Another year older, the milestone now actually reached, the very thought of reaching that age has made me feel anxious until I was in it, but now that it has come and gone I realised it is only a number, a means that we are living this amazing life, this gift that we have been given can be lived on with as much rigour and excitement as yesterday, we should not be afraid of this life marching on, there is nothing to be worried about because we have so much work to do that is filling me with so much joy, there is nothing to fear. The 5th decade is going to be the best!
This month one of the best things happened to me, my phone screen died, I realised I was living in the familiar past, I was checking my text and WhatsApps, I was checking emails, I was connected to everything familiar in my known reality, a routine of unconscious behaviours, I realised I had a habit of checking my phone without needing to which gave me an insight into what life was like before we were at the beckon call of whats app or the tech in our pockets, I realise how important they are, we have access to so much, we have so much at our fingertips, it allowed me to realise that distractions are still there even without the whats app, but the distractions were the tree, the sun rise, the nature around me, I stopped to embrace the very tree that my mother used to hug daily. As I did that I realised that we are just a mere blip in time on this world, this tree has stood here for hundreds of years, we are here just to witness the beauty, the sheer brilliance of life on earth and do our best whilst on it.
I am about to embark on another adventure which I set a goal at the beginning of the year and that is climb a mountain. I had never been a massive walker or climber but always wanted to try Kilimanjaro, this challenge was to visit Morocco and climb Mount Tubkaul 4197m. Another thing that has crept up on me, with no training all of sudden I am doing it and sat in a hostel at basecamp, awaiting an early morning start to commence the ascent.
Luckily the weather is good so the extra clothing, gloves and wool jumper hopefully wont be needed? That doesn’t remove the fact that the unknown altitude could rear its head and make the climb harder than I can imagine. I return in 2 days when I will complete this and hopefully post the blog.
That was one of the hardest missions i have ever had to do, the climb was long, arduous and cold, the top had a brisk wind chill factor taking it to temperatures low enough to give frost bite and certainly cold enough to freeze the water in our bags. Up at 2.30am to climb in the dark, from 2570m to 4197m and back down to Imil in one day was a total of 17 hours walking and by the time we made it back it was dark again, that was hard, hard to describe the challenges the team faced, the altitude effects and why the immediate response to having completed the walk is, never again! I’m sure once the pain has subsided we will be encouraged to talk about another mission. At the beginning of this, not all of us knew each other in the group but we leave this amazing experience as comrades, friends for life and hopefully a few more missions to achieve together.
The link for sponsorship is here, an amazing Bristol based charity called Temwa, which helps families in Malawi whose mission is to develop self-sufficient communities in hard-to-reach areas of northern Malawi – itself the third poorest country in the world.
Video of the month :-
Dr. Jane Goodall’s final message of hope to the world gave me goose bumps. Recorded earlier this year on the agreement it would only be released after her death. She reminds us that every one of us has a role to play. Even if we don’t yet know what it is, our lives matter.
Each day we make a difference and we get to choose what kind of difference that is. She speaks about hope. That even when the planet feels dark, hope is what keeps us moving. Small actions, multiplied a million times, create great change.
She reminds us that we’re part of the natural world, not separate from it. We depend on nature for everything, and in return, we have a responsibility to protect it for those who will follow.
And perhaps most powerfully, she reminds us that what we do here, the care we give, the choices we make, continues beyond us.
“Don’t give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful planet Earth.”
Check it out here.
Blog of the month :-
Here.
Recipe of the month :-
Lamb Tagine – I wonder why, The Morrocan people know how to cook and with every meal a tagine is the one with the addition of a daily minestrone soup. I thought I would choose this recipe as a remembrance to one of the hairy biker legends that graced our screens.
Quote of the Month :-
“Don’t give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful planet Earth.”
Dr Jane Goodall
