Chris's 50th

Let me give you some background Early on in 2006 we all did some winter mountainering and it proved fun, since then Chris has been gradually increasing his love for scottish Munros, so much so that on one of my casual trips up here and on route up a mountain i casually suggested that chris should try and reach 50 before the end of the year.

well on thursday he did

The route was up three munros in near Avimore (A’ Chailleach,Carn Dearg,Carn Sgulain) it it appeared that doing 1095m of acscent over 26km just after the shortest day of the year in winter conditions wasn't enough fo me, firstly i added in to the mold Chris who as you know has done 50 munros in the last year i have done about 15. Added to my preperation where lots of mince pies and cheese plus a weeks worth of sleeping on a coutch fo good mesure. still not content because of the daylight we needed to leave dundee at 7am just to have a chance of finishing in the day time, but seeing as the train journey the day before delayed us by three hours i was restricted to about 4 hrs sleep. yet even this wasn't enough for me, i turned out i had forgotern my boots and so i had to borrow chris's brand new winter boots, which where too heavy for me and too small for me. of course this adds to the usual excuses of being les fit over winter and not being quite so honed in the festive season, which translates nicely too i've drank too much beer.

So to summarise i started the day too haevy too bloated ill equiped out of shape and tierd, and with a companion far fitter than i. needless to say i ended the day in a much worse condition. as it turned out it was a really good day on the hills and all three munro's where enjoyable even if i wasn't really focusing on asthetics by the third, it was good to get up in the snow and it is always good to get compleatly exausted after a day in the hills so four days later i am almost ready to do it all again. i'll sugest you read Chris's Blog for a more detailed description on the route its quite a good read. but please bear in mind all of the added dificulties i included for myself.

weekend plan

well i've recently joined a dive club (clidive.org) and they all seem like prity decent people, the great thing is that they seem to have a very full dive calender over the summer. this has got me thinking about my own weekend plans for the next summer. so here it is the official Doug silverstone European tour 2007. new dates to be added in due course.

Warm up dates
9th - 10th Dec - Crewe : Hopefuly meeting up with Lindsey
22nd - 27th Dec - Oxford : Christmas With the family
27th - 3rd Jan - Scotland : For new year + a chance of wome winter mountaineering

Grand Tour 2007
20th - 21st Jan - Snowdonia: First trip of the year hopfully some snow and some heart warming whiskey.
27th Jan - Burns Night: The Gastronomic event of the year with resident chef Silvertone. probebly hosted in Hackney this year
3rd feb - Twickenham: England vs Scotland Rugby
10th - 11th Feb - Snowdonia : Second warm up trip of the year
3rd - 10th March - Winter Munros: A welcome return to Fort William for some snow covered peaks.
11th March - London Dive shop
24th 25th Mar - Portland: my first uk open water diving training dives.
3rd -9th April - Narrow boat:Easter with the family on a narrow boat.
21st - 22nd Apr - Climbing: First climbing trip of the year probebly in portland
28th 29th Apr - Diving: Torquay babbacombe bay, hoppfuly with cuttle fish
5th - 7th May - Birthday weekend: in a hut somewhere
12th - 13th May - peaks: Climbing
26th -28th May - Plymouth: Wreck diving
1st- 3rd June - Cyprus: Diving in hot water
9th 1oth June - somthing outdorsy
14th 15th july - Plymouth: wreck diving
20th 22nd July - Farne: diving with seals
5th Aug - Hungary: Grand Prix potentially
8th 9th Sept- portland: deep wreck diving
Nov somtime- Lanzarote: Potential diving trip

and there you have it, already pretty full but may but still have some climbing and walking weekends to add.

Turkey

went to turkey last weekend to watch the F1 Grand Prix and had an amazing time. the people over in istanbul are some of the friendliest that i have met. Where to start when talking about turkey is difficult to say. do i comment about the F1 race or the very impressive Lewis Hamilton in the GP2. alternatively i could talk about the tourist attractions like the Aya Sofia or the blue mosque, maybe the supprisingly old New Mosque all of which are bueatiful buildings and full of history (admitadly not as butiful as the Taj Mahal but on there way) mayby i talk about the Topki palace which is huge and was used by a long chain of ottoman Sultans and each have added there own feal to the place so that the eventual result is a higlty picklety range of buildings each with there own history and charm. Alternatively theres one of my personal favorates the Basilica Cistern which is a huge underground water chamber built in the 6th centuary and has quite a large population of fish living in it.

with all of this decideing where to start i have realised that i have told you about turkey at least at the surface, and so i don't need to start anywhere. but parhaps i should mention the turkish Bath. now im not usually one for massarges or public bathing but as i was in turkey and they are supposed to be an experience i thought id give it a try. So i located the bath house entered pointed to a menu in turkish that i could'nt work out handed my money over and was told to go upstairs. upstairs i was ushered in to a personal changing room and got change so that only a towel remained. Then i was ushered back downstairs and pointed to a door. imidiately as the door opened i effectively went blind as a wall of heat hit me and clouded my glasses, as the fog cleared i was a little disorintated as i was slapped on the shoulder and pointed to my allotted section of a raised marble platform (i should say that the sauna room was pritty impressive). then i was left on my own without really knowing what i needed to do so i kind of just sat there melting, after i thought i had taaken as much heat as i could cope with, the man who had slapped me retured for more pain. now this man was a fat turkish man who clearly hated me and his job because he did his best to kill me. so there i was happilly lying down on my front when he puts all his weight down upon me to the point where i can no longer breath, he then trys to break me from every angle untill he hits me on the back not sure what this means i turn to look at him at which point i work out he wants me to turn over, and then he trys to crush me once again. this sort of beaviour would normally be enough to get the man arested but in turkey you are expected to tip, eventually the mans touture stoped and i was left in the unbearable heat to try and recover. given all that i have just said youd think that that would be enough but it was actually quite inviguating and i would gladly go back to let them trya and kill me once again.

so that was turkey and just like the locals i didn't even mention the bombs.

dundee Siren

New album on the left

Wednesday : 08:06 Downs Road (total siren count 3 so Far)
Tuesday : 1:49 Pentonville Road (total siren count 4)
Monday : 11:23 Broad Street Dundee, (total siren count 2)

post 101

this is my 101th post and therfore it would seem relevant to list the top five pet hates that i would like see obliviated. Asside from boy racers teenagers in public and societys necessaty for people to spell conventinally i don't really dislike anything, oh and chicken,shrimps and brocoli. so i'll just leave this post open in case i do.

Im up in scotland at the moment all the kids are up and after a long weekend i just want some silence. maybe i am getting old but they are just too loud and they don't listen, even when they ask you a question, half way throught answer they have lost intrest and have moved on. i mean how do they expect to learn anything?

and its raining in scotland the weather is terrible cold and wet not very august at all. I really quite like it up here it just seems nicer, i think i could get in to village life where you get to know everyone and what there up to, really think i could hack it for a while,but then after a year i would enevitably get board of the people i know and want to move on. No sirens since thursday night, so at least i feal safer. Maybe i could get a job driving a landrover, or climbing mountains, or using a big axe yeah that would be good!

Eventful evening

Well last night i went to the shakespere globe once again, this time to see a comedy of Errors (titus andronicus was better) but that turned out to be only one of the multitude of things worthey of a mention.

Alex At the show Alex fainted, now when we went to see titus andronicus 7 people fainted mainly because it was one of shakesperes bloddiest plays. Alex however shuned that opertunity and fainted and his most slapstick.

Thames But two minutes after the show. walking along the thames it became clear that sombody had ended up in the thames, i am assuming accidentally. Incedentally Ed Excel (the A-Level Exam board) got in to trouble yesterday for including a hangman doodle on the exam results page of there website.

Tower Bridge. As i was walking accross london bridge they raised Tower bridge

Pickpocket On the (149) bus there was a rather inconsiderate wee man who left his bags on the seat so that no one could sit down. well about 5 minutes after i got on the guy Shouts "STOP" really loudly and firmly it transpires that he had seen some guy try and steal the purse of a lady who was standing up. He then ordered the pickpocket off the bus and on his way. A couple of things occured to me here.
(1) Here was proof that there are comunity spirted people in london.
(2) First impressions can be deceptive (i would have picked him for th epick pocket and the pick pocket for a local).
(3) Was it the best thing to do to send the pick pocket off the bus to wait for the next 1 should i or someone else done somthing different to try and stop him more permenantly?

Cycling OK not technically this last night but on my way in this morning i cam closer still to almost getting knocked off my bike. A guy in a little van was pulling over to the left hand lane of pentonville road, which is exactly where i happened to be. So i tapped on his window he braked missed me and then proceeded to toot his horn at me. As he passed me he shouted that somthing un repeatable at me. luckilly he stoped at red lights just yards further down the road and it transpired that he was annoyed that i tapped on his window. not that he had almost knowcked me off, not that my hand was better than my entire body, not that for some reason he felt the need to toot as he was passing me, nor the fact that i was just happilly cycling along the road, well its the perils of cycling i presume.

First Siren of the day: 14:52 Pentonville Road, Unknown (siren count 5)

Sirens

Living in london as with every other major city comes at a price. im not just talking about monetary value here, in this instance what i am talking about is at best noise polution, at worse it is the identifer that someone is in real trouble. of course what i am talking about the sirens on police cars fire engines and ambulances. In theory ever time you here one of these it is because someon quite close to where you are is in trouble and need emergency resue very quickly. (the london Ambulance service aims to reach heart attack sufferers within 8 Minutes)

It has been a source of growing concern to me that the frequency upon which i here this emergency incedent is startlinly high. futhermore the ability to which i can just zone them out ui find somewhat amazing. so for the next wee while, or at least till my interest is taken up withe somthing else i am going to log the time and place where i here the first siren of the day.

Wednesday: 8:25am, Balls pond road, Police car (count 6 Today)