Answers on a post it note please – but make it a different colour to any of mine. So not yellow. Or green. Or blue. Oh and nothing on backs of brown envelopes or torn off edges of newspaper pages. Because they'd just get mixed in with all the notes wot I already wrote and confuse me.
Seems like only yesterday (nearly four weeks – how time flies!) I was witness to the last minute packing, unpacking, repacking, unpacking and repacking (repeat as many times as possible in a three week period), and multiple listmaking required in advance of a pretty major expedition. Things-to-do, things-to-remember and things-you'd-probably-rather-forget: post it notes must be making a FORTUNE!
Then there's 'must get out on the hill/get to the gym/go for a run or I won't be fit enough syndrome'! The sorting out work stuff, money stuff, house stuff, family stuff, friends stuff...
'Wow!' I thought, somewhat naively. 'Thank God I'm only going Coast to Coast! At least I won't have to do all this!'
Ha!!! No, ha ha ha ha!!
That sound you hear, dear reader, is hysteria. Just to put you in the picture, this fine, four day Easter weekend I have mostly been putting in a bit of on-the-hill training; pounding the treadmill and climbing the stairmaster thingie; shopping, shopping, shopping and more shopping (well I keep thinking of things I haven't got yet!); and making lists!
Gail, incidentally, tells me she doesn't make lists. How can you NOT make lists?
It's forward planning you see. Forward planning. Speaking of which, somewhere along the way I decided I'd plot the route ahead of time – prepare ourselves a set of easy-to-follow daily route descriptions, mark up the maps and work out rough timings. This latter not least so I can provide an ETA at each location for the mountain rescue colleagues popping along to meet us. But let me tell you THAT little exercise took a wee bit longer than anticipated! Still, should now have far more time at the end of each day to eat, drink, blog and sleep!
And, finally, that TV appearance. Can I just say, that cutting room floor must have been knee deep. The bit about ViewRanger; any mention of the iPad (okay, I get those two – it was the BBC after all); the bit about the battery in smartphones and the iPad in particular being power-hungry and if you lose that, and it's your only source of mapping, you've lost your navigational ability; the bit about map and compass absolutely being our first line of defence, the iPad destined to spend most of its journey tucked inside my rucksack... all gone. Do people now think I'm going to stumble around the bogs and crags of the north of England carrying an Apple computer before me like a tray?
That said, thanks to the power of television, I do seem to have acquired some new Twitter friends – handy, their own tweets would suggest, if I'm ever down wit the homiez or in the market for a purple pill.
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