Foundations 2: Four Star Award

As well as bringing back Ugg Manor last weekend I have inherited my Dad's Bureau - a piece of furniture that was shrouded in wonder and mystery as the drop down worksurface was only unlocked and opened when people like the Liverpool Vic Man came round or Dad was writing a cheque for some school outing or other.

It was a grown up bit of furniture.

Within its two draws was all sorts of wonderful stuff - a newspaper that had George VI's death as its headline, an aerial photograph of what likes Monte Casino (Dad fixed Hurricanes that were in action in that particular battle) and then a few more personal treasures - the children's handmade Easter Cards and the occasional child's certificates.

I am sitting on the settee at the moment with a certificate to celebrate the fact that I 'accomplished a successful ascent and descent from the Parachute Regiment Training Tower' when I was the tender age of 13. I must admit to being particularly proud of this one as at the time I was absolutely terrified. I have certificates to show that I had attended three Patrol Leaders Training Courses at the age of 12 and 13.

But the biggie - yes the real biggie was the Amateur Athletic Association (Sponsored by Wall's Ice Cream) Four Star Award.

I was amazed I got this as until then I hadn't considered myself very 'sporty' at all. I had always been a bit lazy. However, I completed 880 yards in 2' 22" and a mile in 6' 00". The Long Jump was 14' 6". None of these results are startling in any way - in fact they aren't particularly good at all for a 13 year old boy.

But Jings! The effect that receiving this award had on me was electrifying.

A whole new world was opened up and before too long I was busting these results by miles and miles. I joined the school's athletics team and became a winner. Or more importantly, I became someone who wanted to win as, truth be told, I didn't win very often.

It was a turning point in my life.

TGO Challenge 2010 Cairngorms FWA and God and stuff.

(You can click on the map to make it larger)

The organisers of the TGO Challenge like you to put in FWA's (Foul Weather Alternatives) for crappy weather so that you have a plan already sorted out to keep you safe in nasty weather.

I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that Phil & I think it's wiser to plan the route for horrid weather and then, if it is particularly nice & sunny, we don't have any horrid head-aches, the grass doesn't look overly long and we are at least three quarters of the way through our mammoth food bags, we'll have a bash at some Munro or other Fine Weather Alternative.

However, just occasionally and I do mean occasionally, we actually plan our route with a Big Day in mind. That's why you will see the map above with the little radioactive symbols clambering up Carn Ban Mor, skipping lightly over Moine Mhor and putting up the tents at Loch nan Stuirteag. It's going to have to be particularly horrid to keep us off this route this year as it is On Our Route Plan. So, I need you all to put your hands together (eyes closed) and pray to God for lovely weather please. If His Holiness, the Incredibly Irreverend Dave can do it, it would be appreciated as he might have the inside track to Big G. Nothing like a bit of insider dealing.

However, the following morning, if it's horrid again, (well thanks Dave - that didn't work, did it!) then we'll drop down into Glen Geusachen. But you will note that there are little green question marks that says if it is Fine - then we shall be nipping over Beinn Bhrotain before dancing down to The River Dee and a big party at Braemar.

Simples!

Film4 Morons

I have just sat up to watch one of cinema's most amazing films - The Godfather Part 2.

But Film4 comprehensively cocked it up by playing one sequence twice and missing out an entire sequence. But only after I had sat through three hours of the film.

Some bastard should be sacked for this! I can't imagine Vito Corleone standing for it.

Foundations 1: Ugg Manor

An interesting day.

My father died in 2006, leaving behind my Mum who soldiered on at the family home until fairly recently when it was agreed by all that Mum would be better cared for and have a better quality of life in a care home.

Well, the time has come to sell her home in order to help with the payment of her care. A brother and two of my sisters have done a wonderful job in getting the old house sold in double quick time.

Today I met with my brothers and sisters to go through my parent's sixty years of accumulated household belongings. We had to decide what to do with the stuff that Mum doesn't have with her in her care home. Mum & Dad weren't 'well-off' by any means and without the people to whom it mattered, their possessions looked a forlorn sight. But today we found jewels in the form of memories from the mundane:

My two brothers delighted in Dad's lovingly cared-for woodworking tools, My three sisters found their memories too.

But I came away with a treasured memory: Ugg Manor.

My first experience of the great outdoors was in the back garden of my childhood home - my elder sisters and I built a tent out of an old woollen blanket and some sticks. We christened it 'Ugg Manor'. It was immediately an adventures and our own secret space. It was a home from home. I was three years old and it was a swelteringly hot summers day but we loved it.

The blanket's holes and tears echo the memories and adventures lived beneath its canopy.  Now that old woollen blanket is washed and drying over the banisters.

Ugg Manor is home again.

BT: A Sense of Humour

Last Sunday, our usual triumvirate of mis-shapen walkers (well, in truth, only two are mis-shapen) had a stroll around the deeper parts of Suffolkshire, at times clambering well above the snow line and bagging at least two Suffolk Tops. Just after leaving the wonderful pub at Cowlinge Lord Elpus happened to bump into the following startling red obelisk:

(It had been vertical prior to him colliding with it in his beerhappygrinningattheworld state)

Inside there was a note:

So, when you clamber inside, having broken your aging pelvis on the red obelisk after colliding with it after leaving the hostelry and find that they have removed the phone apparatus from within due to lack of use, you are given a phone number to call to find the nearest alternate payphone.

Thoughtful bastards, BT.

PreWalkDaunder 2010

Each year Lord Elpus and I send out invitations to a few hardy souls that we feel might benefit from a bit of an airing. The list of invitees is never the same but all have one thing in common; they have all completed the TGO Challenge at some point in their lives.

The 'PreWalkDaunder' has been running now for fourteen years. It is known as such as it is 'pre' the TGO Challenge 'Walk' and it's not designed to be a demanding testosterone fuelled hike but more a gentle bimble, a 'Daunder,' in fact. It usually takes place two to three weeks prior to the 'off' for the Challenge. It reminds all the soft and flabby body parts, in a gentle fashion, that there is work to be done.

It exercises the grey matter as well: Participants need to plan their own menu, find their own way to the gathering point and pack their rucksacks - all on their own! A fine preparation for the Challenge.

And (I know, Marian, I know...) there is usually a route strung together by the organiser that involves at least one public house. Two is better. Three is positively delirious. That way we are all fully prepared for all the rigours of the Real Event. It's two and a half days of daundering amongst fine mountain landscapes with a band of like-minded souls.

Well - the invitations have all been sent out and as is the norm with these things, most have promptly ignored it and not replied.

This is absolutely normal and is never a surprise. When was the last time you tried to organise a bunch of wild things with minds of their own (or no minds at all in some of their cases). Its like trying to count a pillow case of feathers in a wind tunnel, it is.

But they have until Valentines Day to get back to me. I shall remind them a few days beforehand, bless their cotton socks.

WINDOW DRESSING

For someone who likes a bit of order and safety, stepping out of my comfort zone is a wild and dangerous thing.

But.... I am often told that change is good. So with a deep breath and a bit of fiddling with scary computer code stuff (is that what it is called? - the techies will be able to tell you) I have managed to change how the blog looks.

I am afraid the content is exactly the same old drivel though. So - Live with it. Get Over It. Okay?

We'll see how it goes for a while. I know you don't like change either... We are in this together.

SHANK OF INCHGRUNDLE

In your wildest beer fuelled imaginations, you couldn't make up a name like that, could you?

I was in correspondence with a bit of a Chally Guru - a Humphrey Weightman (now there's another name you couldn't make up, already) - discussing my Day 12 Chally route. Humph put it quite nicely:

"The huge enjoyment of this particular route - should you be heading toward Tarfside - is the splendid opportunity to gloat and suffuse (?) as unfortunates struggle up toward Loch Brandy."

Now, until that point that very thought hadn't passed my mind, but I am pretty sure it had Lord Elpus's, who had been responsible for this part of our route. Now I am not sure if I would have thought of the term 'gloat' or 'suffuse' for that matter either, but I do get Humph's drift here! Schadenfreude will be kicking in, just a touch.

You can click on the map to make it much larger and readable

Again, our route is the radioactive symbols until the green pecked line is reached that takes us into Tarfside Heaven.

If you look at the bottom left had corner you will spy Clova - a popular overnight halt for Challengers with a welcoming hotel with an excellent bar. There is also an excellent bunkhouse there too. I would hazard a guess at about 80% of the Challengers will, first thing in the morning, set out straight up the hill to Loch Brandy and thence on to the hills above. A Brute of a Start to the Day. Phil & me, on the other hand will be having a little lie-in and then a stroll down the stream and a shortish hop up a hill so that we can have a go at the Shank.It looks like it will have wonderful airy views. In all my Challenges I have never had a go at the Shank of Inchgrundle.

With a name like that it really is not to be missed. I think I will take a leaf out of Humph's book and take a nice steak and some onions from Braemar with me for a bit of a fry-up on the top.

Perfick!

TGO CHALLENGE 2010 DAY ELEVEN

(You can click on the above map to make it bigger) 

There's a lot of information on this map as I have been around here quite a few times, but the route I shall be following this May is between the red triangles, indicated by the radioactive symbols.

It starts at Stan & Bill's place at Lochcallater Lodge. This means that we might struggle for the first few miles as the night before will have been one of sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll. Well - it might not have the sex. The drugs will be mostly alcohol but there will definitely be rock and roll, well into the small hours if past experience is anything to go by.

It's days like these that focus the mind, here in a bleak January evening. There is a lot to do on the fitness front as well as the lardy belly front. Lots of this days' route is trackless stuff and happily, a wonderful lot of it is glorious peat-hags! We should arrive at the point of collapse to flip the tents up at about 2300 feet above sea level, no doubt in high winds and torrential rain.

On the other hand, it could well be warm and sunny and there will be dancing girls there to soothe our tired brows and put the tents up for us and wait on us hand and foot all night.

Ooh. Now, there's lovely!

FORTHCOMING ATTRACTIONS!

Okay - This isn't Pearl & Dean but with the belly beginning it's forced descent to near-where-it-should-be-normalitudiness I have built myself a training schedule.

I seem to have given up on training with the Canadian Airforce - I decided that they weren't going to call on me anytime soon. So, as there is nothing like walking to get in practice for walking, I fixed my sights on a walking training programme largely based on walking. The TGO organisers will be relieved to hear that no running is involved.

So - in addition to the already written-in-blood-in-the-diary Sunday afternoon walks with Miss Whiplash there will be the following exciting exertions:

February: The Lakes with Lord Elpus. This is an expedition principally to acquire a replacement pair of booties for the his Italian feet. It will involve a whirling miasma of sweaty feet and talcum powder, mountainous piles of discarded leather and Goretex goods and despairing howls as outdoor emporia are exited. It is never pretty. But we do hope to get up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs, too.

March: We are hoping to bag a weekend away up in the Yorkshire Dales to marvel at an old bloke's past triumphs on one of the U S of A's longest hiking trails in a village hall. (The talk is in a village hall; not the hiking trail, you understand). But we do hope to get up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs, too.

Then of course, there's the Snake Pass weekend - an 'Official' reunion for Challengers. We do hope to get up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs too.

April: A busy month: We hope to stagger along with the Pieman on a hitherto unknown to me multi-day walk between two small towns 'upnorth' at very high altitudes. This will be a very difficult walk for flatlanders and we expect to struggle. We are expected to climb a few hills, even in the rain and there will be no pubs. What are we thinking?

Then in the same month of madness, we are hosting the annual PreWalkDaunder - again 'upnorth,' in an area famous for it's watery features. We will be clambering up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs. (Phew!)

This is all good stuff and hopefully the legs will hold out.