Be The Jam

Well I have been having so much fun with the toaster and the kettle that I have run out of bread and am nearly out of tea bags.

It's hot, you don't get that in the woods, under the trees it is nice and cool and gets a bit chilly at night, coming from that to trying to sleep in London in a heatwave is a bit of a shock. Last night I ended up sleeping on the floor in the kitchen next to the open back door. It was the coolest place in the house.  

A lot is going on at the moment, working on getting Mission Improbable off the ground is taking up quite a lot of time. I got up a 6:30 this morning and don't expect to be finished before about 1am tomorrow. It is all lots of fun, at the moment at least, so there are no complaints I'm only mentioning it because what with doing all the admin, trying to learn the relevant stuff, write a book, get fit, stay in touch with at least some of my friends, set up the travel guide and trying not to get too attached to all the electronic gubbins there is around this house I haven't got as much time to write this blog as I would like.

So the abridged version of events of late

 Mike has met a girl and is no longer coming to Ecuador, I have not met the girl yet so have been unable to arrange an "accident".

 85 miles in 48 hours, carrying 30 - 40 lbs in weather that is mostly very hot is actually quite hard. I was fit a year ago, I appear not to be now. A lot of what I was carrying turned out to be unnecessary, sadly not much of it could be dumped. Ate most of the food on the first night (the pan was to go from Midday Friday to midday Sunday so that we could sleep twice) so as not to have to carry it - got food poisoning from a Ginster's Pastie- I threw the rest away. Lesson - don't take food that requires to be kept chilled out in the summer. I have really good insoles in my Boots, they absorb 97% of the impact, or they did for the last 18 months. They started to disintegrate after about 10 miles and very soon the soles of both feet where covered in Blisters, very big blood filled blisters. I then discovered that I'm not very good in the sun, I'm quite fair skinned, and soon was down to only about 2.5 miles an hour and slowing Neph down. It was even hotter on Saturday and we were carrying just enough water to get us to the next water stop, which was fine until one that we were relying on wasn't there. We had a few issues over the next section, we were behind schedule and so ended up walking in the midday glare without water for a couple of hours, a map reading error on my part extended our time in the sun by half an hour, my sense of humour was getting a little frayed. Getting to the lunch stop an hour late meant that we only took a 1hour break rather than 2 before setting off again, by this time the sun was getting to me but Neph's encouragement and a brief stop at the river to soak our feet and treat my blisters helped no end. Once the sun started to go down I started to perk up  again and soon we were making reasonable time and due to get to our second rest stop (under then yew tree in Lewknor) on time. The plan was to sleep there for the night, get up at 6 and do the last 26 miles without our packs and try to do the last section by midday. 8 Miles from Lewknor Neph's knee went, it seems it is not possible for us both to be in fully working order at the same time, it was evident that he was in a lot of pain although he bore it with all due stoicism - a Ibuprofen and a Mars bar helped him cover the last 8 miles and I was glad to be able to provide them as his Nurofen had done me the world of good over the last day. By the end of the 8 miles, during which time we bumped into Jeremy Irons, it was clear that Neph was in a world of pain, it was decided that if he was still in a bad way in the morning we would ditch the last section; there was no point risking permanent injury.

After a supper that included a wee dram of Talisker for Neph - purely medicinal - we turned in at about 1am. In the morning I was so stiff I could hardly stand and when I did the soles of my feet felt as though they were on fire. Selfishly I was quite relieved when Neph announced that he could not go on, there was no way I would have covered the next 26 miles in 6 hours. The walk to the bus to Oxford was excruciatingly slow as Neph hobbled down the slopes with white knuckles and a grim expression, once back to Neph's house a very enjoyable day was spent watching South Park with his house mates Georgia and Jamie. Neph cooked an amazing meal - the recipe will be on this site later - and we decided to finish the walk the weekend after next. Neph, Georgia and Jamie are all coming out to the woods for a meal on the Saturday night and then we will be off for the last section on the Sunday morning.

 I think some serious training is required before attempting to walk the route in 24 hours.

Sorry this is so badly written but like I say, I'm a bit busy.

Word 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4344310.stm

Ouch, ouch ouch.

Ouch

Ouch ouch ouch.

Ouch.

I'm going on holiday next week, I'm going to London, Crouch End to be precise. I'm house sitting and looking after a friends cat, it's pretty good gig, I get a house and a cat for a week. Not sure how I will cope with being indoors for a whole week, I'm quite tempted not to go out at all. I have a lot of work to do and am worried I might get distracted by al the luxury. Neph gave me some good advice, he said "whatever you do don't turn the TV on, and if you do ignore the commercial stations". Good advice indeed but then he followed it up with "Columbo is on on weekday afternoons", it's going to be just like being a student again; massive pile of work to be done but sitting around watching daytime TV and eating pizza. Oh well, if university taught me nothing else it was how to put things off until the last minute.

 Does anyone know a good Pizza place in Crouch End?

Neph and I are walking the Ridgeway (85 miles) this weekend (48 hours).

My training has consisted of gong to and buying some compeed - it is just the thing for blisters.

I have just heard tell of a Treasure Hunt in Scotland that involves trekking about over mountains and a prize of 3000 bottles of Whiskey, Malt Whiskey.

I have long felt that the perfect preparation for a prolonged period in the Rainforest is a week or so shivering on top of a mountain in Scotland.

Having got to the bus stop in Oxford at ten past three on Sunday morning I was pleased to discover that the ten past three had already left and that I would have to wait until ten past four for the next one. Having only had three hours sleep the night before staying awake rapidly turned into something of a challenge, all there was by way of entertainment was the occasional drunk staggering across my field of vision and the wind causing mini tornado's of empty kebab wrappers, and fried chicken boxes in the corner next to the phone box.

When the bus came I had the traditional chat with the bus driver

“Can you put your bag in the back”

“It fits on that rack just there” I say pointing to the empty luggage rack behind his seat.

“No it's too bit”.

“No really, it fits there”.

“No it's too big it's going to have to go in the back”.

I have learnt to give up if the conversation gets to this point, once when I ignored one of the drivers and put my rucksack on the rack he moved it into the boot at the back of the bus at the next stop, when I asked where is was when I came to get off at Lewknor he took me to get it from the boot and stood, his face just inches from mine shouting at me. I was so stunned all I could do was stand, bolt upright, trying not to laugh; it was like being back at school.

Things got better once I got on the bus, my ticket wasn't valid, I had a return ticket, not a period return like I had asked for. Apparently the Oxford Tube does not do a period return from Lewknor to Oxford, when I mentioned that I had asked for a period return and that this was what I had been given I was told that I could not have asked for one. Having already established the driver's belligerent nature I decided not to point out to him that he was accusing me of lying but rather just buy a ticket to Lewknor and worry about the whole thing later. The problem was that I only had enough money one journey on the bus, that would mean I could get to home but I could not get back. There are no cash points in the woods.

This morning I had a meeting at ten in Oxford, eighteen miles from home. I set off walking at just after nine, I had meant to set off at five but when the time came I was curiously un-attracted to the idea of getting up. I used to ride motorbikes a lot in my teens and twenties but had rather a habit of crashing them and not maintaining them properly and so as a result spent a fair amount of time hitchhiking. I decided to put my thumb out as I walked and was utterly amazed when the fourth car pulled over, better yet the driver was going to Oxford.

The guy was going to B&Q to fetch some tiles and grout, he had a tan and a thick accent “foreign” I thought to myself, pleased as ever with my perceptive nature. We shot off through the windy lanes occasionally touching over a hundred miles an hour, it was an old car with no airbags so for a while I was concerned but it soon became apparent that he knew what he was doing and I relaxed into thing. I asked where he was from.

“Italy” he replied flashing me the fullest most heart warming grin I have seen since that run in with the Tibetan monk. It took me a moment to figure out the purpose behind the grin; last night Italy had won the world cup. Italian, that would explain the sunglasses, tan and dashboard statue of the Virgin Mary, we rounded a corner breaking to within inches of a grubby white transit van in front before swinging out and past it. it would explain the driving too.

We chatted a while and I got to the bank in time to wow them with my disheveled state and pitch the idea of a jungle based solar powered online travel guide.

It is necessary to have an address to set up a business account.

How last millennium is that?

This entry is slightly off topic but it is an emergency so I hope you understand.

Mike has met a girl, there is nothing unusual in this he tends to meet lots of people all the time he is a very friendly person. The thing is that he has gone all funny, he is not the same, something is wrong. I guess talking about this kind of breaches the not talking about each others relationships on the internet rule but that rule was made up to cover the sorts of relationships we imagined we would be having. The only types of relationships either of us had expected to be involved in were the "usual three".

Type one - meet girl, think girl is cool, girl runs away / plays dead / calls the police

Type two - meet girl, think girl is not cool, run away / play dead / call the police

Type three - don't meet girl, acquire beer trophies.

Mike seems to have stumbled upon a type four scenario, you might have heard of them

Type four - meet girl, think girl cool, girl doesn't run away / play dead / call police. Girl takes over life so stop going out with friends and start making nauseus comments about kittens instead.

Worrying developments indeed.

 Apparently the Amazon is up to 50 miles across in places, that's as far as it is from Oxford to London and is a whole lot of river, you could be in the middle and not see either bank. The idea, such as it was, was to float down stream just using the pole to steer, 50 miles wide is a lot of space within which to only have a stick to propel the craft with. I also hear that there is so much soil washed into the river as a result of deforestation that the sea is stained brown for a 100 miles from the mouth of the Amazon. Conceivably then, and what the mind can perceive the body will achieve, we could well find ourselves 100 miles out to sea before we realised that we had reached the end of the river. I'm not sure of the ocean going capabilities of a punt but I'm fairly convinced that they are not the ideal craft for that particular environment. If nothing else the pole would quite possibly not be quite long enough to reach the sea bed and so getting back to shore could be problematic. Quite possibly the punting idea might need some modification.

The last few days have been spent relaxing and generally feeling pleased to have completed the year in the woods at the parental home. Save for a slight feeling of guilt when waking up in a bed it was really very nice to spend a few days both with the parents and the wanders of modern life. It did feel a little odd getting into a shower and not being covered in dirt, I almost didn't have a shower this morning because neither my feet nor hands were black.

I have started work on a hopefully amusing short book entitled “101 uses for a Politician” I am stuck at no 1 but hope to be underway soon.