Rum Doodle

171,613, 171,614 .......... This week I picked up my first injury since I started training. A rather long session on the stepper induced a really stiff neck for two days which meant some sleepless nights and not being able to drive. I think it was probably due to spending too much time looking down at the digital display, hanging my head while doing so. Anyway, the enforced rest seems to have cured it but I will need to be a bit more careful as it's less than two weeks to the trek begins. So head up when stepping from now on! Saturday dawned bright and sunny so it was out in the hills for a 12 miler accompanied by Kira (our black lab) - she never tires and probably covers twice that distance on forays! Sunday brought relentless rain so back on the stepper and a new record of 12,500 steps - the pistons were red hot! This makes me sound like a dinosaur but the last time I was in Nepal (1990) I had no electrical devices to worry about - life was somewhat simpler then! This time I have a camera, phone, I-Pod and maybe a shaver so I thought it would be a good idea to check with Mountain Kingdoms what adaptors are needed. It turns out that sockets in Kathmandu can be different than the European ones that are found in the Everest lodges so I'll take a universal adaptor along to be on the safe side. On the to do list this week are buying Dollars and booking my train tickets to Heathrow. I also need to decide on reading material. I will be taking my favourite mountaineering book - The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E Bowman (1956). It's an absolutely hilarious spoof about the ascent of a fictional 40,000 and a half foot peak in the Himalaya which many think was inspired by the 1953 conquest of Everest.