my mum’s wedding in April.
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My learnings for this week:

1. Babysitting is a great job. You get paid to watch someone else’s TV, eat someone else’s food and do work without any distractions. I guess it may have been somewhat different if you didn’t have such well-behaved kids to look after.
2. I notice when I’m meeting people for networking that I often want them to hand me the solution on a plate and give me some work there and then. I was reminded this week of how it takes between 7-15 touch points for someone to be likely to buy from you, and that it’s a longer term game. Hopefully, some of the seeds are being sown now that will grow and be fruitful in the future……..patience is needed (and persistence.)
3. I may be destined never to master the French Plait.

So, the gaps between me writing blogs are getting longer! 3 weeks in one this time, after a few very hectic weeks. Last week, I was away running my first Wellbeing Retreat, a mix of yoga, walking and coaching up in Kinloch Rannoch, where I was completely ‘off grid.’ The week before that was busy preparing, shopping, cooking etc.

So, what have I been up to in terms of the challenge? Probably best to start with the cooking based ones, as they took up much of my time. For the retreat, I cooked a veggie stew, of lentil and butternut squash. I also made a beef stew, but didn’t use a recipe for that, as I take a ‘bung everything in’ approach. I also made 3 soups for the retreat, a butternut squash soup, and old favourite of tomato and ginger, and a new soup for me, broccoli and stilton (which was pretty delicious!) Finally, the retreat meant home-baking, and I made 2 lots of flapjack, a vanilla cheesecake and an apply crumble, counting towards my 30 cakes/desserts. My Gran had also made a lemon cake and a Dundee cake, and the owner of the venue made cupcakes as well. We were very well-fed on the retreat, meaning that my weight loss count has gone a little bit (ok, a lot) backwards!

The retreat also brought opportunities for a random act of kindness. I offered my aunty Jilly a place on the retreat, as she’s been having a tough time of things lately. She really enjoyed the retreat and got a lot out of it. I also got to catch up with an old friend, Linda Cairns, who came along to the retreat, to support me on my first retreat of this type, and also because she thought it sounded like exactly what she needed! I first met Linda when I lived in London and went on a coaching walk with our mutual friend Sarah Maliphant. After moving to Scotland, Linda contacted me out of the blue saying she always saw me up to interesting things on facebook, she was coming to Edinburgh, would I be interested in having dinner? We did, and got on really well, and have stayed in touch since.
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The retreat also offered the opportunity to meet some ‘interesting people’ – I met Carolyn, who works with my co-host Lindsey for CVS, a volunteering organisation. Carolyn was a complete force of nature and a very inspiring young woman to get to know. I also met Marie, who joined us for the Monday-Thursday part of the week. Marie used to be a neuroscientist and was a fellow keen walker and traveller, so we had some interesting chat about our various adventures. 

Before the retreat, I got really organised and sent two cards, both for mother’s day. One was to my actual Mum, and one was to my NLP Mum. Madeleine, who taught my NLP Practitioner course, and runs regular NLP Grapevines, does not have any children of her own, but has built this community of people connected by NLP. She supports each and every one of them in following their dreams, often discovered through her NLP courses, so I got together with some other NLP students and made a card with a personal message from each of them. She put on facebook that she was completely overwhelmed to receive it and really appreciated it.
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I also took an opportunity offered to me, to run a personal development session for the Edinburgh Businesswomen’s Club. I did this session on an NLP process called the neurological levels of change, by Robert Dilts. The session went well and I’m also counting it as a networking opportunity, as I reconnected with several people I’d met at previous networking events. 

I attended 2 Cambridge Weight Plan events, one a Medical Training course, and one a conference, again a great opportunity to network with people who do the same as I do (I run a Cambridge Weight Plan business on the side of Reach the Peak.)

I also went to London for the day, to attend the Coachmatch conference. The conference was a really good opportunity to meet fellow coaches, working all across the UK and abroad. Being in London was a bit of a shock to the system, as its been a while since I went down there and had forgotten how busy, noisy and stressed it is. This was made significantly better by catching up with another old friend, Kirstina Divall. I met Kristina on my very first day at Lloyds Banking Group in 2009 and we’ve stayed friends ever since, seeing each other about once a year. She came to stay in November, but for some reason, I didn’t count her in my challenge as an old friend, so I’m claiming her now.

​While in London, I travelled to Kent to go to Matt’s brother’s wedding. This was a really lovely day, I was made to very welcome as part of the family for the day, and also got to eat in a new restaurant, with the wedding meal at Winter’s Barn. It was the best wedding food I’ve ever had. The night before the wedding, we also went to Zizzi’s and although it was at a different end of the country, I couldn’t quite bring myself to count it as a different restaurant.
The wedding was a good opportunity for a new hairdo, so I had it in a half-up pony tail, curled with pearl heart shaped clips. Also on the hair front, I attempted a bun wrapped in plaits…..it was fiddly and a bit messy. 

Finally, I joined a gym and undertook a mission to start trying out different machines. I did a session on the crosstrainer, some time of the steps machine, and some time on the weight resistance machines (which I’m counting as one type of exercise.) I also tried some exercise classes: BodyBalance -  a mix of yoga, pilates, tai chai – quite enjoyable; Spin – evilly horrible, especially at 7am in the morning; BodyCombat – an non-contact aerobics class based on punching and kicking; and PiYo, a dynamic, fast mic of yoga and pilates to music, which I didn’t get on with at all.
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Lastly, we went to see 2 new films, Deadpool and Dad’s Army. I enjoyed the rather cheesy Deadpool, despite not being particularly into superhero films. I was a bit disappointed with Dad’s Army – despite an all-star cast, I didn’t find it very funny compared to the old series.
So, that a rather quick summary of everything I’ve done in the last 3 weeks.
My learnings are:

1. Sometimes, the best, most supportive and longest lasting friendships start in the most random of places and can’t be predicted. Who’d have thought I’d still be in touch with the random person I sat next to on induction day, or a random person I happened to chat to on a Sunday walk in Guildford when I didn’t know anyone. Never miss an opportunity to make a new friend, you never know where it’ll lead!
2. Pride comes before a fall……after a week of twice-daily yoga on retreat, I was extremely proud to be able to get into my first shoulder stand, feeling very proud as it felt a little advanced for this early in my yoga journey. My core muscles evidently agreed, as I had a little spasm in my back muscles on the return to flat-backed and have been a little sore ever since.
3. I love my job. I knew that already, but I really really enjoyed running a retreat this week. They say that if you do a job you love, you’ll never work another day in your life, and this certainly felt true, sitting around a log fire chatting to some truly special people this week. 

I’ve been really busy the last 2 weeks, hence why I’m writing two weeks together and a bit late!

I’ve had a busy few weeks networking with people. I met a fellow coach who recently started her own business for coffee and we exchanged marketing notes. I then met with Lee Peyton from Breaking Strain Events, and discussed the possibility of me joining their leader team for treks in the Arctic next year, which was very exciting! Stay tuned for more details. I also met with my coach Steve Quinn, who has been supporting me since I started my own business, and he introduced to me to the new director of a company called Coachmatch (who I have already done some work with) – we discussed some exciting possibilities of where my retreats and walking-coaching concept could be used in Scotland.
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The weekend before last saw a trip to Kinloch Rannoch to reccy some walks for my upcoming Wellbeing Retreat. Matt came along for the weekend, and we met up with Lindsey, who I am co-hosting the retreat with. We were blessed with fresh snow, blue skies and sunshine and enjoyed a lovely weekend – one of those experiences that is really soul-enriching. If you’d like to experience some of the same, you can find out more about the wellbeing retreat at www.reachthepeak.co.uk/wellbeing-retreat. We stayed at the Red Brolly Inn, and sampled their restaurant, so that counted as a new establishment for the challenge. 

I wrote a couple of letters this week too – firstly a much-belated thankyou letter to my Grandma, who sent me some money to ‘treat myself’ with after my operation. I also spent an evening writing limericks in a bid to cheer up my aunty who has been having a difficult time recently.

Through advertising my retreat, I’ve also been offering free phone-coaching sessions to people that express an interest, so that they can find out more about what coaching is. I therefore did 2 free coaching sessions this week – one with a lady who wanted to start cycling more and getting outdoors more often, and one with a lady who was at a decision point about her life and career and wanted to explore her options.

My weight is still very slowly creeping down overall, although it has been following a pattern of loss during the week, then putting on over the weekend as I climb mountains, go walking and overcompensate with chocolate and pub meals!
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I took a couple of opportunities in the last couple of weeks. One was to undertake a module of Master Practitioner for NLP – I am now a qualified Master Practitioner in Memory Re-solution. It was a really interesting 2-day topic, quite intense. Through doing that, I also met one of my ‘interesting people’ – Shirley Sharp, who has sped through her NLP Practitioner journey and onto doing Master Practitioner, and was a lovely supportive energy to learn with. She worked for Standard Life and was keen to introduce me to some of her colleagues who may also be interested in retreats and outdoors personal development.
 
Saw a new film during the week – The Big Short – all about the housing market crash in 2008 and the few lucky people who predicted it and profited a huge amount from it. It was a pretty interesting film, with an all-star cast. 

This latest weekend saw me head up to Fort William – taking up an opportunity presented to me. My friend Lucy Wallace, a qualified Winter Mountain Leader, who normally lives on Arran had hired a cottage near Fort William and invited me up to stay for a weekend to practice some winter skills. I met her husband, Wally, who counts as another one of my ‘interesting people.’ While Lucy was working on the Saturday, myself and Wally went out into the valley beneath the cliffs of Ben Nevis to practice winter skills, such as building buried axe belays, cutting steps, etc. Wally also told me of how he had been in an avalanche the day before, on a route known to be a ‘safe route’ in avalanche conditions. That, coupled with meeting the mountain rescue team still searching for a young couple who have now been missing on Ben Nevis for over a week, really sunk home how important some winter knowledge is to enable you to make safe decisions in the mountains, and how sometimes, even with this knowledge, nature will overpower you. We even saw an avalanche happen down one of the gullies in Ben Nevis, naturally triggered just by the weight of fresh snow.
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Saturday night saw a trip to the Fort William Film Festival, for a fantastic night watching presentations of awards for Mountain Culture, and then a brilliant slideshow and film by the Wild Bunch, called the Adventures of Dodo. Basically, a 79-year Reverend and yacht captain, Bob Shepton, invited 4 young and slightly crazy Belgian climbers on a yachting/climbing trip to Greenland and Baffin Island. The 4 climbers are also musicians, and the resulting film is funny, beautiful, a bit crazy and thoroughly enjoyable. If you like comedy, folk music, sailing and climbing, or any combination of the above – I really recommend this film. It got several minutes of standing ovation. 

Finally, on Sunday, I undertook a new type of exercise – building a Shovel Up. This is an emergency shelter in winter, which essentially involving shovelling snow on top of your rucksacks until you have a massive pile, then pulling your rucksacks out of the middle and hollowing it out until you have a hole big enough to crawl into. It was physical demanding and tiring work, but the results were pretty cool!
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Some learnings from the last 2 weeks are:

1. Ask for help, and talk about what you want and need, and opportunities start to come your way. This follows the NLP principle of ‘where the attention goes, the energy flows’ – in that you start to attract and/or notice opportunities related to what you are thinking about, talking about and focusing on. Simple, but true.
2. In the event of getting stuck out in winter in an emergency, walking out/down is almost certainly going to be quicker and less tiring that building an emergency shelter (particularly if you don’t have a shovel, which I normally don’t) – still a good skill to know, even if its just for fun on a shit weather day.
3. Sunshine really makes a difference to my mood. Its like the sky is smiling at me, and it makes me smile back. Perhaps I need a winter sun holiday each year?