I’m on a two day walk in the White Peak area and even though it’s the peak of summer, the route I’ve taken was, besides Monsal Dale, devoid of human life! It’s been one of those lazy hot summer days that you dream of…sitting taking in the sun with a cool lager, not walking with a tent, sleeping bag, mattress and camping food! Not that I’m complaining. To be walking in a bubble, deaf to what’s happening in this topsy turvy, self-centred, nationalistic political time, is a blessing!!! Back to the walk, it’s a training walk for a trip that I’m taking with an Irishman, called Stephen McLoughlin who I met on a trip to the Himalaya ten years ago. He takes nothing seriously and is serious over everything…paradoxical in his outlook. His phone calls over the years have had me rolling on the floor with laughter, except one.
I have only had two other phone calls in my life that have had such a profound affect as the one I received last November. One from my Brother-inLaw, Chris, when my Father had a stroke, one from Uncle Les when Jo, his youngest daughter, had died and last November I had another. Stephen rang to say his sister had tragically died in a kayaking accident. As with the other two calls, a profound sadness for how cruel life can be, hit me and, although lessons with time, is still there.
Stephen rang me again a few days later and asked if I would walk The Snowman Trek with him in memory of his sister, Brita. So in two months time we are both heading off to Bhutan to walk one of the hardest and longest treks in the Himalaya. I hope, for Stephen, it will put Brita to rest. From what I know of her, she’d not want Stephen to morn, but to celebrate her life, with a pint or two along the trail, but most of all with a smile.