TGO Challenge 2013: Six week countdown

So where did that year go, eh?

It doesn’t seem like a year since I was clambering up the steep bit of the North Morar Ridge with WeeWillyWilky and Mr Walker, completely out of puff.

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At the moment I’m tapping away at the keyboard at home, when really I should be somewhere on the South Downs Way, gently coaxing the body back into life after a winter of not doing any walking at all. But frankly, I didn’t fancy battling Arctic blasts  from deepest Siberia; After all, that’s what the Challenge is about. You can have too much fun, you know.

The weather forecast looks like remaining pretty horrid for another three or four weeks and then clearing, perhaps in time, for our PreWalkDaunder in the Lakes. If it doesn’t, we’ll be freezing our nether regions off in a last vain attempt at getting something like match-fit. So that probably means we’ll be dong that for real in the first few days of the Challenge, as usual. Ho hum…

All the transport up to and home from Scotland has been booked and paid for, accommodation deposits paid, and the maps printed out. Freeze-dried food has arrived and so all that is now left to sort is a couple of food parcels for these evening meals. We’re pretty much done, really.

We’ve organised the first party for the Wednesday evening at the Bree Louise at Euston and two cheese & wine parties for the walk itself. This is a year for celebrating, as it’s Phil’s tenth and we should do it in style.

For this year the medication bag is bigger than ever, as the kidneys’ function has got slightly worse; they’re down to 13% now. This year, I’m on seven different lots of tablets, some of them once a day, some three times a day. Then there’s the EPO injections as well, which are supposed to be weekly, but I might just jab myself a double dose before I set off. I ought to have a word with my Consultant about that, really.

The really good news is that I now have a transplant date of June 6th, just after I get back from the walk, which is something to look forward to.

So, next stop is the Bree Louise, and its seventeen real ales. Oh dear.