J-Day

Well, this is the end of my not being at work.
As of tomorrow I start working and that's a very exciting thing.
I will have a place in Cambridge, but it's going to be ready next weekend so there's going to be a week of relying on the kindness of others before that. My place is small, it's cheap and I'll go into more detail when I'm there.

So I'm currently being very excited about work - lots of packing and outfit planning and travel planning and so on which is kinda fun.

As far as things that have happened goes; I have a tale of coldness and misery on a hillside. But ultimately there are lessons learnt and character growth.
I went hiking!

When someone says to me, "Doug, do you fancy going trekking?" after I ask them if they actually mean watching a lot of Star Trek, I envision a sort of leisurely extended pub crawl with camping in the middle and pleasant views in between pubs.

When someone asks me, "Do you fancy going trekking?" what they actually mean is serious hiking, with little to no pubbage and a lot of pain, cold winds and hail.
Unfortunately this is a difference I found out once we'd arrived and were too far up the side of a hill to get back to a pub.

The drama that ensued took place over Good Friday, with the plan being that it continue until Easter Sunday. These days we snowy. They were cold. They were some of the nastiest days weatherwise this year and we took full advantage of that by getting as high up as we could. Oh how dumb are we?

The first hour was nice, a new view and sunny weather lulled us into thinking that perhaps all the panicky weather folks were wrong. But then we actually reached the top. The hail and wind found us. We started to freeze. Noses started to run, leading to hours of sniffing, leading to sinus aches of a serious cold. That wasn't all! The differences in expectation were clear in the equipment and so after the first hours I discovered my old boots were now half a size to small for my feet and as such were doing their darnedest to peel off my toenails. This would of been a mild irritation on a three day pub to pub walk, but on a cross country hike it was hours of torture. Similarly, the bag I brought would have served me well walking betwixt pubs and removing it to drink and sit, but carrying it for hours over varying terrains was not something either of us were designed for.

We did make it to a pub, dragging ourselves off the hills long after sunset, but the sniffing was too painful for me to drink so this did very little to lift my spirits apart from being warm (which was wonderful, but not enough to balance out the suffering.)

Day Two should of consisted of a greater distance. This plan was very quickly rejected. Plan B took us quickly over the hills (now covered in snow). This plan was rejected. Finally plans that involved motorized vehicles began appearing, to more enthusiasm.

The best bit was when we got back in the car. This was warm and also involved sitting which was lovely. This was also before all the aches of overused muscles kicked in.

After that was very painful but I wouldn't want to bore you with moaning...

Lesson learnt:
I am not an outdoors, fit, energetic type of man. What a wonderful thing to learn about yourself. But at least I could comfort myself with chocolate.