I went to Folkestone again this week for a walk with Frances. The last time I did so – see blog of 3rd February – we walked in snow and sleet. This time, it would have seemed like summer had arrived, were it not for the daffodils in the parks and gardens, and wonderful primroses and violets in the woods.
Frances walks faster than anyone else I know, which is why it is really good for me to walk with her. If I can speed up walking on the flat, there might be a chance of me being able to walk slowly uphill at altitude on Kilimanjaro – at least that’s the theory. She had planned an uphill route for me too and raced ahead of me! Despite gradually discarding most of my outer garments en route, sweat was pouring off me by the time I got to the top, and she was as fresh as a daisy.
The return trip was somewhat easier: we went down to the coast somewhere near Hythe and walked along the sea front, which was absolutely lovely. We were both quite intrigued to see a man stripping off to go in swimming, as we are both sea swimmers, but not in April! What was interesting was that he was stuffing his clothes into a sort of orange float, which he then attached to himself. He set off parallel to the coast in the same direction as us, and swam at about the same speed as we walked for about half a mile, before climbing out and getting dressed. That is certainly a good way of stopping anyone nicking your clothes off the beach.
I started to think about other good swimming gadgets, and remembered about Mungo, one of my sister-in-law Mary’s much loved dogs. He has to have hydrotherapy for a poorly leg and hates getting his ears wet, so has a special doggy ear thing to protect his ears. The ingenuity of inventors never ceases to amaze me.
It would be wonderful if someone could invent something that would magic all the equipment necessary up Kilimanjaro. Perhaps an orange balloon that would float above us, carrying our equipment, and maybe helping us along too, like the orange float.
The reality is that there are likely to be about a dozen of us travelling up the mountain with Exodus and for each one of us, there will be at least three porters! That makes me feel slightly guilty somehow, that these people have to carry my stuff, my sleeping bag, my food, my water etc – as well as their own things. I hate the idea of having other people doing the hard work for me, but I know that as a sea level dweller, I couldn’t possibly climb up otherwise. I am told that the local economy is much improved because of the work produced by groups such as ours, so I suppose I should look at it as a positive. Exodus pays them well and they are glad to have the work. I look forward to meeting them.
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