Climbing Mont Blanc

Moving the goal posts

My wife’s career is taking off and she has been offered a job in the Midlands. To facilitate her taking up the job the whole family need to move out of London and that is going to happen in the summer some time.

Because of the proposed move I can not now do my climb this summer as I don’t know when (or even if) we will sell the house and be able to move. We need to be able to move house at the drop of a hat, not something that can be accomplished if I am out of the country for three weeks.

So now the climb is planned for 2011 and hopefully will be bigger in scope.

I’ll publish my plans when they are finalised.

Foolish behaviour.

It is just over 10 years since I nearly got my head kicked in at Bar PMU in Chamonix. I had come out for a weekend with my cousin and went into town to watch the Scotland vs England Euro 2000 playoff game on the TV in the middle of November 1999. I tried a few bars and most were closed. The sports bar was open but there weren’t showing any sports on the numerous TV’s dotted around – they were showing music videos.

I wandered into Bar PMU and they were showing the game, with French commentary. Chamonix was tourist free but full of builders working on the latest villas and hotels to go up. I was soon engrossed in the game and shouting at the telly. I found I wasn’t alone as there was another English guy and an English/Scottish couple as well. Before long we were all sat on the same table and enjoying some banter. The English guy on his own, Marco, was in Chamonix to pick up some climbing equipment on the cheap. The couple were on their first weekend away together – why they chose Chamonix in November I don’t know.

The couple soon departed for some food but Marco and I kept drinking and eating peanuts and after about 3 hours another game on the television, the game all the hairy builders had congregated to watch: France vs Algeria. The game had added significance as Zidane, of Algerian parentage, was playing and it was hoped that the game would seal a few historical wounds.

Marco was an Arsenal fan and very soon started singing a derogatory song about Frank Leboeuf. I don’t think the builders understood the words but they certainly understood the meaning. Every time Zidane got the ball I mispronounced “Zizou” (Zidane’s nick name) “zizi” (slang for penis). We also enjoyed some banter about the French surrendering and needing to be liberated by the English, hiding your valuables under the soap etc etc. I wandered off to the toilet and was barracked on my way past the builders. They said something on the way back and I felt  uneasy, I also noticed the huge pile of peanuts under our seats and the countenance of the bar man. I had a quite word with Marco and we left, as we got to the door he shouted some abuse at the builders and we legged it!

We only ran a few hundred yards before noticing that we weren’t being followed and headed into the only other bar that was open and sat there were the couple from earlier. I had passed by the bar the first time I came to Chamonix in 1983 and as a 12 year old looked through the windows in wonder at the people drinking in there. To now be a grown up and drinking in there was to tick off “something to do before I die”. Marco and I continued drinking and at about 2am I decided to walk back to Les Bossons – a good 45 minute walk – in the freezing cold.

Stories abound of people getting drunk and dyeing on the way back to their Alpine hotel as they get lost, disoriented and freeze to death. I knew where I was going but the snow fall that day made conditions much harder and slipping and falling was a real possibility. A sprained ankle or broken foot could have left me struggling to get back to my cousins house. Doing the journey on foot sober would have been hard, doing it drunk was foolish and not something I would ever do again.

Getting drunk and winding up French builders close to the point of getting a kicking was also very foolish – but it was great fun and is something I would love to do again and again.

Been a long time …

I haven’t updated this blog for a while due to loads of stuff going on.

The first thing that came up was swine flu. Both of the children were diagnosed with by a call centre operative following a script somewhere by simply asking a few simple questions. Both of the boys were given Tamiflu and William learnt how to swallow tablets, managing to do it much than I do.

I’m sure I had a dose of the H1N1 as well but the one major symptom that I was missing was the “fever” part. Apparently a fever is a requirement and without it you can’t claim to have had Swine Flu.

I spent two days at home with the boys and while they seemed fine and were bouncing off the walls, I had a very large weather system circulating inside my head. On the second day of not going out I broke the rules and took the boys to Pizza Hut for lunch. I was going to order a large Margarita and take home what we didn’t eat. When the waitress came to take our order I changed my (addled) mind and we went for the buffet instead. I was certain William and Kenny would stuff their faces and we would get our moneys worth. Reality was rather different. I managed two slices, William one and Kenny half of one. Although they were bouncing off the walls and full seemingly full of energy they were actually ill. It was just that I was more ill than them so I didn’t notice that there energy levels were down as mine were none existent.

My exercise schedule was thrown into disarray by not having the energy to move more than a few yards. When I finally recovered I got on the scales and expected to see that my weight had gone up as I had felt I had been eating quite a lot while doing no exercise what so ever. To my surprise I had only added half a kilo in weight. I wonder how much I lost at the start of the illness when I wasn’t eating?

Three weeks later and I started gentle exercise again. But not after a stressful week where Kenny had a fever. Heather took him to A&E on the Sunday and they diagnosed Tonsillitis and prescribed penicillin. The last time Kenny had the fever/Tonsillitis combo, a single dose of the penicillin was enough to stop the fever. This time it just went on and on. By the Thursday I was worried and took Kenny to the walk in centre at the local hospital. They did some checks and told me that we could keep giving him paracetamol indefinitely as long as we kept to the correct dose. The next day, despite a dose of paracetamol at 3pm, Kenny had a raging fever at 4pm. I walked to nursery to give him some ibuprofen and did the 35 minute walk in 27. When I got there Kenny seemed in good spirits although a little hot. 2.5ml of medicine and a 30 minute wait and his temperature was back to normal.

And that was it from the fever. As suddenly as it arrived, it went. But the whole week was very stressful for me. The next time it won’t be as bad as I now know that Kenny can go for months with the medicine, but nothing will stop the me worrying when my children aren’t 100%.

Still keeping the weight off

Three weeks after my last post and my weight loss continues although it has slowed down.

We went to a kids party today were loads of lovely food was on offer. And yet again I didn’t over eat although the chocolate cake was very alluring and winked at me a couple of times.

I’m not worried about getting on the scales tomorrow morning despite the bag of toffee eclairs I ate last while waiting for the local kids to knock on the door for Halloween.

Comfort eating. More on this later.

Keeping the weight off.

I have now managed to get my weight to under 79kg’s from a high of 83kg’s before I started my quest to stand on top of Western Europe’s highest mountain. My target weight is 75kg’s which will be the least I have weighed since I was a teenager. Read the rest of this entry »