If life is a rollercoaster, I’m a bit de-railed right now..

 

I’m sat here in the middle of the day with a few moments. I should be at work, but I’ve had to take time off to look after the kids.

One of them is in the hospital and my wife has gone with her.

Now before you all gasp, This is not the first time this has happened. When they were born, they were nearly 2 months premature and the same daughter has been in before. Last time a year ago, she stopped breathing and was rushed in to hospital with child bronchitis.

This time she has Pneumonia and she’s on oxygen.Though the amount that she needs has reduced to the point where she could be coming off this soon..

I hate times like these (of course I do), The feeling of impotence and worry is hard to bear. Especially when I have to be happy for my son and other daughter, who are not old enough to understand what is going on.

 

I’m sharing this because.. because.. I started this blog as a diary for myself, but started to enjoy sharing my exploits with the rest of you out there. It feels like you are, some kind of extended family now.

Plus It can’t all be the good stuff. If there’s no Bad out there, there’s nothing to measure the Good against.

 

On another, more random note. If you are a Dr Who fan, enjoy the sneak Peek for the new season. I added this the other day. I had planned to add a post re this, but suddenly other things became more important.

If you are not a fan: Don’t worry, I’ll remove it when the new season starts. I know it’s a bit naff, but it’s one of my guilty pleasures and It’s nice to sit with my son and watch him jump at all the scary bits (though he’s braver than me – I had to watch it from behind the sofa when I was his age!!).

 

Finally. I’m sure you have heard of PTC* (Peter Macfarlane - Blog writer, Trail contributor and Lightweight proponent)… Well, here’s something I spotted while in the hospital:

Would I work outdoors?

When I was a teenager, my best mate became a climber. I'd often go out to the Peaks with him, along with a few others he'd met through work who were also climbers. At weekends we'd go camping in the field at the side of Fox House (Before they ruined it), having breakfast in Grindleford Caf and generally enjoying the outdoors. But it started to change, When they would talk, an adventure was something that happened to someone going to Peru, or someone making an attempt on Everest or finding a new route in the Alps... Essentially, someone with money. I did not have any money. I had a crap job that paid little, along with even crappier shifts. So as they got further into climbing and got better and better gear, able to spend more time on the wall, I was left behind.
I'd still go occasionally, scrambling around at the bottom while they leapt from one hold the next, high above. I thought at the time it was simply that I wasn't good enough to be a climber, I realise now, I just wasn't one of their clique and that their idea of an adventure was well out of my pocket.

Fast forward 15 years and I get back into walking. While I was reading on the net, I found a couple of websites that really fired my imagination. The first was 'One man and a Bivi' a website with the story of a man who sat up one day and decided that he wanted to go camping in a Bivi bag..
He didn't go climb Everest, he wasn't doing this for anyone else, he just wanted to try something different.
Around the same time I started to go onto the forum at Live For the Outdoors (an offshoot of Trail magazine. If you don't go there and you are into walking or climbing, give it a try. No matter how trivial the question, there's always someone who will help or lend an opinion. The people who post helped me enormously in getting back out there and if you have a question and I'm online, I'll do my best to answer it).

The story of the man and his Bivi kept coming back to me. I'd read it every now and again. It's essentially the story of a middle aged man having what seemed to be a very quiet middle age crisis, it inspired me to just go out there and do what I want to do. I don't need to go overseas for an adventure. In fact I don't have to travel far at all.

A few months later one of the Trail staff posted this question to the forumers.. "Would you work the outdoors?"
Since I had discovered that adventures were where you made them, I was Horrified... with a capital H and a lot of why's. Why would I want to spoil my hobby? Why would I ever want to feel obligated to go out there. Why would I do something that meant I had to follow a set path or stop where I didn't feel like it? Why would I spoil my enjoyment for that?

I found myself re-examining this question tonight. I still feel as protective of walking as I did before, but now I want.. I want people to feel the same way as I do when you're stood on a summit with the wind in your hair, like I did on Bleaklow last year. I want people to understand, just how otherworldly Kinder can be when the fog rolls in and one day, While I'm in the Pub having a well deserved after-walk pint - If just one person utters that they are there because they read something that I had written...


Oh! whare are my old mates?.. They are at home watching Eastenders...
Cheers!