Still Hooked

A little while ago I did a piece on being addicted to things, and here I am still struggling with the same issues.

Now, it's not like I'm addicted to crack or anything, but it would be nice to be addicted to something that is good for me rather than computer games or TV shows. I never became addicted to running or exercising, as many people told me I would when training for the marathon, and my latest fad is a slightly random by product of The Everest Test.

Yep, Stick Cricket ladies and gents. It is ruining my evenings and I can only say that it is a huge benefit to my professional life that it doesn't run very well on my system at work.

So I have set up Team Hillary and begun my quest for World Domination. After many efforts I finally chased down the 200-odd set by Bermuda, and once getting that first win under my belt I swiftly saw off the challenges of Holland, Canda, Scotland and Kenya, big wins all. Zimbabwe are currently posing a tougher opposition, but I am confident with hard work and single-mindedness I can beat them and move on to the big boys. Don't worry, I'll let you know how I get on.

Of course I have created all the members of Hillary and an interesting battle has been who would score the first hundred. This happened last night and I can imagine that everyone reading this blog will be disappointed. I came close myself, smashing 89* batting at six, then Kiwi hit 94 and Glen 91, but it was a man coming in at number 10 in a completely lost cause who struck a quite brilliant 111. I can tell you that Blade has now been promoted up the order.

So, other than that life is still pretty busy. Tonight I need to read everyone's blogs and decide on Blog of the Month, something I seem to have gotten myself into and really need to get on with - but it doesn't half take ages. Still, I need to find a good reason not to give it to Tooves, just to amuse myself. There's been a lot of good entries this month too.

I am also looking ahead to going down to the Brecon Beacons this weekend, as a follow up from Dartmoor. The latter trip was Hillary only and provided the kind of banter you can imagine when 14 lads get together and it was absolutely brilliant. I imagine with a slightly different selection of people we may tone down the chat slightly, but not by much.

Loads of stuff has happened since I last wrote here, the launch being the biggest thing as well as Kimbo's weekend, which I missed. Safe to say all things Everest continue to snowball and I also just finished reading "Into Thin Air". I strongly suggest you either buy the book or click on the link and read the short version - it's amazing and forced me to go and buy four more Everest-related books immediately afterwards.

The story itself is gripping and I can tell you now that when I lay my eyes on that mountain for the first time I will respect it even more now that I know and appreciate the true power it can wield.

Stepping out of the Loop

This is probably my last post for a little while, as on Friday I am flying off to South Africa for a few weeks to be best man at my best mate Tristan's wedding before heading off on safari with some serious legends, can't wait.

So try to cope without my chat, I know it'll be tough. Those of you who see me on a regular basis will also have to do without seeing how my mo develops. Last year I grew a handle bar moustache that rivalled Merv himself, and this year I'm going again - although purely for my own amusement this year!

The picture on the left is the mo as it looked this morning, after hitting the Trim Trail, in the rain, for an hour and a half. Fabulous, I am sure you'll agree.

It was a good session, following on from Wednesday when Kiwi put me through my paces after I arrived a little late. I can see Tom is slowly pushing us harder as time goes on - it frightens me to think what we'll be doing come March!

I said in a post a little while back I was trying to exercise five times a week, well, I almost managed it in week one, but with the Trim Trail taking off it's harder to get to the gym - and I'd rather exercise with the guys. I'm still doing Tuesday mornings before work, and with the Trail happening Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, there's not a lot of time to get to the gym!

This week we had another Team Hillary curry at Kathmandu Valley which was once again brilliant, and there's a few things coming up in Movember that I will hope to hear about when I'm back from SA.

The expedition itself is going from strength to strength, Kirt & Wes had a good meeting with Nokia recently and it looks as though they will be helping us in some capacity as well, which is great news. We're also actively hunting for a title sponsor now, let's see how that comes along.

In other news I finally booked my flights to Kathmandu at Christmas. I'll be going out with Kirt, and rather randomly discovered that Charlie BN will be out there for a couple of days at the same time, which is a real bonus.

We've got some good meetings set up and hopefully will have everything in place for when we return in April, we'll meeting guys from the Government, Cricket Association, Tourist Board and Emergency Rescue so it should be a busy week - but I have little doubt we'll find a few hours to get lashed!

We've also had a few people pull out of the expedition recently, which is a great shame. There are various reasons behind all of them but hopefully we'll find replacements of equal stature to step in - keep your eyes on the main blog for info on that.

The biggest loss from my point of view was that of Charlie Brewer, purely because he's a good mate and a top bloke. If you read this Boozer, you'll be sorely missed(for those who don't know him - he's the idiot in the pirates outfit below).

So for now folks, have a good month and I'll most likely see you in December. Until then, sleep tight.

Chatting with Graham Napier

When my mobile rang last Friday afternoon I was at work feeling truly hideous after another night out with the Hillary boys and a few Trektators, so it was perhaps not the ideal time to have a chat with the man who took this years Twenty20 Cup by storm.

At the start of the summer Graham Napier was a promising allrounder at Essex and had toured with England A in 2004, alongside Kevin Pieteren and Matt Prior, but after an astonishing 152* against Sussex in June his career is taking off.

Details of the innings itself can be found all over the place, but that is not what I wanted to talk to him about, I wanted to discuss his trek to Everest Base Camp last winter, and it seems I was not the first.

"It's safe to say the Everest trip has proved a popular topic of conversation, and I enjoy telling everyone about it," he said.

"There were times on the trip when I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into, it was seriously cold up there, but the altitude was by far the toughest aspect.

"I was OK,but one of our guys, Cameron, had to be helicoptered off the mountain on the penultimate day, which brought home just how difficult it was."

From my point of view perhaps the best line he came out with was to do with fitness: "it seemed to be the fitter guys who struggled more, because they went off too quickly. Nick Compton is one example, he took on a hill pretty fast one morning and paid for it for about two days!"

When the conversation moved on to the cricket match they played at Gorak Shep Graham gave a small chuckle.

"It was no more than beach cricket really, and a useful distraction because we were all feeling pretty terrible by that stage. For us the cricket was a small aside, it was all about reaching Base Camp."

When I told him what we're planning he was supportive in the extreme, and had plenty of advice to give.

"When I played the game I think I was wearing thermals, base layers, a jumper, fleece and a coat, and it was still pretty cold.

"Night was the worst though. One night I couldn't be arsed to get up and go to the toilet so just peed in my water bottle, which then proved to be a great source of warmth! After that I took boiled water to bed with me every night.

Another tip was to wrap up all your batteries to keep them warm: "you'll want a good camera because around every corner there's another amazing view, and the cold sucks all the life out of your electrical gear, so I wrapped my batteries in socks each night."

I coud easily tell how excited Graham was when he began talking, and the fact that we are taking up around 50 people was something he saw as a plus for us, because the camaradarie is so important in getting through the tough times.

I almost began to wonder if he was serious when he said: "if this season hadn't gone so well I would probably be trying to get on the trip with you!" Well Graham, I can tell you now, there's a spot on Team Hillary for you - we need all the help we can get!

I owe a massive thanks to Graham for taking the time out to talk to me, he was incredibly pleasant to speak with, as was his agent Greg Lansdowne - who I hassled for some time.

Despite the season being over he is still a busy man. On Wednesday he was at an awards dinner at Lords to pick up the Walter Lawrence Trophy in recognition of his innings against Sussex, and he will shortly be heading out to Hong Kong to represent England in the Sixes competition, a tournament he won in 2004, before once again playing for Wellington in New Zealand.

Despite all this he was kind enough to offer to write something for us and lend his full support to The Everest Test, hopefully next time he calls I will be slightly less hungover and able to ask some decent questions!