Kilt & Long Johns – by Sheila

On our last day of our Walking on the Amalfi Coast holiday, which was a bit of a practice run for walking up Kili, I made the stupid mistake of putting on my long Johns underneath my walking trousers. I had needed them on some of the previous days – it had been very cold when we were up high – but I certainly did not need them on that last day, when sweat was soon pouring off me. I ended up stripping off my trousers and continuing in my undies. Some others in the group were very gallant, saying that they looked quite snazzy – as if!

Sheila leading the way over a waterfall just before she stripped off to her long johns
Sheila leading the way over a waterfall just before she stripped off to her long johns

It reminded me of another long John moment some years ago. Stew and I were in Glasgow one frosty December, walking through the centre of town. For a few years, he had been thinking about getting a kilt – mainly to wear to Burns Night and other such functions, which we regularly attend at Canterbury Scottish Society – but also for wearing to weddings and other celebrations. Normally men get measured for a kilt and get it made to those measurements in their family tartan. However on this chilly day, we spotted a sale of ex-hire ready-made kilts and thought we would have a look.

There were two or three kilts which looked like distinct possibilities and were very reasonably priced, so Stew decided to try a couple of them on. He came out of the changing room wearing a pale blue mix kilt. He looked quite dashing in it: he has always had lovely looking slim legs! We agreed that the kilt was definitely a keeper, but he would need the rest of the outfit to go with it. The shop assistant said it would be best to start from the feet up, so Stew was sat down, so she could help him with socks and shoes.

Stewart looking very dashing in his kilt at Gwen's wedding. Who knows what was underneath!
Stewart looking very dashing in his kilt at Gwen’s wedding. Who knows what was underneath!

It was at this point that I realised that he was looking distinctly uncomfortable. The very young girl assistant insisted in helping him into a pair of long socks, while Stew wriggled to try to keep the kilt covering his knees. I then caught a glimpse of something white peeping out under the kilt and realised what was causing his embarrassment. Instead of taking off his long Johns in the changing room, as a true Scot should have done, he had pulled them up and they were all bumfled (look it up in the urban dictionary – it really is a word) up above his knees!! I was struggling to keep a straight face as the young girl kept yanking his legs about, first to get him into socks and then to try the special kilt shoes on to his feet. He wanted out of there as fast as possible, but she was determined to get everything just right, and was down on her knees at his feet, sorting him out.

I just about held it together until we got out of the shop, when I couldn’t stop laughing. Stew has never quite understood what I thought was so funny about it. In fact when I reminded him of that occasion today and he realised I was likely to blog about it, he said he would not be talking to me again until after August, when I come back from having climbed – or perhaps not having climbed – Kilimanjaro and the blogging has ceased! I hope he relents: it is all in a good cause.

What's under your kilt?

Mother’s Week – by Jae

Crocuses on our Amalfi Coast walking holiday
Crocuses on our Amalfi Coast walking holiday

Ma lost her mum when she was only twelve. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been. Some of my very best friends are also without their mums, and feel it particularly hard on Mothering Sunday each year. So, whether you’re as lucky as me, and have both a mother to say Happy Mother’s Day to, and children to say it to you; or you just have to find a way to remember the good times at this time of year, I hope you have a lovely day today.

This year I’ve been extra lucky as I’ve had Ma to myself for the last week on our wonderful holiday walking on the Amalfi Coast. In a change from our usual blog posts, I’ve written a Mother’s Day post about it on the Exodus blog. Please click here and have a look.

Happy Mother’s Day Ma. I love you. Jx

Sheila with Jae and Gwen (on her knee) in 1976
Sheila with Jae (in Orange) and Gwen (In blue) in 1976

Breaking into Belair’s Balcony – by Sheila

The rest of the Exodus group on the “Walking the Amalfi Coast” holiday decided to visit Herculaneum on the one free day in the week and hired a bus with the wonderful motto “Pleasure on Wheels” to take them there. Jae and I had decided we wanted to visit Sorrento, where Stew and I had come in 1972, when I had won a weekend for two in the Mediterranean as part of the Guardian’s “Date with the Past” competition. We were very happy to hitch a lift down to the coast with Pleasure on Wheels, and then to get the train along to Sorrento.

Pleasure on Wheels!
Pleasure on Wheels!

At the station, Jae showed the girl in the information kiosk the photo of me taken on the balcony of our hotel in 1972 and amazingly the girl was able to point us in roughly the right direction. We walked through the town and were pleased to see it seemed to be a real town with proper shops – not just places full of tourist tat, as we have seen elsewhere in the area.

We got to the far end of the town. I have a clear memory of walking into the hotel from the road, and finding that we were on the highest floor, with the rest of the hotel spread over about six floors, clinging to the cliffs below the level of the road. Eventually we came to a row of hotels, which seemed to be in the right place. As soon as I saw the name Hotel Belair, I knew that was where we had stayed forty three years ago. The hotels all seemed to be closed up for the winter, some of them having renovations done. It is strange that they were open at the same time of year in 1972. However, I suppose then, holiday weekend flights were in their infancy, and Italy was fairly exotic. Nowadays in March, if you want a few warm days, you are more likely to go to the Canaries, Morocco or Egypt, where it is properly warm.

We wanted to try to locate the exact balcony where Stew had taken a photo of Jae (in utero) and me. We found a gate on the closed hotel which slid open and were able to make our way down a few floors on the outside of the hotel, using the balconies. It was blowing a bit of a gale – our chilliest day yet, with snow on the top of Vesuvius – but we managed a bit of a photo shoot.

Belair balcony - 1972 above and 2015 below
Sheila on the Belair balcony – 1972 above and 2015 below

When we got up again to the road, we were pretty cold, so Jae suggested that we cross the road to the very splendid, if deserted, upmarket Hotel Bristol for a cuppa to warm us up. At least it was open. We went in and were escorted up to a truly splendid dining room, with wonderful painted tiles on the floor and floral murals on the walls. It had the same fantastic view across the Bay of Naples, that I remember from my first visit. There is the bay in front, Vesuvius centre stage, hills all around and the fishing village of Sorrento almost at our feet.

The beautiful bar at the Hotel Bristol in Sorrento
The beautiful bar at the Hotel Bristol in Sorrento

We showed the very friendly waiter and the manager, who was maybe his father, the photo of me on the balcony in 1972. They were immediately convinced that it had been taken on a balcony of their hotel and delighted that Jae and I had returned! They talked about exactly where it must have been taken, explaining that more floors had been added to the hotel, which accounted for the slightly different aspect.

Jae and I spent an hour or so looking out over the amazing view, which had seemed to me to be something out of this world, on my first visit. We had warm drinks, which they brought with petits fours, then we moved on to limoncello, for old times’ sake.

Drinks and petits fours
Drinks and petits fours

Having thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this gorgeous hotel, which I had quite definitely never visited before, we asked the waiter for the bill. He said we should pay downstairs at reception, and walked us to the lift: the geography of hotels in this area is complicated, because of being up the side of a cliff.

At reception, we asked for our bill, and were told there would be no charge! They were delighted we had come and hoped we would return in the future. So we both came out feeling very well treated, slightly embarrassed, and with big grins on our faces. We have got into blogging of late – but now seem to be getting into blagging too! The Kili 3G plan has a lot to answer for!

Amalfi Lemons – by Sheila

We have walked on paths along the side of many citrus groves during our perambulations on the Amalfi coast. Some of the fruit is absolutely enormous and grows very densely. I was very surprised to hear that they can get up to four crops of lemons in one year! Why do we only get one crop of apples off our apple trees in Kent? I have found it very hard not to stop and pick up the oranges and lemons that have fallen on to the paths, but it doesn’t make sense to have the weight of them in my back pack all day – a missed scrumping opportunity!

Sheila with giant lemons (and a satsuma and banana for scale)
Sheila with giant lemons (and a satsuma and banana for scale)

When Stew and I were in this area on a walking holiday twenty odd years ago, we did one walk which ended on a citrus fruit farm. They showed is some of the most bizarre trees growing several varieties of fruit on each tree. I particularly remember the big grapefruits which were like oranges inside.

Lemons and limoncello
Lemons and limoncello

They made limoncello on the farm and they pressed the group to sample it. Stew decided to buy a bottle of it, and it was sold to him in a lemonade bottle with a crown cap on. However, when we got home, we couldn’t find the bottle. We couldn’t understand how we could have lost it.

It was about two months later that we found it. Stew had put the bottle into his back pack in a very little-used pocket. When he got home, he didn’t check the pocket and used the bag to carry his books up to the university every day. That bottle must have been carried up and down to the university a few dozen times before Stew found it! Sad to say, it didn’t taste anything like as good back home as it had in that sunny orchard with the trees heaving with fruit around us.

Jae and I have been getting lots of good hill walking practice in in Italy. Every bit of leg muscle aches. It must be good preparation for Kili.

Sheila uses lemons as "silencers" on her trekking poles
Sheila uses lemons as “silencers” on her trekking poles

Ashes to Ashes – by Jae

Ma and I have attempted Vesuvius. If you haven’t read the post for the 10th of February on this blog, I’d recommend reading it now – it’ll make a little more sense of what’s to come in this one. You can find it on the calendar (on the left side bar on a laptop or desktop, or scroll down when you’ve clicked for the menu on a phone).

After the 2000+ steps walking down to Amalfi, every member of the group was “oof”ing as they sat down and stood up at breakfast. There was plenty of discussion about whether bums, knees or calves ached most. I was definitely in the calves camp – i tried to stand with my heels off a little step to stretch them out and my calves just said “no”! I’m somewhere in the middle of the group age-wise and I could only imagine it was feeling even achier for the older members of the group, but everyone seemed ready for whatever the day threw at us.

We left on the bus at 8.30am as Paul, our guide for the week, said it would be a long day. We drove to Pompeii and met up with a tour guide called Detori who showed us around. It’s a huge place – far larger than I’d ever imagined, and at the front gate there would have been public baths, with complicated heating and steaming systems, that all entrants to the city had to purify themselves in before they were allowed into the city walls. All of Detori’s talk of sitting, chatting in the warm pools, made me wish they were restored, and I could plunge my body – aching calves and all – into the steaming water. No such luck though, and on we all went, completely unpurified!

Pompeii was fascinating and, right at the end of the tour we were shown into a villa which Ma recognised from her visit when she was pregnant with me. We ate lunch and then jumped back in the bus to head up towards Vesuvius.

We changed into our walking boots and all piled out of the bus to start the climb. As the bus pulled away I said to Ma, “Have you got Grandma?”, at which point she hollered, “Stop that bus, we’ve left Grandma on it!” (which rather answered my question). The lovely Paul looked a bit quizzical, but jumped in front of the bus while Ma went on and retrieved Grandma (or, more accurately, a fifth of Grandma’s ashes). They were in a small, pretty cotton bag, and had been sitting on our headboard, adorned by Mimosa, under a picture of a view Grandma would have loved, for the previous few days.

Grandma's ashes on our headboard under a painting she'd have liked
Grandma’s ashes on our headboard under a painting she’d have liked

We walked up the volcano to the edge of the crater, and then started to work our way around the crater. At one point, before the highest peak, our guide – Stefano – said, “This is probably the spot with the best view” and he went on to explain something about the crater. But I wasn’t listening. Our drive for bringing Grandma to Italy was to find her a brilliant view, and here was one looking out at the Bay of Naples, and across to Capri – she’d have loved it. So, while Stefano chatted on, I checked the wind direction (I’ve heard some bad ash-scattering stories!) and threw the ashes to the side of the volcano. Vesuvius is covered in ash, so it made not a jot of difference to anyone. Except us. A few of the men in the group doffed their caps to my gorgeous Grandma, and we all walked on. And we made it to the top!

Jae scatters Grandma's ashes
Jae scatters Grandma’s ashes

So that’s another mountain Ma has under her belt. And Grandma can forever look at Capri and the beautiful, glittering sea around it, and imagine herself passing the time of day with Gracie Fields. A good day!

The crater at the top of Vesuvius (thanks to Jess!)
The crater at the top of Vesuvius (thanks to Jess!)

Mule Steps and Left Legs – by Sheila

On our holiday, the Exodus group walked from Bomerano to Amalfi. As Bomerano is halfway up a mountain, it involved a lot of downhill, as well as some ups. The mountain paths seem designed for mules rather than mortals: they mainly consist of steps – about 2000 in total down to sea level – quite demanding on the legs. Our guide recommended when we were about three quarters of the way down that if one of our legs was suffering more than the other, that we should lead with that one on the steps. Most of us had been doing the opposite and were pleasantly surprised to discover he was right! My left leg was starting to feel a bit worse for wear after several hundred steps, which is perhaps not surprising, given that I broke it about sixteen months ago. I was gardening at the time, wielding the electric hedge trimmer, when my left foot got jammed against the edge of the path, causing me to lose my balance and fall gracefully over, making sure I did not damage the trimmer on the way. Happily the electricity cut out – but my leg snapped as I went.

image
Sheila’s broken leg

As I had heard the snap, I knew my leg was broken, but didn’t want to leave the garden a mess, so I hopped over to the nearby green wheelie bin, which I was able to use as a Zimmer frame, while I gathered up the branches I had cut and put the trimmer in the shed. I then went indoors where I had to crawl, as I didn’t want to bring the handy wheelie inside. I got to my computer to look up what facilities there are in Canterbury for managing a broken leg, and was delighted to discover that it is considered a minor injury and could probably be dealt with at the Minor Injuries Unit at Kent and Canterbury Hospital. I had no wish to end up at A&E in Ashford or Margate unnecessarily. I phoned for a taxi and having grabbed Stew’s trekking pole from the hall as I crawled out, was at the hospital in five minutes. I managed to walk in using the stick, but was pretty miffed when the triage nurse asked me “Do you usually need a stick to walk, dear?” After an X-ray, my diagnosis was confirmed, the leg was plastered and I was ready to go within about an hour and a half. Stew had been out walking with his chums that day, but I reckoned he would be home by then, so I phoned him and asked him to fetch me home, which he did – although not very promptly because he managed to get involved in a very unlikely traffic jam on the way. He is still sticking to his story about that, however!

I am very lucky that I had such a straightforward break that was not displaced. I can think of three friends who have also broken their left legs in the last year or so, who have not had it so easy. One broke hers in the shower, one walking down her garden path and one of Stew’s walking chums broke his walking through a wood. It does seem that extreme sport is not necessary for breaking your left leg! I don’t know about the right.

I think my leg will serve me alright. I understand that there are no stone steps on Kili, so I don’t have to worry about that one. So it’s onwards and upwards.

Sheila on some of the steps as we got nearer to Amalfi
Sheila on some of the steps as we got nearer to Amalfi

My First Mountain – by Sheila

Jae and Sheila up a mountain in Italy!
Jae and Sheila up a mountain in Italy!

Well Jae and I have been up a mountain: my first as far as I can recollect. We can do it – and what a fabulous day!

We are on our first Exodus holiday – Walking the Amalfi Coast – based in a village up from the coast called Bomerano. There are sixteen people in the group ranging in age from about early thirties to seventies and they are a lovely bunch of people. Most of them are fairly serious walkers and unlike us, have done many such walking holidays before. We all chatted to each other all day, and I have got to know everyone’s name.

One of the guys has actually been up Kili. I was rather alarmed to hear he had to spend his first night in a hut rather than a tent because there were cats about. It was a couple of hours after I had spoken to him when I started to think more about this and asked him what sort of cats they were. He said they were leopards!!! I didn’t realise that was a possibility.

My alarm was compounded by someone else who was talking about climbing another mountain in Africa who said she stayed in huts which were overrun by rats. In my book, that’s just as scary as a leopard. She said they stole her socks to make hammocks for their babies. I await hearing about what other wildlife I run the risk of encountering.

The mountain we climbed today – Monte Tre Calli – is apparently higher than Snowdon, which is pretty impressive – although we did start from well above sea level. It was a gorgeously sunny day and the mountain had masses of bright purple crocuses with yellow centres growing alongside our path. When we got to the top we had our packed lunch looking out over fabulous views. The village of Positano was nestled underneath us, looking out over the azure sea. I remember my first glimpse of that village forty three years ago, when the bus Stew and I were on stopped for five minutes for people to take photos. I had spent lots of holidays in Scotland looking out over the North Sea, which was often grey and forbidding looking. The colour of the Mediterranean here is amazing and I was so struck by the light brightness of it both then and now.

I am so pleased to be seeing it again in such happy and exciting circumstances. A week of walking up and down the mountains here should surely stand us in good stead for Kili – though the wildlife we encountered today consisted of dogs, cows and mules – not leopards or rats.

After the walk we stopped in the village for a drink sitting outside a bar. Although we only ordered drinks, they brought us all sorts of other things. Portions of pizza appeared, plates of salad, and yummy hot chestnuts. They also plied us with some exotic liqueurs, one of which was made with carob and chillies. It had quite a bite! They then presented each woman in the group with a sprig of mimosa. I suspect we might drop in there again on some other days this week.

I think this training for climbing Kili is a pretty good idea!

Did I Climb a Mountain Before? by Sheila

I thought I hadn’t  climbed a mountain before, however I was reminded recently that once when we were in the Isle of Man, Stew and I went up Snaefell.  I remember being at the top and being told that it was possible to see seven “kingdoms” from there – but we could see nothing, because there was a howling gale and it was very foggy.  We hung on to the “trig point” to stop ourselves from blowing away!  I felt quite chuffed to think that maybe I have climbed something before, until I was told there is a tram that goes nearly to the top.  So that’s why we were there: for the tram ride!  Stew would travel across a continent to have a tram ride, and for sure, that is how we got up.  We just walked a few yards from the tram stop.

Snaefell Tram
Snaefell Tram

I have ridden a bike of some sort all of my life, but other than that, I did no voluntary exercise at all that I can think about, during the first half of my life.  I always tried to avoid PE at school, and was fairly successful in that.  However, in my mid 30s, my friend Pat told me one day that we were going to start jogging and that I had to buy some running shoes.  I did as I was told and we started jogging, mainly over the local army range.  We went at it quite hard.  I remember coming back to her house one day after doing a few miles absolutely red in the face and exhausted.  Pat’s mother met us at the door and took one look at me and said “She’s sweating like a bull”!  I don’t think my step mother would have been impressed with that: she always told us that “Horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow”.  Well – I ain’t no lady!  I am proud to be a woman.

I continued jogging with various friends for about twenty years, until my knees told me it was time to stop.  I am eternally grateful to Pat that she pushed me to start, as I don’t think I would be in any state to even think about climbing Kili now otherwise.  When I stopped running, I started going to Pilates classes in Canterbury, and have been going ever since.  I have really enjoyed that and it hasn’t made me too sweaty!  I have done every kind of Pilates, including mat, ball, studio and reformer classes and know that I am stronger and more flexible as a result.  I will continue with that in the next few months, but need to step up the more aerobic activities, such as walking and cycling.  Come the warmer weather, I will go swimming in the sea too. I’m not a big fan of swimming pools, since I was taught to scuba dive in a local pool, and saw the delightful variety of debris on the bottom!!!!

Grinning Like a Cheshire Cat – by Sheila

Cheshire catI have been going around looking a bit like the Cheshire Cat lately, directly as a result of the Kili project. Three days running, I had lovely things happen.

On the first day a friend, a highly respected academic, who has written well researched books on diverse topics, mentioned in an email that she was enjoying our blog and thought I was a good writer! I was really chuffed that she would even read my stream of consciousness ramblings, let alone praise it.

On the second day, I received a real letter in the post from someone I did a PGCE with more years ago than I like to think about. She had read about our proposed Kili climb in the Kentish Gazette and sent me a truly zany letter explaining that she had not been in touch for years because her personal life had been completely subsumed by her demanding job – she was a brilliant headmistress in a school in a very deprived area. However she has just left work and was reclaiming her life and friends. We have since agreed to a walk and a pub lunch so we can catch up on the last few decades. Yippee – I feel truly blessed.

On the third day, a friend came up to me at the end of a Pilates class, saying she would like to give me a cheque for the charities we are supporting. I thanked her, but mentioned it would be worth 25% more if she could do it on line through our site and Gift Aid it. She said she could not manage to do that. I said that perhaps I could do it on my iPhone for her – so she pulled out her bank card, so we could try. When I asked her how much she wanted to give, she said £200! The Cheshire Cat smile was out big time at that: I had anticipated a tenner. And I did it: five minutes fiddling with my phone, and I had increased the money for the charities by £50. I was pleased to be able to tell her that the money gets sent to the charities at the end of every week, so already there might be one more client of Catching Lives with the prospect of finding a home and maybe a woman in Tanzania a step further forward towards a career as a guide. And many thanks to my honorary daughter, Katie Vermont, who adopted our family as her own many years ago, for giving me her old iPhone for Christmas a few years ago, having the patience to go with me to a shop to transfer it to me, and then sit with me to show me how to use it. I love you, Katie!

It’s a 2G Amalfi Walk – by Jae

Today Ma and I are heading to the airport. We are off on an adventure.

Last Autumn, having just started at Exodus, I looked through the brochures, listened to what other staff spoke about, and looked at the number of guests booking each trip. Time and again I heard mention of “TDA” which is the short code for a trip called, “Walking the Amalfi Coast“. I still don’t know many short codes yet – some people have them all in their heads – but TDA went in and stuck quickly. I’ve never been anywhere near the Amalfi Coast but it sounded like a great combination of daytime walking, and evening eating and drinking, so I decided to try it out.

A piece of Vesuvius
A piece of Vesuvius from 1972

I knew that Ma & Pa had been to Vesuvius at some point, long ago, because I remember there being a piece of lava, with a parcel label tied to it with string, around for all of my childhood. Ma is a good walker, so I thought I’d give her a ring and see whether she fancied it too. Quick as a flash when I proposed the trip, she said, “Ooh yes, I’d love to. In fact I go there regularly!”. Apart from the small chunk of Vesuvius I didn’t realise we had any relationship with Italy, so I was a bit confused:

J: “Regularly? You don’t go to Italy regularly do you?”

S: “Yes I do, or at least I will. I went there when I was pregnant with you, again 21 ½ years later for a weekend with Stew, and this will be 43 years later. So that’s regular. Not frequent, but regular!”

J: “Right enough!”

So it turns out I have been before – although only as a foetus! To maintain mum’s regularity we quickly got TDA booked. We both started to look forward to our time together. I realised that I’ve never been away with just my mum before. We’ve been on holidays together lots of times – with family and friends – including the “girls holidays” (with up to 12 girls aged something like 18-80) that Ma used to organise at the end of February each year before Gwen and I started having babies. It’s a fantastic time of year to have a holiday booked for. I always feel like January, with its dark mornings and evenings, and chilly wet weather, is a bit of a struggle, so having something to look forward to in late Feb / early March is an emotional talisman to get me through.

Since we booked it of course, we’ve decided to attempt Kili. Eek! What we’d planned to be a stroll and limoncello, has now taken on the mantel of a training week. We’ll see how our walking boots get us through, and I’ll learn whether I can get up and put them back on again for another walk every day for a week. It’s something Ma does regularly (and when I say regularly I mean every six months or so, rather than every 21 ½ years!) but I don’t think I’ve ever walked every day for a week in my life.

I think I’m just about packed – bizarrely, I’ve been considering what I’ll need for Kili so much that I’ve not thought about this holiday. I threw some stuff in a suitcase at 10pm last night which I think will do the job. All that’s left is to make 28 packed lunches by 9am for Ivor’s 7th birthday party which is today – I made up the party bags last night – and put everything in the car. First stop: Northall Village Hall; then the train from Tring to Gatwick to find my gorgeous mummy, and then Amalfi here we come!

Pox & Pompeii – by Sheila

The husband of a very good friend died recently, and Stew and I decided to attend his funeral in the Scottish Borders. My kind brother Robbie, who was also going with Mary, his wonderful wife, offered to give us a lift to Scotland from the south of England, which made the whole thing so much easier.

It reminded me of another occasion forty two years ago, when he and his car came to our rescue. I had won the prize of a weekend for two in the Mediterranean in the Guardian competition in 1971. I was pregnant with Jae at the time, and for some long forgotten reason, we decided to take the holiday in March 1972, when I was 29 weeks pregnant. At that time, the airlines had a rule that no-one was allowed to fly during the ten weeks preceding the expected date of delivery. However, we were just off for the weekend, so no problem, or so we thought. We chose to go to Sorrento on the Amalfi coast and were enormously excited, never before having had a holiday together anywhere more exotic than the weekend honeymoon we had enjoyed in Oban.

We were on the plane, when Stew started to complain of feeling unwell. I was my usual brisk self with him, telling him that everyone feels a bit odd in a plane.

However, he started to get what looked like blisters on his face, and by the time we arrived in the hotel, even I had to agree that something was wrong with him. I said it looked a bit like chicken pox. That reminded Stew that a week or so previously, he had taken a group of students, who were studying housing policy, to visit some homes in Salford: he was a lecturer at Manchester University at the time. While there, they had gone into a house where they saw a woman dabbing calamine lotion on to a naked child, who was covered in chicken pox. So we were pretty sure that must be what was ailing Stew, but realised that if we told anyone, that we could find ourselves stuck in Italy for quite some time, and that would mean I would be too pregnant to fly home!

Chicken pox
Chicken pox

We had absolutely no savings and no insurance. There was nothing for it but to pretend everything was alright and fly home as planned, at the end of the weekend – probably spreading illness throughout the area and to those on the flight! Stewart girded his loins and did the trip up Vesuvias, a bus tour to Amalfi and a walk round Pompeii and we got the plane back. The plane landed in London and the plan was to return to Manchester by train: but Stewart could barely stand upright. I contacted his uncle and aunt in Harrow and they agreed that we could go there. Stew barely made it through the door before collapsing. He stayed in bed there for several days and I realised there was no way he could return home to Manchester by public transport.

My brother Robbie – only 21 at the time – rose to the occasion. He showed himself to be a star by picking us up in his car in Harrow and driving us all the way home to Manchester. We were so grateful to get safely home. Stew was off work ill for almost a month.

So that was the first occasion on which Jae and I were on the Amalfi coast. We are off there again soon to do some walking training in readiness for the Kili trip. Fingers crossed for a less stressful visit!

Vesuvius Erupting by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes
Vesuvius Erupting by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes

Sleep walking – by Sheila

Will I be awake at the right times? Reading about Kili, it seems that a lot of people have trouble sleeping at night at high altitudes in unfamiliar circumstances.

I have only spent a few nights in my life under canvas – and none of these nights was in the last 40 years. I remember being very excited as a child when my little brother and I were allowed to sleep overnight in the front garden in a tent. (My big sister Leslie, was far too proper to embark on such an undertaking.)

Sheila, Leslie & Robbie in the garden where the camping took place
Sheila, Leslie & Robbie in the garden where the camping took place

The one abiding memory I have of it is of my mother bringing out Scottish mutton pies to us, and biting into them, only to discover the pies were off! Such a disappointment: there was nothing else to eat. I think it was only for one night. So I can’t claim to be an experienced camper – but, against the advice on the websites, I have no plans to practice sleeping out between now and the climb in August. I can, however, claim to have lots of practice in insomnia! I have been a bad sleeper all of my adult life, so maybe I will not be too distressed by lack of sleep.

On the other hand, it seems that quite a few people claim that they can sleep while walking, particularly during the last stages of climbing Kili, when there is very little oxygen. There are a few mentions in wartime literature about sleeping while marching. I see that someone refers to it as “magic feet”: the feet just keep on moving regardless, “particularly when drunk or really tired I can have a cat nap and my feet just take me home”.

So I live in hope! I already know that the way to deal with being unable to sleep is to be relaxed about it. Stressing out about it only makes the whole thing worse. And who knows, maybe my feet will get me there, whether I am awake or asleep!

Mutton pies!
Mutton pies!

5 Minutes of Fame – by Sheila

 

A microfilm reader like the one Sheila used
A microfilm reader like the one Sheila used

Well, I have had my five minutes of fame in my local paper, the Kentish Gazette, under the heading Thrilla-gran-jaro! Just as well I am not a sensitive soul.

Now I come to think of it, I have made the news before. In 1971, the Guardian newspaper ran a competition to celebrate the 150th anniversary of their first edition. Every day for ten days, they published an extract of an article which had appeared in the paper at some time in the past, and the competitors had to try to work out on which date each extract had appeared.

Nowadays, I imagine the answers could be worked out in minutes using the internet. However in 1971, the only way to find the answers was to go into one of the two libraries in the country that had the Guardian on microfilm, and go through looking for the actual article. I was between jobs then, so decided to spend two weeks working on the competition in the Central Reference Library in Manchester, where we lived at the time. Each morning first thing Stewart, who knows stuff, would look at that day’s extract and tell me what he thought it might have to do with and when. Each microfilm held three months of newspapers, so I would go through the relevant film looking for the article. I did manage to identify all ten extracts, but was very disheartened when my name appeared in the paper along with several others, who had also done so. A tie-breaker competition was announced: they gave us another half dozen extracts. These six were nearly impossible! I remember one of them started “The security of Europe is being threatened…..” and not much more! I found four of them, but the other two could not be located. I remember meeting Stewart as he left work, after having spent a long day in the library, telling him I was going to give up. Happily, Stewart persuaded me to send my answers in, making calculated guesses for the two we couldn’t find – and I won! We discovered later that I was one day closer in one of the guesses than anyone else.

The prize was the amazing thing! Someone said at the time that the Guardian staff must have thought of it on a drunken night out! There were twelve parts to the prize and we got them all! They were:
1. Bacon, egg and marmalade every day for a year to go with your morning Guardian.
2. A weekend for two in the Mediterranean. (More about this to follow in future blogs).
3. A trip round the Guardian presses.
4. A print by Papas, the Guardian cartoonist.
5. Four premium bonds.
6. Two test match tickets.
7. Four LPs of your choice. (Long play records: this was the olden days!)
8. A family subscription to the National Trust.
9. Twelve bottles of wine.
10. A copy of “The History of the Guardian” by David Ayhurst.

and two more, which I can’t currently remember, but will no doubt come back to me when it’s too late – my brain is definitely going.

A guy from the paper came to our flat to discuss and negotiate about the prize. It turned out that a chef was not going to serve us up with our breakfast every day! We agreed a price for that, but did get all the other prizes. Stewart remembers that we were shown round the Guardian presses by a man whose job was to sit in a van with a telephone outside football grounds. All the football results would be phoned through to him and he would tell printers, who were in the van with him, what to put in the “Late News” section of the Guardian’s sister paper, the Evening News, so that when the fans came out of the game, they could buy a newspaper with all that day’s results in. All of that has been eclipsed by the arrival of the digital age.

At least my moments of fame have been original! I was the only person to get anything in the Guardian competition – I got everything- and I might be the first granny, accompanied by two other generations, to climb Kili!

Lackadaisical Sloth – by Jae

My nephew, Samson, has just started school in Australia. He brought home a book which Gwen assumed he was meant to be reading. She was quite shocked to turn to the following page (he is five!):Eric Carle's Sloth
She pointed out that she has gone 39 years without reading the word “lackadaisical”! (I have to say, it’s a word I love, but I did think there was an “s” after the “k” until I was well past 30.) Anyway, it is a beautifully poetic story by Eric Carle of Hungry Caterpillar fame, and seeing it reminded me of all the Kili reviews I’m reading which talk about how it’s important to go slowly. “Pole, pole” (pronounced pole-eh, pole-eh) means “slowly, slowly” in Swahili. Apparently it’s one of the most common calls of the guides and porters – presumably as they dash past us having packed up the previous campsite, to get to the next one, set up, and start preparing food, before we get there. No dashing for us though – to give ourselves the best chance of making it we will be dawdling and dillydallying from the low slopes. Mum has written about taking her watch off and just living in the moment. So we certainly won’t be lazy, but maybe – like the sloth – we will be relaxed and tranquil, and live in peace. For the first couple of days anyway!

A Tsunami of Urine – by Sheila

A lot seems to have been written about the issue of peeing on Kili.  Everyone is expected to drink at least three litres of water every day, because dehydration can very quickly become very serious, leading to altitude sickness.

One site I looked at referred to hourly daytime stops for a quick snack, a drink and a wee, adding that “It’s a miracle that Mount Kilimanjaro hasn’t completely eroded in a tsunami of urine”!

Most of the advice on this issue is aimed at men, referring to the use of “pee bottles”, especially at night.  Once you are in bed, wearing a few layers of clothes, socks and a hat (yes!), inside a sleeping bag and zipped into a tent, the prospect of getting oneself outside with shoes and a head lamp on for a wee is not attractive.   I see mention of people being kept awake all night by the sound of people zipping and unzipping their tents to go on such trips.

There is an upside: apparently the stars are the best I am ever likely to see, with absolutely no light pollution and a moonlight night is something really special up there.  The Milky Way is reputed to be fantastic and I am really looking forward to seeing that.

One of the suggestions for women is to pee in a zip lock bag at night.  That would take some skill, I imagine!  However, one clearly experienced woman says that “firm receptacles are easier to hold and use, while having less potential for spillage”.  She recommends taking a “plastic mayonnaise/pickle/peanut jar” as large and wide as you need.  She is clearly an American: I don’t think these commodities come in suitable plastic containers in the UK.  Another woman recommends taking a “quart size empty yogurt container”, which I imagine would do the job, so long as it didn’t end up cracked during its daily trip up the mountain in a back pack.

However, the prospect of that, when there are three of us in the tent, including a 13 year old boy, is not inviting.  I think the shoes, head lamp and stars beckon.