Fundraising in the sun- and some very large pumpkins

Some reflections on the last so far

When I first compiled the list back in 2012 I had specific pictures in mind. Sunny climates, large-scale monuments, exciting wildlife and new challenges, all enjoyed in the company of friends old and new.

It was an exhaustive list and one which I realised, even then, I would never complete in the time available. (At least not without a sudden influx of cash!) To have achieved some of the goals has of course been wonderful. But just as important, for me, has been the journey itself. Many of these entries have been about progressing towards the event; running half a marathon, skiing two of three new areas, starting to write or learn or explore.

Perhaps it’s the fault of my imagination, but few of the experiences have matched the pictures I had in my head. However, that has very much been a good thing. ‘Getting published’, for example, was not about a shiny book cover on the shelf of Waterstones or a Booker Prize. (There is still time for these!) It has involved the discovery of a whole new world of writing: blogs, columns, short stories and even social networking. Recently I was even called upon to deliver a writing workshop. In sharing my learning, I again remembered what has been so fabulous about this list: the people I have shared it with, the surprises I have had, the feeling not only of accomplishment, but of there still being so much, still, to achieve.

What a journey to be sharing with some of my very favourite people.

Number 36: Work/volunteer abroad

Being offered the opportunity to work in America for ten days was definitely one of the big surprises in the list so far. Working for a small charity with a very restricted budget, there was no way I would have considered being able to travel as part of my job. When the Trustees suggested I accompany my boss to Washington and Alexandria, I felt slightly surreal. America? For work? Really??

The trip came in the middle of an extraordinary month, which started with a half marathon (my second), progressed through a gala dinner with Alexander McCall Smith and finished with delivering two workshops at the Scottish fundraising conference. With so much on I had little time for the reality of the trip to sink in. The day before it suddenly hit me. I was going to a destination I hadn’t chosen, on a flight someone else had booked, to stay with someone I’d met once, to do ... well, what needed doing. As someone who normally organises their holidays with a spreadsheet at least three months in advance, I was right out of my comfort zone. 80% excited. 10% terrified. But it was quite a big 10%.

As usual my comfort lay in writing. I bought a sexy moleskine journal to record my thoughts and experiences while travelling, as well as my work notes. There is something very reassuring about a moleskine. This reassurance turned out to be much needed as I arrived at Edinburgh airport to be told I was currently ‘on the waiting list’ for my connection to London. These are exactly the words a stressed lady needs to hear. I was given a voucher for free coffee and muffin. Normally I love a free cake. As a substitute for a flight, it ain’t much cop. I turned to the moleskine and poured my concerns into it. It didn’t respond much, but somehow the process of writing the experience down made it a bit less worrying.

As with my previous lost-luggage-flight-connection-bomb-scare experience in Paris, all ended well, but it wasn’t the start I would have chosen.

When I added ‘work or volunteer abroad’ to this list, I perhaps had in mind my previous experience at an animal rescue centre in the Australian rainforest. America was very different, but equally rewarding, tiring and enjoyable.

I am eternally grateful to the family who put me up (and put up with me) for ten days. Having a base that was a living home, complete with young children, was at sometimes a challenge, but it was a much more real experience than staying in a characterless hotel.

The house was based in one of the most attractive areas of North Virginia, on the original estate of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home. Eagles circled in a blue sky above enormous trees. In the times between working and socialising with the family, I was able to rewind by walking along the nearby cycle path and admire the autumnal leaves: custard yellow, fiery red and burnt orange.

On my day off I took the Metro to spend the day in Washington. Uncertain as to whether I’d ever get back there, I did a self-guided walking tour of various memorials. Each had its own unique character, the piercing needle of Washington, the fountains of World War Two, the peaceful Reflecting Pool, the enormous Lincoln Memorial. More sobering were the Vietnam, Korean and Martin Luther King memorials. All provoked very differing emotions, although I began to feel very aware of my lack of knowledge of American History.

I could spend another 500 words at least talking about Old Town Alexandria, Mount Vernon, Arlington Cemetary or that possum I spied in the park. I almost filled my Moleskine diary with various reflections. There were times when I definitely felt out of my comfort zone, but I’m sure that did me some good.

Balancing work across the UK and US was tiring. Waking child-assistedly early I was able to coordinate communications and activities back home via email, despite being 5 hours behind. I was hugely aware of how much the trip meant and how much depended on it, so spent much time planning, contacting, researching and planning again. Every meeting, communication or gathering we had or made in the States had to count. We only had one chance to get it right.

However, my one overriding memory is of how welcome I was. Every single person I met went out of their way to make me feel at home. (Except the security man at the Air and Space Museum who just shouted ‘bag’ at me, making me wonder whether he was mugging me or deriding my appearance.) From those I met at work events to the family I stayed with, the churches I attended and the people who shared my morning unloading pumpkins from a big lorry (one of my favourite experiences) every single person was lovely.

From a work point of view, the trip definitely paid off. In addition, for me, travelling to another country and experiencing a very different culture was a reminder that my way of seeing the world is not the only way. I took many lessons home.

I have to admit, sitting on the veranda drinking beer in the sunshine having just had a number of cheques handed to me did make me wonder... might there be a fundraising job in America???

For now, back to Edinburgh with memories to cherish.

Ground breaking science part two!

The continuing adventures of a girl trying to achieve forty things before she hits the grand old age of forty, although not necessarily in the right order...

When I first drew up my list of forty things, I didn’t actually stop to think how many of them were achievable within the time-frame. It was, therefore, a complete coincidence that number 35- Witness an eclipse, occurred on March 20^th 2015.

I did imagine it would be a bit more dramatic; perhaps standing in a blistering desert watching the sky plunge into apocalyptic darkness. However, happen it did and as we all know the list is the list, so here’s the blog.

I should say before I continue that that sounds ungrateful. It was fun and I’m glad it happened, especially as even Prof Cox would struggle to engineer an unplanned eclipse. There is that episode in Red Dwarf where they use the planets like pool balls, but I digress.

The universe rather handily timed the eclipse for my Friday morning off work. As I work in a basement, it would otherwise have been very annoying. Scotland also did a good job of pulling off some pretty decent weather. All the elements having done their fare share, I did my own preparation for the eclipse by running around an extinct volcano. As a sci-fi fan, I’m aware that unusual scientific phenomena are often accompanied by monsters/zombies. It’s always good to be fit for the occasion.

My fellow scientist and I assembled the optimum lab conditions (some sunny garden steps and a nice cup of earl grey) and set up our observation station (a home-made pin-hole camera). Like the Doctor I’m very keen on a home-made ‘lash up’. In his case, perhaps a neutrino converter knocked up with the aid of a multi-quatiscope, sonic screwdriver, some fiddly bits of wire and some string. In our case our pin hole camera was, well, a pin hole in a bit of envelope actually, but it did the trick.   

As I say, it could have been more dramatic. I recall the eclipse a few years back. I witnessed that one sat in a Cornish fog and the sky really did plunge into full night-time darkness. This time it was more a case of an eerie half light. Enough to make the birds sound a bit confused, but not quite apocalyptic enough to lure out the unusual phenomena or monsters. Still I didn’t regret my pre-science run. It made it easier to enjoy the post-science fried potatoes. I was a bit jealous of the next door neighbours’ slightly more impressive pin hole box viewer and digital camera, but then that’s the point of a lash up. It’s lashed up.

So the would-be apocalypse went very peacefully. My tea got a bit cold and so did I. No aeroplanes fell out of the sky. No zombies appeared. The pin hole sized sun projected onto our bit of cardboard went a funny shape, then back into a circle again. The world returned to normal.

Perhaps this blog entry might have been more exciting if I’d witnessed the eclipse from an aeroplane over the Hebrides. Instead, I enjoyed it with a cup of tea on a nice morning sitting in the garden.

However, in my mind the moral of this story is that nice, peaceful days are sometimes just as worthy of recording as dramatic ones. When you have a bit of a flat day, it is often the memory of a pleasant beach walk, or a sunny morning sat in the garden drinking tea, that you go to for good cheer.

Life can’t all be about running away from Daleks and actually that’s a good thing, as I’m sure the Doctor would agree.

More than one way to conquer a mountain

The continuing adventures of a girl trying to achieve forty things before she hits the grand old age of forty, although not necessarily in the right order...

It’s almost exactly three years since I started blogging. I haven’t got anywhere near exhausting the list of forty things, but it’s been a lot of fun trying!

This month an inexhaustible friend and I tried a multi-activity holiday in the French Pyrenees. Strictly speaking, I didn’t quite tick off number 27, ski in at least three new countries/regions, as I’ve been to the Pyrenees before and road closures blocked our plans to reach Andorra. However, we did do a of day ski touring. It’s safe to say that pushed me into a brave new world of exploring mountains on planks. Oh and we did do a little bit of number 15, learn to climb properly as well.

We flew in from Edinburgh to Toulouse via Amsterdam. The journey wasn’t as dramatic as some, although I did nearly get caught in the middle of a heated altercation on the plane. The moral of the story being don’t sit too near the person who started drinking at 9am.

A short drive from Toulouse brought us to the beautiful Ariege region where we were staying. The Pyrenees are less busy than the Alps and many visitors are French or Spanish. This meant it wasn’t an ‘open-all-hours’ resort and we did some off-piste cooking with whatever the little shop had available. Macaroni camembert isn’t to be sniffed at. (Although after two days, the camembert was rather to be sniffed at and had to be ejected for overwhelming our tiny apartment.)

Our first three days of piste skiing covered all weathers; drizzle with slush, soft snow with zero visibility in the mist and one last stunning day of blue skies. It wasn’t a huge area, but had enough to keep us busy including an un-pisted black, some pleasing reds and blues and some moguls that made us earn our cake.

The fourth day there was a well timed dump of snow which we enjoyed from the thermal baths; the ideal relaxation ahead of (drum roll) a day of epic ski touring.

We picked up our equipment early in the morning. It included crampons, skins, probes, avalanche transceivers and a shovel. I began to wonder whether Sir Ranulph Fiennes would be involved. The beginner’s session had been cancelled, but the lady had reassured us our group were also fairly new to touring. As the van drove up towards the untouched slopes everything started to look like a Christmas card. Then I saw the angle of ascent and secretly prayed the other three French men in our group were tremendously unfit so I wouldn’t be at the back. No such luck! Together with ‘friend with boundless energy’ they were way ahead.

Skins are like long hairy fly papers. You stick them to the bottom of your skis so you can go uphill. Yes, uphill. I know. That’s why the chairlift was invented right?

It is, once you get the hang of it, quite fun. It did, however, take me a while to get the hang of it. The issue was starting on a 35% slope. I had to undo twenty years of learning how to ski, not least because I was going uphill! Kick turns are something I can do with some skill on a normal piste. Add a huge incline and you get Einstein’s equation. Kick turns + hinged boots + big slope = lots of falling over.

Turn. Fall. Turn. Fall. Slide. It was like snakes and ladders. There was a point, when I’d nearly slid all the way back to the start again, when I considered going back to the van, which was tantalisingly near. But no, this is the girl who did the Mighty Deerstalker twice, despite hating the dark. I can do this, I thought.

First slope over and things got easier. I focused on shuffling forwards step by step. There are several photos of me looking at my feet with an absolutely stunning view behind. Note to self: look up next time. It’s a good job there weren’t any bears.

Lunch was well earned and I was able to cool down a bit. The wind was quite strong at this height, making for stunning cloudless skies but also nearly resulting in my friend’s lost glove. She ran bravely after it then had to do a knee deep tramp back again. You forget when you’re sliding over the top of it that the snow is so deep.

After lunch we weren’t far from the summit. Crampons were clipped into place as in many areas the snow had been scoured down to ice. Our guide was super reassuring. We were just half a metre from the top and he stayed with us for the hardest bit, making sure we stamped our crampons in and didn’t slide. This was the point were looking at your feet was better than looking down. Luckily I’d eaten some of my emergency Kendle Mint Cake. I needed that last burst of steam.

What an amazing view from the top! Sadly I ruined my hardy feminist explorer ethic with a few tears. ‘It’s so beautiful!’ (sniff). Four hours of effort were more than worth it for the mountain landscape spread out around us. Blue skies above. Fluffy snow all around. We had worked hard and this was our reward.

Ever practical, my friend spoke to the guide. “You know that really steep bit just there? Are we skiing down that? I mean; we could possibly traverse a little right?” Ah yes. I had forgotten we had to get back down again.

Once our skis were transformed into downhill mode I felt more comfortable. Two metres into the skiing, I remembered. Oh yes, downhill, off-piste skiing. Cue: lots of comedy falling over. Again, you forget almost everything you’ve learned. Your weight isn’t on the downhill ski otherwise your downhill ski sinks and you fall over. Don’t lean too far forward or both skis will sink and you’ll fall over. This leads to, in my case, feeling a bit unnaturally balanced and, yes, falling over. Turn, fall. Turn, fall. It was fun and at least soft to land in.

We approached our original slope again. By now the sunshine had melted a fair bit of snow and I became aware of the trees, rivers and rocks that had emerged. I developed a mantra: straight, straight, straight, turn!! (Phew.) Straight, straight, straight (eek, wobble) turn!

I did finish on my bum, but that was out of choice. I felt like a used battery. Even my emergency Kendle Mint Cake had run out. Sliding onto the road below, I was greeted with applause. I considered kissing the ground, Pope style.

Despite the falling, despite the hard work, I definitely want to try it again. The feeling of achievement was immense. Sure, I wish I done it with a little more style and a little less falling over, but to look back and see your tracks in untouched snow is just wonderful, as was the well-earned beer in the sunshine afterwards.

Funnily enough it made our last day rock climbing seem like a walk in the park in comparison. We were sport climbing which means you don’t have to put gear in the rock, just clip onto existing links. (Apologies if this isn’t the correct lingo.) We were even in vest tops (in March!) the weather was so good. There’s something incredible about hanging off the side of a rock face with the sunny valley far below.

On the last day we sat, looking out over the valley, blue sky ahead, butterflies and lizards fluttering and scurrying past, fluffy summits in the distance, we wondered how we could get paid to stay somewhere as beautiful as this. They need fundraisers in France, right?

Ariege: I’ll be back. And next time I’m going to kick some ski touring arse!