Kinder Scout

Just a few more days to go until we do the 6 day section of the Pennine Way on Wednesday.

The weather is beautiful at the moment which is annoying me for two main reasons:

1. I have generally been at work
2. If it is sunny this week when I am at work, the 28th law of sod dictates that it will pee it down next week when I am hiking across hills and camping.

Last weekend we did a bit of a two dayer (3 of the crew that will be starting the walk) carrying tents and camping overnight by way of preparation. The first day was around 13 miles and relatively good going. The second day was 10 miles over Kinder Scout which pretty much wrecked us (as we were force marching to get to our pickup point by 1pm).

The wort thing was that I stupidly didn't wear proper hiking socks and my feet are a bit of a mess of blisters. I also didn't wear any sun-cream which turned out to be a bit of  mistake. 

Here are some photos (I love the Peak District when the mist ascends in the morning):

Tackling the 'Old Pennine Way' ascent of Kinder Scout

Near Kinder Scout Summit

Lost Amongst the Rocks

Photo of Dan with His Top Off

I think I mentioned this somewhere on a previous post, but one of my Mum's friends has given me a nice little scanner that was no longer of use to her. I begun scanning in some of my old pre-digital photographs (which only stretch back to Sam aged 18) with the thought that these may provide some amusing blog material in the future.

I quickly realised that my hundreds of photos of me and my friends pissed up in 'some pub or another' would not be of great interest to my readers...

Then I had the thought that I may be able to do my siblings (and family) a favour by scanninng in some of the even older photos that my Mum has stashed in the attic. It would be pretty cool to have these in electronic format and to be able to share them around and back them up properly.

Upon receiving said photography from my mum, I rapidly began to understand the potential power held within those thick tomes of faded paper. Why it would be so easy just to grab a couple of those less than flattering photos of my siblings and publish them all over the internet...

To this concept my Mum issued me a grave warning:

"You know you will never win. If you do this to him, Dan will just keep escalating the insult on and on until you loose eventually. Think carefully before you put those pictures up"

I know I will lose the battle. But at the end of the day its about the fun had trying.


Here is my brother Dan circa 1976. Captions welcome...

Some Nice Time Off

When I was over in Australia, I clearly remember having a conversation with one of my Aussie friends in which I relayed to her that one of the things I missed about back home was the british countryside.

She appeared as confused as most Australians do when you say that to them as most of them don't even realise we have trees in the UK. Only the timely input of one of my other friends persuaded her that we had things like grass and hills. It is a very rare thing to find an Aussie who has managed to find their way outside of London.

I have mentioned this before, but I am really beginning to love the proximity of the peak district to my house. The weeks Easter holiday that I am on (purely because I have to use all of my holiday entitlement up) has really allowed me to go to ome places that I haven't been before - cycling and hiking.



Stanedge (The local climbing spot) as modeled by The Nurse

Big Announcement: New Addition to the Atkin-Hughes Household!

This weekend Lucy had some very big news. Something she has been waiting for for quite some time, something that she has really wanted. She has been waiting with baited breath for these results for ages. Kept awake with anticipation ....

...unfortunately the news was bad so we went out and got some cats to cheer ourselves up:

Cat 1:

Cat 2:

We picked them up from a cat rescue place today. They both came from a household with around 15 cats whose owner apparently 'cannot cope' - unsurprisingly!

Lucy fell in love with Cat 1 who was pretty adventurous and bolshy when we were at the centre. I liked cat 2 which I think may develop into a bit of a lap-cat. 

Cat 1 is around 6 months old and Cat 2 four years. We originally wanted a single kitten, but I feel a little better that we have rescued some cats that might have otherwise had no-where to go.

We may need to work on the cat names a little. Once thing is for sure - we are not sticking with their original names ("Missy" and "Babes"). 

So, if you are reading this, feel free to post some suggestion names for some female cats. I am all for calling one "John" as I think it would be quite funny, however I appear to have been vetoed on that one.

A Lesson in Keeping Your Passport Up to Date

I am working in Canada at the moment, up at some ungodly hour in the morning. I almost didn't get here!

There was lots of swearing when I packed my passport last Friday night (ready for my plane on Saturday morning). I noticed that I only actually had about a week until my passport expiry date! After lots of stomping around I eventually calmed down and figured out this it actually expired the day ofter my return flight (the day of landing).

In the morning I called the British passport office and they told me "No way. you are not going to be able to travel today. They wont let you on the plane and wont let you into Canada." The official line is that you need at least six months on your passport to get into the country. I looked on-line and read loads of advice from people suggesting that going would be a bad idea. I swore lots more and resolved myself to not being able to go.

It would be pretty embarrassing and I am sure I would be talk of my work colleagues for a short while.

Then something snapped and I decided what the hell! Being deported from Canada would give me something to write about on the blog. And work would probably pay for the return ticket I would need anyway.

Then (after a 1.5 hour train journey) I got to the airport terminal really early and went to my airline ticket desk. "No, you wont be able to fly" said the nice lady.

"Can you just double check for me?" I asked.

Phone calls ensued ...

"... yes you should be ok!"

I sweated for much of the flight, worrying about being rejected and having to fly eight hours back in the opposite direction. Usually I get held up in Canadian immigration for quite some time asking me about work permits and what I am doing in the country - so I walked through the airport anticipating a very lengthy stay in immigration, maybe an unsuccessful one.

The guy checked my return flight and let me straight through without blinking. Sometimes I think it depends on what mood they are in.

And hey, it turns out that Ontario is quite nice when it is not -25 degrees!