Honing my motivational skills

So, in exactly 1 months time it will be DAY 2 (said in Big Brother stylely) of the climb. Scary - but exciting!


Having just returned from a weekend in Snowdonia with a couple of the team in prep, I think I may need to do a bit more practice on my motivational skills! Somehow I think that telling someone who will be knackered, probably feeling sick from the delights of AMS, encountering a sense of humour failure and stinking from wearing the same clothes for days, to "stop having a girlie moment and just cross the bloody waterfall" (you know who you are!!), will probably result in a tirade of verbal abuse and a walking pole stuck up a particular part of my body.

So why are we doing this - well why not. Its going to be a great 8 days, and all in aid of a fab cause. And as my father encouragingly said to me the other day - "you're not getting any younger"! Having managed to persuade 7 other poor sods to join me for company, I think it will be something we will proudly be able to look back on and say, I really did do that! We will laugh at the memories of the fly infested toilets which make you gag every time you walk in; the leeches and the biting ants (which reminds me, I should mention these to the team); the lack of sleep; Diana trying to make us pose for yet another bloody photo and reminding us all she's gone another day without a drink; Carol worrying about whether her outfit matches and clashes with anyone else’s and reminding Diana she's also gone another day without a bloody drink; Lulu for being annoyingly fit and making us all feel old. I'm pretty certain there will be a few more lovely memories to add to this list.

What started out as a casual conversation about how I've always wanted to climb Kili, and wouldn't you fancy doing it (well maybe I was a bit more forceful than that), has now turned into a full scale military exercise of organization and training. Training regimes have been followed (well nearly), trips to the docs demanding drugs are in motion, shopping trips continue, and plans have been altered so that Diana can watch the World Cup final in a bar in Arusha. The UK economy should be booming as a result of all the shopping trips been reported! And at last I think I've managed to talk a couple of the team members out of bringing their hair straighteners.

So I think we are nearly ready....

Chris