Things I Love...Friday

Yes, yes, I know I'm a day late this week -- and I also know that I really should update more.  But without any further ado, it's Things I Love Thursday -- special Friday edition!  An idea shamelessly ripped off from Lulu, who in turn was inspired by Gala Darling.

The first item is an obvious one.  It's been

Bring me your nihilists, your anarchists and defeatists

Every morning on the Tube I see TFL's posters with inspirational quotes.  I have to give them points for effort -- I like the lengths they go to with culture on the tube, from displaying poetry in ad spaces, to these quotation posters that are extracts from a booklet of quotes for Piccadilly line staff share with passengers.

According to TFL's own press release the booklet "aims to generate a more positive atmosphere during peak times." It apparently also "encourages the many voices of the Tube’s staff to re-enter the environment of the network, bringing some of the personalities which have made it famous to the forefront once more. Coming from a wide range of philosophical, political and historical sources, the quotes provoke thought on life in the city, especially as heard on the London Underground."

My trouble with them though is that they are so safe, and uninteresting.  Gandhi.  Nelson Mandela.  Great men, but who can really argue with them?  Although I did actually meet a man recently who thought Gandhi was bad, but that's not really the point.

I appreciate that the quotes are meant to be uplifting, inspiring even, and optimistic -- but wouldn't it be more interesting if they could prompt some discussion?  Maybe they want to stay away from provoking debate when people are tired and packed into crowded trains that are frequently dirty and often subject to delays and mechanical failures.  Would you really want an argument breaking out in a stifling hot tube carriage when there is nowhere to escape?

At the bottom of the posters is a web site address where you can submit quotes.  I amuse myself thinking of inappropriate submissions of quotes from people like the radical Edward Abbey who offered thoughts that should be embroidered on cushions, like “Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.” 

And who can forget the timeless wisdom of the great Hunter S. Thompson, the pioneer of "freak power"?  It is next to impossible to choose just one quote from the man who felt the same way about disco as he did about herpes, but my favourite is "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro".

The author Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favourites, and he denies that he is a nihilist -- instead saying he is a romantic.  Either way, as a former journalist and compulsive blogger, I find this thought fitting: "The best way to waste your life, ... is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate.”

Also making my fantasy list of submissions would be:
"If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important" Bertrand Russell
"Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do" Oscar Wilde

Wouldn't these give you something more to think about on your way to work each day?  So, share with me your quotes.  Not your uplifting and inspiring mantras -- but the unconventional, nihilistic and anarchic that wryly amuse you.

Things I Love Thursday

I've been bad at this recently, but we are back once more with "Things I Love Thursday" shamelessly ripped off from Lulu, who in turn lovingly borrowed it from Gala Darling.

The most obvious and most important thing I love this week: the girl is coming home.  After 4 months in exile and without pay, my favourite West Australian fisherman's daughter is coming back to England.  It's hard to believe after it took so long for her company's licence to sponsor her -- but her visa was approved within 24 hours of receipt of her passport, and a week on from there her flight back is booked.  We already have dinner plans for the day she comes home.  There's lots of songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane" but are there an equally moving songs about people coming back?

What I also love this week is my hat.  It is big and furry and I feel happy when I wear it because I look so damn cool.  I bought it for myself two years ago as a Christmas present to myself.  It may not be a Mau Mau hat, and I could ideally do with having a larger head (since the hat only comes in one size) because it has a tendency to slip over my eyes when I'm walking, and I have no peripheral vision.

But none of these things matter because it is the absolute coolest hat in the world!  It keeps me so incredibly warm, and it is perfect for when you want to sleep on the train to work -- it gives my head padding against the train window, muffles the sound and I can pull it over my eyes.  What's not to like?  Also, it reminds me of this advert with Rich Hall.

I also love London this week.  It may not be the prettiest city in the world, and it might not have quite the charm of European cities like Paris, or Rome, or Barcelona, or Prague, or the original colonial style of some buildings in Australian cities I have seen -- but it has a charm and history that many modern cities lack, almost by definition.  As I mentioned in my last post, London has grown organically from various smaller towns and almost anywhere you go in the city you can turn a corner away from Starbucks and McDonald's and still find old cobbled streets and disused gas street lamps.   London has a personality and a history that is undeniable, and unrivalled.

I guess following on from my love of London is my love of Europe.  There are still vast areas of Europe I haven't seen, but I love living in Europe this week -- I love that I can call people in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Scandinavia and with the exception of the last one I can usually at least say "good morning" and with French and Spanish "Do you speak English?".  I speak to these people and see bookings for them travelling across Europe to come to London, and they think nothing of it.  Then I'll speak to someone in the north of England and they will balk at the idea of coming down to London for the day.  There is so much anti-Europe sentiment in England, but I embrace it -- how can you not, when you can drive in to a foreign country in less time that it takes to drive to places in Britain?

Finally what I love this week is being one of life's winners!  A competition I entered randomly one day, as I do so often, actually came through for me -- I got an unexpected email telling me that I had won a place, plus one, on the guest list to see Har Mar Superstar at the start of December.  Of course, I am taking the girl as my plus one since I know she likes his music, too, and it can be another celebration of her coming home.

And I guess that wraps her up this week -- not a vast list of things, but I think the first is quite important.  Followed, albeit at a distance, by a good looking hat.

Working late and walking late

Tonight I had to work late.

Almost every night of the week -- or, at least, the working week -- my company hosts events, which in turn means someone has to stay late to show the delegates where they are going as they arrive.  Tonight was my turn, but instead of showing them where they were going I was sending them away with a map to find the place where the event was being held.

This is the least interesting part of the post, I'm starting with this so that it will get better as you go along and you are rewarded for being dedicated readers.

I finished work.  Wrapped up in a coat and scarf, and set off down the street to the Tube station.  Except halfway to the Tube I decided I didn't want to get on it right away.  It wasn't that I didn't want to go home, it was just that there was no hurry.  The house is empty and nobody would know or care if I got home at 8, or 9, or even tomorrow morning, ten minutes before having to leave the house again for work.  I figured instead of taking the Tube three stops, I would walk.  It isn't far, it was mild for November, and it shouldn't be all that complicated...

You know at this point that if it wasn't difficult this would be a very short post.  I thought I was so clever.  I knew that if I walked one way I would be heading towards King's Cross which was the opposite way to where I wanted to be going, and if I went yet another way I would be heading more in the direction of Chancery Lane.  Again, not where I wanted to be.  Short of going back on myself, there was only one direction left that I could go.

Except it doesn't ever work like that, especially not in such an organic city as London.  London isn't so much a city as it is lots of small towns that have, over time, merged together -- so there's lots of different identities all melting together, and there are very rarely any roads that go in straight lines.  There's no grid patterns to be found here.  And there is rarely any sort of a sign that will tell you where you are -- or where you are going.

I enjoyed the walk, hell I need the exercise right now, and I had no particular place to be.  I liked crossing the streets where by now every third car was a cab, walking past the pubs full of city workers having a quick drink after work which must surely have turned into at least two or three by this time, the pizza restaurants where couples sat in the windows having early dinners, and other restaurants where the owners were standing outside to try and encourage people to come in.  I like those kinds of restaurants, it really makes you feel wanted when someone is that eager for your company.  Or your money.

After about half an hour of thinking I knew where I was going, in a roundabout sort of way, and not minding that it was taken much longer than it would have done if I had just got on the Tube, I recognised where I was.  I had unconsciously managed to walk 30 minutes just to end up 5 minutes away from where I started, outside the building we are meant to be moving to next week. 

I set off again, thinking this time I was definitely going the right way.  I turned down one side road, and I almost stopped at the bottom.  I could hear shouts, and possibly the sound of people running, and I wondered if this was something I wanted to walk out into.  As I came out of the street so cautiously, I saw a football pitch across the street.  It wasn't someone being chased by a mob at all, or groups of football hooligans meeting in the street -- just a friendly game of 5-a-side.

I looked for distinctive landmarks -- thinking I would surely be able to make out one office building or another near where I wanted to be, but any tall buildings with lights that I headed towards turned out to be ugly concrete tower blocks built in the 1960s.  After much too long I decided that my walking wasn't actually getting me anywhere, I was starting to get cold and hungry -- and even if I had been on the train that very minute, it would be at least an hour before I got home.

I headed directly to the first Tube stop I came to, and found I had only walked one stop further from where I worked.

It was in the right direction, though, so I consider it a success.

Daddy wouldn't buy me a Mau Mau

I am known in some circles as being something of a poetry groupie.

Ten years ago, when I was studying for my A-Level in English Literature, a friend told me that the year below us were being taken to a poetry conference -- where poets including Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage would be reading some of their work.  Although their work wasn't being studied in class our year, some gentle persuasion got us included to go to the conference -- purely for pleasure.

I remember the confusion many of the students had that I would choose to go, that I wasn't studying these poets but instead read them for pleasure.  I even had copies of their books that I had brought along in the hope of getting them signed.

At the conference, I sat in the front row with one of my friends -- who was writing a book of poetry called Lusus Naturae.  She was one of those people who didn't just write poems, but compiled them into books, and gave friends readings from her collection.

After Simon Armitage read his poems, I told this girl that I was going to see if I could go "backstage" and meet him.  She dismissed the idea.  She said he would already be outside, smoking a cigarette in the rain, and would be gone in minutes.  Just the same, when the conference compere came back out to check something, I asked him to take me to meet Mr Armitage.  And he did.  Simon Armitage seemed shy and probably a little bewildered by this breathless poetry fan who was telling him was a big, big fan he was -- and I asked him to sign my copy of Book of Matches.

Instead of disappearing into the streets of London for the rest of the day -- as was normal behaviour for these conferences -- I sat and listened raptly to all the other poets, until my favourite, Carol Ann Duffy.  The sublime Ms Duffy is now the poet laureate.  I meant to write a post back when she was awarded the post about what this meant for England, and poetry, that all hope was not lost when an openly bisexual single mother from Scotland could the two fingered salute to the stuffy old men of the establishment.  But at the same time I couldn't see her writing poems on demand for royal weddings and anniversaries.

Anyway, I was taken to meet Ms Duffy like I had been before, and she in turn introduced me to the lovely UA Fanthorpe.  I was asked if I wrote poetry myself.  I replied I did, but probably that was going through a dry spell.  I later became much more prolific at university, writing poems that were funny or sad or sarcastic and reading them half drunk and semi wild at open mike evenings on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.  I hope sometime in the near future to find an open mike night in London and maybe dust off some of the better pieces.

Today I was thinking about the Alexei Sayle short story "The Mau Mau Hat" -- where a poet is kept from his work by a younger poet called Emmanuel Pollock (a reference to Coleridge's unwelcome visitor).  In the story, it is customary for older, established poets to have their younger contemporaries over to their houses for tea and cakes, which is how the man Pollock and his hat set off a chain of events and come to be such a distraction for the protagonist.

I still wonder if I could write to Carol Ann Duffy and request that I come to tea with her and discuss poetry.  I could also try writing to Alexei Sayle -- since if it's not a real custom then it's his idea, and even though he isn't a poet, he is funny and clever and brilliant and one of the finest minds of his generation.

I could tell him about the epic zombie novel I'm meant to be writing.

If you're alone and you got the shakes

I know.  I missed "Things I Love Thursday" this week, but being back in work makes it hard to update during the day (as well as seriously cutting down my reading time) -- this week I'll try and make a note each day of a couple of things I love, so that I have the raw bones of the post ready to go on Thursday.

But yes, work.  I am now back in the world of the gainfully employed; getting up at 0630 every day, jostling for position with the other commuters on the train station platform in the mornings, and sleeping on the journey into London.  One day in the near future, when my finances are straight again and so long as it won't impact on anything I'm saving towards, I am going to have to get myself some latest must-have gadget for the journey.  Music makes any ordinary journey seem like a movie, complete with soundtrack.  What I really want is a telepathic MP3 or Spotify player that will read my mind and know what music I want or need to hear -- choosing either to indulge me or challenge me, depending on the setting.

Work itself...is fine.  Just fine.  It's only been 3 days, and I've not yet really started on the "sales" part of my job -- which being a Sales Executive is kind of the big part.  I've done a lot of data entry, and I have started setting up social marketing by registering work accounts on various sites and am beginning very slowly to make friends and find followers of like minded people.  Part of me doesn't yet know what to make of the job, and part of me knows that it will be only what I make it -- if I do well or don't, love it or not, is entirely up to me.

Definitely in the plus column is the people I work with -- so far, everyone seems nice and nobody drives me mad.  I didn't meet the MD of the company until my first day in the job since she'd been in an accident recently (she was hit by a bus), but I have only positive impressions of her -- someone that genuinely cares about what they do, and seems like a cheerful, upbeat person.  It helps that I've also been taken to lunch twice.

Over a lunchtime pint on Friday I tried to sell her my photography printed on cavas for the new offices we're moving to.  She seemed interested, or just was being polite, so I have given her the link to my Photobox page where the items can be ordered.  It would be good if some sales were to come of it.  I've tried selling my pictures through Etsy in the past, but was never very successful -- at least with Photobox I don't have to pay for the service.

Somehow in the course of conversation with the MD and my other colleagues, we came around to PR and my background in it.  To cut out all the boring middle bit, I have volunteered to try and put together some sort of PR for the company.  It's a small company, but I'm increasingly passionate about what they (or we) do, and would like to see them get more recognition -- and, of course, more business.  Since it's not really my job to do this stuff, I'm going to have to approach it in very small measures so that it doesn't interefere with my "day job". With a lot of luck it could take off, and I could slowly move more towards this stuff than the sales side -- even helping them to set up their own internal PR department.  Alternatively, I might find the sales earn me plenty on their own and keep me happily busy so much that I don't care about their PR profile.  Or yet another option is I'll decide in 6 months this job really isn't for me and I'll go find something else.  But for now, it's earning a living like.

And I'll work on those plans for a telepathic MP3 player.

This is a call

It struck me this morning I don't have enough new music.  Or maybe what I mean is variety of music, music that is new to me, not necessarily "new".  If I had unlimited funds I could spend days or weeks filling in the gaps in my listening, seeking out artists I might like, albums I have missed.  And if they didn't do anything for me?  No matter, they could be given away again.  Paid forward.

The trouble is, of course, I don't have those unlimited funds -- and I expect even with an unexpected lottery win, filling out my music collection would end up fairly low on the list.

Instead, I am going to ask for your help -- anyone who might be reading.  I'm not asking for monetary donations to help me buy more music, instead I am asking for your creativity -- and giving you a choice.  Either you can make me a mix cd of your devising, paying as much or as little attention as you like to my own listenings.  Or, alternatively, if making an actual CD is a little too...2000 for you, why not make me a Spotify playlist instead.

Contact me for details on how to share these things.

The future is quite different to the present. One thing we have in common with the present is we still call it the present, even though it's the future.

I mentioned in the last post how I was rereading The Time Traveller's Wife, and as usual it's got me thinking about our past and future selves.  I've thought, and probably written about, a lot the idea of what we might say to our past selves, given a chance.  My main advice for my self would usually boil down to don't worry so much, and let things go.  Which is sound advice at any time.

But recently I got to thinking -- what if we were to meet our future selves on a regular basis?  I'm less interested in any tips for the future or any particular words of wisdom on how to deal with our present, but more in the personal relationship between our selves.

My main thought is really: would we like ourselves?  It is widely accepted that the traits we admire in others are the things we like about ourselves, and conversely the things that we dislike and the things that annoy us in other people are those that we dislike about ourselves.  With this in mind, would we by default like these future selves because they have all of the qualities we like?

Even if we can't be objective about our own personality and achievements, would meeting ourself as another person be far enough removed for us to like "them", or would we see all of our flaws?  What would it be like if there was mutual animosity with ourselves whenever we met?

What would you say?  "You need to be nicer to me?" 

Maybe such a meeting would be all we need to get a sense of perspective.  If we had no trouble being objective about this future self that we meet, being able to see that they try their hardest and have good intentions even if things don't always work out would we then be able to put into practice when thinking about ourselves?

It seems counter-intuitive to imagine that we could ever be hostile to a visiting future self.  If they turned up on our doorstep at 3am, naked and shivering with cold, and needing to be let in could we turn them away, knowing that it will literally be us that need that help in the future?  It might seem to detached from us, too hard to accept that it really would be us.  It's unlike if a future self met our present in need, since then they would remember their own kindness -- it is almost like you have to pay it forward, you do the right thing so that it comes back to you when you need it.

There's no real conclusion to be made -- but I'm interested to hear others thoughts on the idea, if it even makes any sense.  Do you like who you are?  Do you think if you met yourself you would like them, or would you seem them embodying all your insecurities?

Things I Love Thursday

Once again, it's time for "Things I Love" Thursday -- inspired by Lulu's posts by the same name.  Today's post is a much-needed antidote to my last, about the folk singer Taylor Mitchell.  If you're new here, you can see last week's TILT here.  And for a wholly-different kind of themed Thursday, why not visit Live It, LOVE It and check out TMI Thursday.

This post is harder than the last, since it hasn't been a week filled with things I love -- but that is all the more reason to write it.  To celebrate the little things, and all that.  I'm going to try and make an effort each week not to repeat things from the last time, even if they are still current and relevant, just to try and add some variety.  So, while this week I still love the warm autumn days, and the cats are still adorable, they aren't making the list.

Top of the love pile this week comes swimming.  I've enjoyed swimming for as long as I can remember -- and though I love it significantly less when the local pool is busy and obnoxious people get in my way, I still enjoy going.  I love what good exercise it is, and for a lazy person like me how it's good exercise for what feels like little effort.  I like the zen of it, when the pool is quiet -- the way the smooth, still water parts for me, and then surges softly back when I pass.  I even enjoy the clean smell of chlorine on my skin, which is no doubt an anchor -- the good feeling I get from the endorphins becoming associated with the smell.  But hey, it works for me. 

I also love this week the kindness of random strangers.  Walking home in the dark the other night, my plastic bag split, spilling my worldly belongings onto the street.  Luckily, I was able to retrieve my glasses, my wallet, my keys and my book without any of them being damaged.  Unfortunately, I didn't realise at the time I had lost my spare mobile -- with the special sim card for cheap overseas calls that I use for calling the girl.  It was some time later down the road I noticed the phone was missing, but I couldn't recall if it had ever been in my bag, or if I might have just left it at the college where I'd been on my personal development course.  I considered retracing my steps, but didn't know where I had been when the bag had split or if I would be able to find a black mobile phone in the dark.  Or even if I had lost it.  I resolved to call the college the next day to ask if it was left there.  Expecting not to see the phone again, I ordered a replacement sim card and looked into the possibility of another handset.


I got a call a few hours later from the girl, to say that a man had found the phone in the street and called her, since she was the last dialled number.  He didn't know it was 4am in Western Australia when he called her.
To skip to the end, I spoke to the guy and then drove over to his house and got the phone back.  I had originally expected the odds of seeing it again if I had lost in the street to be fairly low -- but the kindness of a stranger proved me wrong.

The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.  Yes, it's a bit of an old book now, and yes almost everyone we know has already read it, but I just started rereading it.  I've recently been reading another book called Between Inner Space and Outer Space which is incredibly interesting, but also at times a little hard going.  After I dreamed one night of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, I decided that this book wasn't suitable bedtime reading.  Which is where Ms Niffenegger's novel comes in -- I wanted something to read last night, it was there, and it was a better choice than Slinky Malinki which I had just bought for my nephew.  So why is it listed as a thing I love?  I had forgotten how good it is.  Not just the story, but the writing itself.  I went through a phase of reading every book twice -- as soon as I finished it, I would start again, so that I could appreciate the writing and not just the story.  I don't remember why I stopped doing it, but The Time Traveller's Wife is a good candidate for this behaviour.

And, finally, I guess this week I just love the little things.  It's easy for me to get bogged down when things seem to be going badly -- I had to tell our landlord that the girl and I are moving out.  It made me sad to do, and to think of leaving the house.  But I love that I have a loving family that will take us both in.  I love that in a few months we will find a new place of our own to live in London.  I love that I am not sleeping rough on the streets.  I love that I am very fortunate indeed, that while people are dying in daily attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am safe and cared for, and that my troubles pale in signifcance to what so many people face.

Coyotes kill Canadian folk singer

19-year-old folk singer Taylor Mitchell was killed by coyotes while hiking alone in a national park.

This makes me sad, and I can't really explain why, it's not like I'm a big fan of Canadian folk music -- the late Ms Mitchell now makes the total count of artists I can name up to one.

Maybe it's just sad that a someone who had so much to look forward to should have died so needlessly. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's any sadder than dying in a car accident, or from illness, or in a bizarre gardening accident, or any number of other ways, but this in particular just seems so pointless.

It could be the freak nature of the attack. At first when I read it I confused coyotes -- which are essentially jackals -- with cougars, which are also known as pumas. I remember hiking in the the Arches national park in Utah's Moab desert, and being warned of the risk of being attacked by cougars -- the risk was high for lone hikers, along with children who wander off or joggers in some areas.

But then when I read the story properly I realised it said coyote and not cougar, an it seemed all the more senseless that an animal that normally preys on hares should have attacked a person. Attacked and killed.

Some people might say she was foolish, I don't know the details but it was possible that it was unsafe and she shouldn't have been hiking alone at that time of day. But that's no comfort to anyone. You can't blame the animals, of course. They're wild animals, acting on instinct and not out of any malicious intent -- they didn't do anything "wrong", only what they know.

For years, I've joked about wild animals eating joggers and how we should introduce large predators into towns to control anti-social behaviour. Suddenly it doesn't seem so funny.

The Inca Trail: Day 5 Pacamayo to Winay Wayna

Our last full day's hiking began shortly after 5.30am, on a cold Andean morning above the Pacamayo river.  Joe had slept the night through, and the cheerful porters were greeting us all with bowls of hot water for washing in, and mugs of Coca tea.

But it was mornings like this that brought home where we were, and why we were doing it.  Sometimes at the end of the day when your knees were screaming and you were hiking the last few miles to camp in rapidly fading light, it was easy to forget.  Then you wake up the next morning with views of cloud-filled valleys, and you wonder why you don't do this kind of thing more often.  Day three of proper hiking along the Inca trail promised lots more ruins, more altitude, and more cloud forest.

About a kilometre along the trail from the campsite, and a climb of about 150m we came to the first set of ruins of the day, the remains of Runkuraqay -- at an altitude of approximately 3750m.

Discovered by the explorer Hiram Bingham, who was searching for Machu Picchu, like much of the Incan architecture the purpose of the tambo aren't entirely clear.  While some historians claim it was a lookout post for the trail, others have said it was a guard house, a grain store or even a llama corral.

From here the hike just kep going up -- and like the previous day, the air was thin, the trail was steep and the going was slow.  While we knew we were going up to 4,000m again, we'd spent the night at altitude and so hadn't nearly as far to go this time -- instead we had almost all of the rest of the day downhill.

And so from the highest point of the day, it was another 400m descent down to the town of Sayaqmarka.  Reached only by a steep, narrow staircase Sayaqmarka can be translated as "inaccesible town".

Having spent the best part of the day so far not actually at the back of the group, I decided to forego a brief side trip up to the ruins of Sayaqmarka and instead press on ahead.  There was still a lot of hiking to be done, and I had some foolish notion that I might possibly be able to get back before nightfall without being eaten by a puma.  Though I expect for many it would be an honour to be eaten by such a revered animal, I figured that could at least wait until after Machu Picchu.

Speaking of Machu Picchu, I had come this far now and was now reassured in myself that I wouldn't have to abandon the trail with one of the group leaders and instead take the train to the lost city.  In some of my darker moments the day before I had reassured myself that it would still be an adventure, even if that was the worst case scenario.  But it wasn't me being carried up to Dead Woman's Pass in a papoose, or giving the porters a fright by keeling over at the top.  So, surely, if I had come this far then I would just keep going?  The worst of the uphill was behind me, and we were at such a point that returning were as tedious as to go o'er.

As the day wore on, the trail levelled out and widened -- giving us fine views and occasional patches of cloud forest.  The third pass was reached easily after passing through an Inca tunnel in the rock.  I can't be sure exactly when it was in the day, but it must have been about around this time that one of my fellow trekkers had a small mishap with some strong pharmaceutical painkillers.

For reasons of her own, one of the trek doctors had given her two of these tablets, and she'd been instructed to take them something like four hours apart.  I can be fairly clear about these instructions, since I'd been given some myself -- but never felt the need to resort to those on top of what I was already taking.  Many of you can probably guess what happened next -- it got to halfway through the day, and Yvonne realised she had forgotten to take one of the tablets earlier.  Maybe she was feeling particularly sore, and that was what reminded her, but she obviously figured that she would need to "catch up" on what she had missed, and took them both at once.

Yvonne later told us that she didn't realise this was a mistake until some time later.  We were at the top of a particularly steep climb, everyone was getting their breath back, and Yvonne noticed how the colours on all the plants seemed so unusually vivid, and thought to herself that she hadn't known that was a symptom of altitude sickness.  Then she remembered the tablets she had taken, and realised all was not well.  Before long, she was giggling like an addict in the depths of an ether binge, and was unable to walk any distance completely unaided.

Luckily for everyone involved, Yvonne needed nothing more than one of the group leaders to support her as she walked and to keep an eye on her -- no permanent damage was going to have been done, she just needed supervision and assistance.

On route to the last night's camp we passed above the ruins of Phuyupatmarka (meaning Cloud-Level Town), a complex structure of protection walls and paths built on the uppermost side of a high hill.  It's a sad state of affairs when by this point it is almost getting to a point where this elaborate Inca architecture is starting to seem normal.  It never becomes boring or uninteresting, but after a while you start to expect it -- and know you are getting closer to the final day.

Before you can get to the final day, though, if you are like me you will spend most of the last hour of walking actually hiking in complete darkness with only a headtorch for light. While I wasn't alone and the camp wasn't far away, it was still not advisable to be walking the trails in the dark.  For me, it just added to the adventure -- but I still didn't want to get eaten by any wild animals.

The campsite of Winay Wayna was completely different to the previous two nights.  For a start it had toilets and showers -- real toilets and real showers, that weren't in tents.  It also had a dining hall, a kind of off-licence and a small shop that sold the tokens you needed to buy beer.  Most of the others had already been back at the camp for an hour or two already by this point, and had got on the beers without delay. Even Joe, who had made a lazarus-like recovery.

To celebrate the end of the camping, that evening there was a formal meal at real tables and everything -- but for many of us, that was where the celebrations would stay, because the next day was the final hike to the lost city of Machu Picchu.

Changes

As you might have noticed, I've made some changes to the appearance of this blog -- your feedback and opinions are encouraged!

Back to the routine

I didn't mean for it to be a week between updates -- but it's just been one of those weeks where I hold off writing anything until I know where things stand.

We left me at the end of last week feeling optimistic and hopeful about my job prospects -- there had been interviews with two companies and a potential for freelance work.  Friday was as quiet as I expected -- no job offers landed on the doorstep (or in my inbox) and it was too early for any second round interview call backs.  This was fine.  Monday I was starting to get impatient -- sure, nothing could have moved on over the weekend, but by the end of the day I was starting to wonder and doubt.

Tuesday I was beginning to feel downright anxious.  What if neither of the companies wanted me?  I had already lost hope on the possibility of freelance work, since last week it had seemed so urgent but I'd heard nothing since.  I just had to resign myself that worst case scenario would be Christmas casual work with the post office, sorting mail and parcels -- it's not bad work, and there was always overtime on offer when I temped in the past, but this year with temps being recruited to counteract the industrial action, I wasn't so sure it would be the same.

It was difficult to concentrate on my course Tuesday morning, I kept my phone beside me so that I could take any calls when they came in -- I was particularly expecting a call about the comms role that morning, and wanted to know what was happening there before any job offers from the sales position.  It got to about 1pm and I'd heard nothing.  I decided to stay at the college rather than rush home to have lunch, and I was checking my email on my mobile phone -- checking what documents I needed to take for the post office recruitment day on Wednesday.  Except I didn't need to check that email, because the first one I saw had the subject "Emploment Offer".  And it wasn't even spam, offering me employment selling "v1@grA" or whatever.

It was an offer of employment from the sales position.  There would be no working nights and long hours at the post office for me now, the worst that could happen is that I would be gainfully employed as an executive in the city.  Now I just had to get some sort of answer from the comms role.  I called the recruiter -- who typically had no response form them yet -- and let her know I already had a job offer, so that should be passed along to try and speed up the process.

The girl and I remain worried about our finances.  Because she's been on unpaid leave so long, she doesn't know if she has money to pay the rent along with buying a ticket back from Australia and funding her travel to work every day when she comes back.  We're discussing our options on that front -- like if we were to give up our house (and come back to my parents for a room to stay again) would we have to pay cancellation fees on contracts we have in place.

On the other side of the coin, I had a look on the rightmove property website for places to rent in London, and found that when you discount the idea of just being able to walk to work, there are places with only a 30 minute commute that wouldn't cost significantly more than our house in Essex -- and would avoid the crippling travel costs.  Instead of paying out £400 each just in travel every month, we could pay an extra £100 a month each and actually live in London.  It maybe isn't an option right away, but in a few months time after the winter months have come and gone, we might be in a position to live in London.

I got a call yesterday to say it was a no to a second interview for the comms role.  I haven't yet been told why I wasn't up to the task, except that they only called something like two people for second stage and they were "good all-rounders".  I aim to get detailed info on if they liked the event plan I put together, and feedback on the tests they had me do on the day, as well as the interview itself.  But this means that it's sealed, I must take the sales job.  Of course, I could decide not to and that I would rather stay unemployed, living on benefits and looking for work, but my benefits would be stopped if the JobCentre found out I had been offered a job and turned it down.

The only real drawback to the sales role is that the basic wage is low -- obviously common practice in sales, a tactic to motivate you towards meeting your sales targets.  It's so low, in fact, I was earning almost £2k more a year in my last job, where I didn't have to commute into London -- but if I was to meet the targets in this role I would naturally be better off.  It's tough.  I decided to try and barter with them on the salary, tell them if they could make it £18k a year rather than £17k I could accept the job today -- where I had previously told them I would need until Friday to consider all my options.  I got a reply telling me they would have to discuss it with the MD, but if they were to accept a higher basic wage then my equivalent targets would also be higher.

I don't know at this point in time how achievable the sales targets are -- sure, they tell me they are achievable, but of course they would say that.  Is it worth the gamble to have a higher basic wage and risk not being able to hit the targets that make the job workable?  I don't know if I have that much faith in my sales abilities.  After some thought and a discussion with the girl, I've decided to stick with the original offer -- the basic salary is hardly liveable, but that just means I'll have to work harder.  Or find a second job.

So, the good news is I got a job.  Not the well-paid job in communications I really wanted, but a job all the same -- I'm getting off the couch, getting off benefits, and back into the daily 9 - 6 work routine.

"Things I Love" Thursday

A concept I have taken from Lulu, whom I believe also took inspiration from someone else, this is the first post of hopefully many on "Things I Love" Thursday.  Following on from such theme days as "Musical Monday", "Serial Killer Sunday" and "News-Day Tuesday", this is just a snapshot of the things that are making me happy this week, or just today.  I think everyone will be in agreement this is far more palatable than the idea of me indulging in "Half-Nekkid Thursday", as seen elsewhere in the Blogosphere.

Without any further ado, things I love today:

Sunny Autumn days. Just when you think winter has made a premature entrance, when the days have turned cold and it is pouring with rain, Autumn taps you on the shoulder and lets you know it's not done yet.  Today it is warm and sunny, the sun is singing, the birds are shining, and you can throw open the windows to let the air in.  OK, so you're never going to mistake it for a summer day -- but the Autumn sunlight has an elegant charm all of its own.  And the cats like it, too.

Which brings me onto my next point:

Cats!  I know some people have a real grudge against the feline members of society -- and let me remind you that a hatred of cats is latent misogyny -- but I think responsible owners make respectable cats, and none moreso than the kitten tearaways that have come to live with my parents in recent months.  These two show you what there is to enjoy in life -- and approach almost everything with complete abandonment, which often leads to them rolling about on the floor trying to bite each other.  Except no matter how fiercely they seem to be fighting, neither of them minds, and you'll often find them curled up asleep together.  They really need a whole post of their own.

You know what else I love?

Not having to go to the job centre!  I can now give that hateful place the two-finger salute.  No more filling in a record of what I have been doing to look for work, and no more relying on the pittance of job seeker's allowance.  I now rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed.

The internet.  I know, I should really send a "thank you" card to Tim Berners-Lee for such a wonderful thing it is.  Without the internet, instant messenger conversations would be quite one-sided, web cam shows somewhat dull, and web browsers not an awful lot of use.  Blogging would also be a lot more like Doogie Howser MD, writing a diary on his computer.  But really, what I love most about the internet this week is people.  Last week, I was invited out for China Blue's birthday celebrations, and by the mixture of the people who came along and showed their love I was reminded what a fantastic tool for meeting people the internet really is.  They say that the invention of the bicycle was a big thing for genetics, since it allowed people easier travel to nearby towns and from there access to more people from outside their own gene pool.  The internet is second only to teleportation and inter-stellar space travel, I think, with its contribution here -- people now communicate with each other in real time from all over the world, and with it make friends, fall in love and perpetuate the whole human comedy.

Weekends at the seaside.  It's not the same without the girl, but I still love the sea, I love going to the seaside on a Friday, and I love going to the seaside even more when we're seeing family.  It's my brother's birthday this weekend, so I get to see my brother, and my sister in law, and my four year old nephew and in between I get to throw stones into the sea and look for shells. 

And that about wraps her all up for today -- I want to keep this as just thoughts today, and not an exhaustive list of all the things in the world ever that I love, and certainly couldn't begin to express myself if I was to start including individuals on the list.

But we'll be back next week with more...

Maybe everything that dies some day comes back

Another day, another job interview.

Yesterday's was much more of a proper interview, except if I want to be a grinch about it I feel a bit like my recruiter hadn't given me quite accurate information. And the info from the company was slightly misleading, too. But that's ok.

I can't go into much detail about the company, since this is a public blog and though I doubt they would be bored enough to google key words about their business, they still might possibly find it. But enough to say it is a communications role with a charity that is involved with disabled people.

For the interview I was asked to consider an event that I would need to plan, and what needed to be taken into account. They kept it deliberately vague. One morning last week I was considering it, and how I had no inspiration for it, when I had a great idea. It sucks to be you reading this right now, because I won't talk about the idea. I thought it was a great idea and I put a lot of thought and effort into my plan, but I don't want to write about it in case someone says "I don't think that was the wisest choice". What would it matter? I just don't want to think about it now. So, I wrote about what the event would entail, and my reasoning for this particular event, and all the various things that would need to be taken into consideration, and just to top it all off I gave a week-by-week breakdown of when each stage of the planning would need to be completed.

The information I had said that I would not be asked to present this plan, only to submit it for their consideration after my interview. This was not true, as after our mutual interview questions, they did ask me to talk about it, which I hadn't been planning to do. Hopefully, I was passionate and enthusiastic enough about it all.

The interview itself went well, they were nice and friendly, and seemed pleased with all of my answers and liked my experience.

Next came the test. I was expecting more than one test -- the recruiter had suggested there would be a computer test and a personality test -- but I hadn't fretted it, there's nothing you can do to prepare when you don't know what kind of computer test it will be. It turned out there was no personality test, and the computer test was the last thing I expected -- a written test. First I had to edit a feature article written for one of their magazines -- cutting it almost in half to a maximum of 350 words, then I had to write a press release. I was disappointed there was very sparse info on which to base my release, but I put my heart into it all the same. The editing was tricky -- that was something I'd never done before, editing someone else's work -- but it got done. Now I wait. They are interviewing someone else tomorrow, I'm told, and have no feedback yet but are reportedly pleased that I liked them.

Now, today's interview was the third and final part of the recruitment process for the marketing and sales role that doesn't include much marketing. I had to prepare a sales pitch for a specific two-day training course -- since that's what they do. Again, I can't talk much about the company, but it's IT-related and out of my area of experience. But prior knowledge of this kind of thing was far less important than hard work and enthusiasm, so last night was spent drafting out my pitch. Which I did have to present in this interview -- and was pretty much all there was to the interview. They seemed to like it, referring to it as "excellent", and that I had covered off the key points.

I think they're keen, they told me they were feeling positively about me, and asked me if I was offered the job whether I would consider it. I replied that I too felt positively and would definitely consider it. They mentioned they had other interviewees to see, so I made sure to mention I have other interviews to go to.

Right now, I feel like the communications role would suit me better -- but who knows, maybe my future is in sales. And I got a call this evening about a communications role in the NHS based very close to home, so I'm waiting to hear if I have a meeting on that one.

I look forward to a time in the near future when I have a job and I can then widen my area of interest into the rest of the world and write about more exciting things. Like the new shirt I bought, with its silver buttons and little silver tags sewn on, and how they glints and sparkles in the Autumn sun as I walk down the street. Or how apaprently the Bruce Springsteen song doesn't say "They blew up the chicken mine in Philly last night" -- I just thought a chicken mine would be where chicken salt came from...

Summer (and Spring & Autumn) reading

If there was one thing being out of work has given me more time for, it is reading. And for that I am grateful. In the last few months I have read a varied selection of books, such as:

Dead Until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas by Charlmaine Harris
Jamie -- I'm sorry I recommended these books to you, they weren't nearly as good reading as I thought they were originally. Rating: 2/5

Echo Park by Michael Connelly
A reasonably clever crime thriller -- the protagonist whose name I can't recall clearly wasn't very memorable, although the plot had some clever twists. Rating: 3/5

Exit Music and Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
If you are going to start reading Inspector Rebus novels, it's probably not best to start with the last one. Rebus himself is not very likeable, but this is a good thing as it shows you are an engaging with the character, and I found the descriptions of life in Scotland's cities as interesting as the plots. Rating: 4/5

Cold Deck, Hot Lead and The Commanche Kid J.T. Edson
Shamefully, I'd never read a single cowboy novel before these -- but I really enjoyed them. They were fun and lively and easy-to-read, but not so easy you got bored quickly. Their charm was that they didn't try to be anything they weren't. If you ever see any of J.T. Edson's books, they're worth picking up for taking on an aeroplane and then leaving behind when you're done. Rating: 3.5/5

Dexter in the Dark and Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Foolishly, I thought that the books followed closely the same plotline as the Dexter tv series -- while the first might have done, these certainly do not. It's not a bad thing, it just caught me off-guard that there are several major differences in the ongoing plots. As for the plots themselves, they cleverly juggle Dexter's own personal struggles with the serial killer storylines, but reading two was enough for me. Rating: 3.5/5

Mister Roberts by Alexei Sayle
I've read all of Alexei Sayle's books -- which isn't all that many, but still more than one or two -- and I liked this departure from his normal plotlines. He remains as fondly acerbic about British people, in this case British ex-pats living in Spain, as he is in all of his previous stories, and he manages to be serious and funny and strange all at once. One of my favourite writers, satirists and social commentators today. But I still preferred some of his other books. Rating: 4.5/5

Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
Another author I hadn't previously read anything by that I was compelled to put right -- and though I haven't yet finished this book (the first of his robot novels) right now it reminds me of a cross between 1984 and Blade Runner.

After I finish this Asimov novel, and maybe another, I plan to expand my reading into the works of Deepak Chopra and something in the way of Quantum Physics, if there is anything vaguely accessible.

When your only tool is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails

...Or so I'm told. But what does that mean, exactly? Right now, it feels a lot like my job hunt.

I had the opportunity to meet a renowned Marketing writer/blogger last week, grabbing the chance to meet him while he was in London for a couple of days. Unfortunately, however much I think he and his blog are awesome, I can't link to it in this post as if he followed the traffic back here I don't think he'd dig my tales of girls and boys and marsupials, nor the old Serial Killer Sunday posts.

Anyway, I'd filled him in on where I am professionally -- some good experience but now "between jobs" and asked for his advice on how better to market myself, and get that awesome job with it. As part of my ongoing personal development, I have also set some objectives for myself -- working towards them involves in part asking people I admire how they got to be where they are.

It seems that there are two ways I can approach looking for work. The marketer summarised my position quite well, when you're out of work for a while you start casting your net wider and applying for jobs you could do, and maybe even do well, but aren't necessarily what you really want. There is nothing wrong with this, of course. The other approach is to hold out for what you really want, and accept no compromise. He suggested volunteering to work without pay for somewhere awesome, so long as I would be doing real work and not stuffing envelopes.

He has also stressed that I should be writing -- by way of submitting guest posts to relevant blogs, or writing a blog of my own. I tried setting up a new blog the other day just for writings on the PR/marketing industry, but I fell at the first hurdle -- I couldn't come up with a good name for it that wasn't already taken.

This week I have two interviews coming up: a second interview for a job as a sales and marketing exec, that seems to have little marketing to it that isn't actually sales, and a communications role that would be a significant promotion from where I was before. I was informally interviewed on the phone the other day for another sales position -- although it was described as management trainee or something, I think that was just clever marketing on the part of the job ad. It seemed to go well, I was told some of my answers were good, and that I'd here more if I was to be invited for the two-day selection process this week. I didn't hear anything more.

The trouble is, sometimes it seems like applying for jobs that aren't what I really want but I could probably do is treating all problems as nails. Do I actually want to work in sales? Would I be any good at it? And come to that, when did what I do for a living become so damned all-important anyway? It does not define me as a person, and should not be what my life is about. But it's easy to say that when you actually have a job -- getting one first is key, the rest comes afterwards.

A couple of my friends have turned to teaching. One of them has had several other careers to date, including being a police officer, a lorry driver, a petrol station attendant and a media sales executive. Will teaching finally be what they are looking for? The other friend has been treading water for the last few years, not really knowing what they wanted. I can more readily see them staying in teaching. They have suggested it to me as a career path, too, but I'd only take them seriously if they had already been doing it for several years -- but like social work which has also been suggested, I really don't see it being for me.

Finally, a friend posted this video on my Facebook the other day. It made me laugh, but I'm not sure what they were trying to tell me...

Courier for the day

With no sponsorship licence in sight for her this week, the girl's company suggested she become self employed and work for them freelance from Australia. It wasn't a great solution, but the girl needed the income, and so I got in touch with some people from her office about taking them her work laptop. The idea was that they could then get it sent to Australia by courier.

And so it was on a grey and rainy London afternoon I set off in my best suit, with my portfolio and the girl's laptop, to an appointment I had in the city.

I was already tight for time, the meeting had been set up at the last minute and I'd had time only to get home and change my clothes in a Superman-style whirlwind to catch a train. A train that as I waited at the station was getting further delayed every few minutes. Periodically, freight trains would come storming straight through the station, but my train was delayed without explanation -- and I had to get to the gleaming towers of Docklands.

While I was waiting I got a text from the girl asking me very nicely to call her. I didn't have our spare mobile with the cheap overseas calls, but something about the message told me it was important. The girl got to the point quickly -- it might not be necessary for me to take the laptop to her work after all, since their licence had finally arrived.

This means that after advertising her job for a couple of weeks, the girl will be able to apply for her visa and get all her biometric data recorded, as well as a GPS tracking chip embedded under her skin, as I am sure is now standard procedure in a surveillance society such as ours.

Thanks to the joys of internet access on my phone I was able to buy a little time before my appointment so I didn't turn up breathless and rushed, so that went well. I wasn't expected at the girl's offices any particular time, and I think I shared the lift with her Swiss colleague. I was curious to meet some of the people I had heard so much about, and the few I had emailed, but I got no further than the receptionist. I handed over the laptop, and was off again.

Soon now, the girl will be returning, and I am already mentally making plans for fun tings to do -- I won't talk about any of my ideas here and now, but if there was one thing my visit Down Under showed me it is that surely nowhere in England is beyond reasonable driving distance.

Macaroni art

I will return to my regularly-scheduled "Inca Trail" scribblings after this brief segue.

Things have been tough for the girl and I in recent months.

Losing my job to redundancy in July was unfortunate, but I immediately started claiming "job seeker's allowance" to try and keep the wolves from the door when it came to rent and bills. The fight to get housing benefit out of the local council has sometimes felt like an uphill struggle, however -- particularly when we were told the girl earned too much for us to claim benefits.

The girl had to return home to Western Australia several days earlier than she had planned, missing out on a trip to Paris with her Mum, when her grandfather died. Even at that time, we hoped that her work visa would come through in no time, and it would only be a short time before the girl would return to merry old England.

We hoped the setbacks would only be very temporary, but it's October and I haven't yet found gainful employment, and the girl's company still don't have their licence to sponsor her, so she is in unpaid limbo on the other side of the world.

Next month we don't know if we will be able to pay the rent. I have already borrowed sums of money from my parents to help make ends meet in previous months, but we are now getting the housing benefits we were previously denied so I hope to be able to hold the fort a little while longer.

On the positive side, the logic would follow that every day that passes without the girl hearing news on her company's licence we must also be one day closer to her joyful return. I also have some promising leads on jobs that I am interviewing for.

I don't spend a lot of time in the house I share with the girl now that she's not here. It makes sense to visit my parents more and take advantage of their hospitality to keep the running costs of our house down, but most of all it doesn't much feel like "our" house when I'm there alone.

I won't lie, emotionally I've had a bad time since I lost my job. Never having been the most stable of people in the past, losing the security and income of a job I (mostly) enjoyed set me adrift a little.

In a dramatic break with tradition, however, things have taken a turn for the better there -- and it might even seem in years to come that being made redundant was a good thing to happen. For a start, if you're out of work you can access government-funded training. And I'm not talking about basic maths or literacy, but more or less anything you want.

Granted, I am still trying to get someone to commit to the details, but in theory at least there are options open to me if I want to learn things like digital marketing, graphic design, web design because it will make me more employable -- those three could all help me make a move into roles like web content editor.

Not directly related to work, but sort of related to government funding, I have been in therapy, which was probably overdue. I think because of the recession, money has been freed up for what is being called "talk therapy", a combination of counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy. While it hasn't exactly set my world ablaze, it has helped me to recognise and address some errors in my thinking. Which neatly leads me onto the next point.

Personal Development. A local college is currently a 10 week personal development course for people a bit like me -- it's not solely for those out of work, but being held twice a week on weekdays probably means it's not very accessible for anyone in fulltime employment. The course is led by a certified Psychotherapist who also makes a decent living in areas like Hypnotherapy, as well as coaching and training.

It's all making for a good combination -- the course provides me with something to do other than look for work, I can tell employers about it when I go for interviews, and it is giving me useful tools for managing my own thoughts and behaviour. Mixing that with my cognitive behavioural therapy I have recently learned to treat myself better and be more objective, feel more positive, and have identified some goals and objectives. I won't go into details of the techniques I have learned today, but it's enough that it is doing me some good.

I visited the girl for a few weeks in August and September, which should have been longer if only we'd known there was not going to be work waiting for me on my return, and no firm return date for the girl in sight. But that's how these things go. I will be blogging about those adventures -- under the title of "Tales of Girls, Boys and Marsupials" (something I have considered renaming my blog on occasion) -- when I have exhausted my "I trekked Peru, yo" posts.

We aren't too clear where we go from here right now, except that today is one day closer to the girl's return and another day closer to finding a new, incredibly awesome job for me. And people will probably be getting macaroni pictures as Christmas presents this year.

The Inca Trail: Day 4 Wayllabamba -- Pacamayo

After a restless night disturbed by tentmate Joe's frequent and noisy vomiting, we started the second proper day of walking with the knowledge that this would be perhaps the hardest thing many of us had ever done -- and possibly the hardest thing we would ever do.

We had camped overnight at an altitude of 2700m at a place called Wayllabamba, which in the Peruvian Quechan language means "grassy plain". Both of these are quite safe, reassuring facts that you take comfort in on the trail. The altitude is low (although that is still double the height of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles), and the name tells you how it's nice and flat. This contrasted with the focal point of the day: Dead Woman's Pass, standing at an altitude of 4200m, over three times the height of Ben Nevis and nearly four times the height of Snowdon^*.

It wasn't long before the ascending trail took us up through what is referred to as "cloud forest", where the forests are persistently misty -- this made it cooler for the uphill hike, but the altitude was still tough. Joe hadn't recovered from the night before, and was struggling to continue going since he couldn't even keep water down. We were lucky that it stayed dry for us, since this part of the trail had a reputation for being hard going when it got muddy as well as steep.

I remember one stop we made for a rest and water, which really symbolised the contrast of the traditional Peruvian society and the "modern world". We stopped to regroup and rest, and a few feet away, under a tree sat two Peruvian women in traditional dress, with their donkey. And a table selling bottle water, Coke, chocolate, Powerade and various other delicacies. Every now and then the donkey would wander closer to one of the women, and she'd hit it with a stick. I got the impression the woman was telling the donkey to go away, but maybe it was the other way round -- the donkey enjoyed it, and every now and then just had an urge to be hit with a stick again, whereupon the old lady would oblige.



Lunch a couple of hours later was a beautiful lush valley, with views of snow-capped peaks and the heights of Dead Woman's Pass lying ahead of us. Joe was in a bad way. He was dehydrated and weak, from being unable to keep anything down but still being determined to keep going. I think the trail and the long months of preparation did that to you: giving up was not an option. If I thought I had things bad with dodgy knees and a bad foot, Joe had to be put on an intravenous drip in a tent.

When I arrived at the lunch stop true to form our team of trusty porters had already erected the three group dining tents for us, as well as the cooking tents and done all the cooking -- and there was still a few minutes to go before meal time. Most others had been there a while longer than me, but I was perpetually slow. It's now such a bad way to take the trail, you get the opportunity to take in all the sights around you -- which never have the chance to become familiar or run of the mill.

I encouraged a fellow trekker to venture in to one of the surrounding fields where llamas (or maybe alpacas, I can't tell the difference) were peacefully grazing. I had been tasked by Ali to hug a llama for her, and I was determines to meet my obligations, and have a photo taken to prove it. Unfortunately, the llamas had other ideas about this. They might be big. And smelly. But they are also still timid of people, and weren't keen on the idea of being hugged by someone who hadn't showered in a couple of days. I settled for a photo near a llama instead, though I won't post it since it's not a very flattering picture -- and I don't look a whole heap better.

Lunch was packed with carbs -- the now-usual selection of dishes ranging between soup, chicken, white rice and traditional Peruvian dishes. It was delicious, and best of all plentiful -- and we needed it, since Dead Woman's Pass still lay several hours ahead and several thousand meters above us.


After lunch the trail got steeper and relentless, there was often barely enough room for two people to walk side by side, when there would come up the mountain a shout of "Porters!". Everyone would move to one side to let these Peruvian supermen past -- with port-a-loos and stoves on their backs and nothing more than sandals on their feet.

The altitude made the trek hard going. We'd be able to walk no more than a few minutes before having to stop to catch our breath -- the thing about altitude was that the air literally did feel thinner, you could take long, deep breaths but the air just didn't go so far. Your heart would pound, your head would thump, and you just had to stop and let everything settle -- no amount of eagerness or speed would get you up the mountain any faster.

With the altitude came the cloud, and once we reached Dead Woman's Pass (so-called because it is said to resemble a dead woman lying on her back, with the view of two mountainous peaks resembling breasts) it got cold very quickly. We all assembled together to appreciate what would be the highest -- although not necessarily the hardest -- point of our trip. The views were limited by the cloud around and below us, and strangely reminded me of Dartmoor -- probably because of the cloud/fog, rock and desolate landscape. On many of the surrounding hills were small piles of stones, not unlike the cairns found in the British Isles -- they were apparently expressions of wishes by Quechan travellers, who would return and add another stone to the top of the pile when their wish came true.

Getting to the top of Dead Woman's Pass was only half the battle -- there was still a 500m descent to camp to go. While the ascent was hard-going because of the altitude and steep climb, descending is often just as hard, and the relentless steps are torture on your knees -- and like with the ascent, you can't speed up, even if you want to, and know you are against the clock to get into camp before dark.

The second night camping was in the Pacamayo (or "sunrise") valley, where instead the sun was quickly setting. My tentmate Joe (who had been carried at one point on the steepest part of the trail uphill) was already in the tent and his sleeping bag and fell sound asleep almost as soon as I got back. My knees were so painful and stiff I could barely bend them at all without crying out -- which made it incredibly difficult to crouch down and sort out my bedding in the tent without waking sleeping Joe.

After a hard day, many of us were a lot more tired than the night before -- there was no time for stargazing in the clear mountain night this evening, instead we went to sleep right after dinner.

The next day was promised by some to be the hardest, with another very early start.




^*Readers outside of the UK: please feel free to chip in with how this compares with mountains you are more familiar with -- I appreciate the UK isn't known for its mountainous terrain