YOU CAN HEAR THE WHISTLE BLOWING

A Hundred Miles. Well, maybe a bit more than a hundred miles.

I had plotted our route on my mapping software as far as Kingussie ; nothing too alarming but there was quite a lot to do for the second day. Living as we do on the edge of the Fens there is a distinct risk of nose-bleeds and altitude sickness on that day but our reward is to be a pub at the end of the third day. Lord E will do anything for a drink.

At this point the laptop made a soft 'pling' as an email dropped in. It was from Lord Elpus. He had not only finished plotting our route but had also filled in the route sheet as well. He had sent it over for my perusal. What a darling! So, we compared notes distances and height climbs for the route as far as Kingussie. He had already adjusted for that unique Anquet 'ExtraHeight' software glitch by manually counting the contours and when we looked at Anquet's count and Phil's manual counting, all seemed to be in the right order. It was agreed. It could be sent off to Uncle Roger.

Is this a first? Our route sent in, in November! We are looking frightfully organised this year.

So it comes out at a moderate 170 miles and 8,000m of ascent. That's about 30 miles less than our last route together and 1000m less climbing. It should be do-able then.