Challenging Reflections on the 2017 TGO Challenge

Early Morning Reflections in the River Findhorn 

And then it was over.

The Beach at Redcastle

Paddling in the North Sea at Redcastle

Alan Sloman at Redcastle

Himself

We arrived at the wonderful beach at Redcastle in beautiful sunshine, I pouted for the last time as Al pointed his camera, then mine, to capture the moments, and after that we walked to the Lunan Bay Café to eat cake and ice cream and phone a taxi to get us to Montrose.

It was lovely to get to The Park Hotel. It was heaving with Thursday finishers and too many old friends to mention. Robin Evans, Johnboy Sanderson, John Woolston, Andy “Mad ‘n’ Bad” Walker, Crocodile Dundee from Croydon with his new hat, Hugh and Barbara Emsley oozing their loveliness, Mick and Gayle, Humphrey Weightman and many, many others. Happy, smiley fit people. People who, as Al says, are made of “the right stuff”. The people who make the Challenge what it is, and why so many come back year after year. People were already discussing where they would start from in 2018.

As for me, I know I shall not be back (what I should write really is “I do not think I will be back”).

My 2017 Challenge was a very different experience to those I did in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The weather, in the main, was better for a start. And I climbed more hills on the way across, including five Munros, and generally walked longer days, with longer stops and pitched camp later.

Oh! Another difference! I bought an excellent cap, in which, at a hundred metres or so, I could be taken for Field Marshal Rommel. Yes that cap. Hideously overpriced at £20 in Braemar Mountain Sports when it is on sale for £19.99 in at least one online retailer.  Al loved it so much he got one as well, but in a different colour. Mine is a steely grey, which will nicely set off my eyes when I wear it in the early evening sunshine.  I later found that Johnboy also has one that is identical and, to quote him, “it’s essential backpacker apparel to engender fearlessness and occasional foolhardy actions. People will look at you in a way which says there goes a man who embodies the very essence of an outdoors expert”.  How right he is. I shall wear it on all future backpacks.

Field Marshal Rommel of the Africa Corps in a bunker on Driesh

The main difference, though, was the fact that I had a walking companion for the entire crossing. This did not, of course, make the Challenge any less demanding physically.  I was still exhausted at the end of most days. But it made an enormous difference. For me, without a shadow of a doubt, it is far easier to successfully complete the Challenge if walking with someone rather than going solo.  It’s all in the mind you see. The extra sense of reassurance, especially for a born worrier, of having someone with whom to share (or indeed take on) most of the decision making does make the event that much less daunting. The companionship goes without saying, although say it I just did.

It seems to me that there are three wonderful things about the TGO Challenge. Firstly, the sense of achievement it provides. I know that my crossings are something that I will always be proud of. That's always and for ever. Right to the end when I shuffle off this mortal coil. Secondly, the Challenge has a spirit of its own, especially of commaraderie. The people you meet, the friendships you form are what make it so special. This has to be so as we could all go off and do long backpacks anytime and anyplace rather than stumping up our £50 entry fee to the publishers of the TGO magazine. And thirdly, there is a wonderful, liberating simplicity in the rhythm and routine of a long walk. You get up, you walk, you cook dinner, you go to bed. Only if you have experienced this day after day can you understand, and the Challenge, at two weeks, starts to provide a little understanding of the motivations of those who through hike the much, much longer trails of the USA and Europe.

But I will not be there next May or in subsequent Mays. I think not. You see I did not relish the Challenge of the walk. I'm not made of the right stuff. On too many mornings I woke thinking more of the difficulty of walking up to 30 km in a mountain environment, knowing for much of that time I would be shattered. Too often I did not appreciate the magnificence of my surroundings, but rather wondered how much further I had to go to our chosen camp spot or B and B. I don’t think there was a single day when I was not thankful when it was over. For me, as I approach 60 years of age, walking for up to ten or more hours with a large backpack starts to make each day a chore rather than a joy, in a way in which a four or five hour walk does not. I am not made of stern enough stuff.

Then there is what is happening to Scotland. The wild landscape is being trashed with the connivance of rich landowners and the government. Wind turbines and massive electricity pylons blight extensive parts of the Challenge area. And the massive and numerous new hill tracks. I need to be clear that I don’t think on the Challenge I have ever not thought 'thank goodness' on getting on to one of these and being able to walk on it after being on rough or boggy ground. But they are despoiling the landscape in the most appalling way. Any mountain lover must weep, at least metaphorically, when they they see what has happened to large parts of the Highlands. Again, you have to see and experience these to understand the point. Those that run elevated over the the summit plateaus are perhaps the worst of all. I do not understand how the nation of Scotland, so proud of its Highland heritage, can have allowed this to happen.

And finally, when I am away I miss my family and I miss my dog and it puts additional burdens on them, even though they are able to eat salad every day and can skip meat and starch and puddings and stuff (not the dog obviously, as he shares my attitude to salad, which is distinctly hostile).

The TGO Challenge: In the words of Scotland's finest, The Proclaimers, it's Over and Done With

Despite the paragraph above I hope I will do more longish backpacks before I hang up my boots and bin the sleeping mat, and not just of the overnight variety. But it will not be on the Challenge. I am almost sure about that.

And my final words on my 2017 are simply this. Thanks, Al. It was a privilege to walk with you. Only eight more to go and you'll have done thirty. And you mind what you write about me when you get your own blog written.

Alan Sloman: A True Gentleman of the Road

Challenging Obstacles

Crossing Loch Ness, one of the Challenge's pleasanter obstacles, given the use of a boat is allowed.

It was Tuesday and Day 5 of the Challenge. We were supposed to walk from Struy to Drumnadrochit over the area of high ground called “The Eskdale Triangle”.

After a couple of miles along the road our route took us along a track and up into a forest. Except it didn’t. The landowner, known for his flouting of the Scottish Access Code, had installed a deer fence across the start of the track. This was on top of a small vertical bank. And directly behind it he had planted a number of saplings, all of which made it look like any attempt to climb the fence would be problematic. Al suggested a diversion that would mean walking several extra kilometres. We saw no alternative, and both reluctantly agreed. The road was eventually left three km further on, when we could head up another track through the forest. The first deer gate was unlocked; the second was locked but easily climbed; the third was also locked and leaning. I was about to try to climb it when Al spotted a smallish triangular shaped gap in the wood work.

“We can get through that”, he said.

I put my right leg through the gap. But the opening was too narrow to get my left leg through; that or my knee was not bendy enough.  I tried it with left leg first.  No joy.

“Head first”, said Al. “Go through head first then you don’t have to bend your legs”.

For the life of me I do not know why I didn’t just climb the fence. Against my better judgement I knelt down, then started to wiggle through, head first. The gap was some way off the ground. I had my head and one arm through, but I could not reach the ground with my hand. My other hand was bent backwards and my wrist felt ready to snap. If I went any further I would fall through, flat on my face. At this moment I realised that the bastard, for that is the only way he can be described at this moment in his life, was sniggering out loud and was taking photo after photo from behind me as I wiggled and squirmed, my backside sticking up in the air on one side of the fence, my head down on the other, making it look like I was trying to eat a grass sandwich. He asked me to turn my head around so that he could capture the look on my face. "You have to see the funny side, he said. And you're not pouting". I somehow extracted myself, tried it again leg first and managed to get through.

It was Al’s turn. I made him wait until my camera was ready. Revenge would be sweet. Then do you know what the bastard did? He climbed through with the grace and elegance of a ballet dancer. As I said. What an utter bastard.

The bastardry continued, although to be fair to Al the next time it was unintended. It was Thursday. Day 7. This was a long day, taking us ten and a quarter hours to walk the 30km, and climb almost 1000m, to get from Glen Mazeran to Aviemore. As we approached the top of Carn Dubh Ic n Deoir (750m) we spotted a new electric fence on our side of the cairn. Fortunately there was a gate which allowed us through and we sat in beautiful sunshine for thirty minutes having a snack at the cairn.

We set off again, back through the gate, then down hill for fifteen minutes, walking parallel to the fence. We then realised we should have stayed on the other side of the obstacle. Was it on? Al decided to test it, doing this in a very British way. He prodded it with his metal walking poles. Nothing happened. He then tapped it lightly with his finger. 

"It's off", he announced.

By placing a boulder near the fence we reckoned our legs were just about long enough to step over it. Al went across. I, too, then tapped the wire with a finger. Nothing happened. I started to follow. I realised that the top strand of wire was that bit too high. It could be dangerous to my manhood, such as it is. I then grasped the wire to push it slightly lower. I jumped back with a high pitched yelp. The sort of yelp you might let out if you’d just got an electric shock. In fact, it was exactly that sort of yelp. I do not understand electrickery but somebody later explained something about intermittent pulses. Well, all I can say is I wish those pulses were more intermittent. I walked back up hill to the gate, muttering darkly laughing happily about life’s little twists and turns. 

Fording a very low River Orrin

Al walks on water

There are pleasanter obstacles to be overcome on the Challenge, providing that the weather is benign. Water and peat are two. The dry conditions in Scotland in the weeks before our crossing meant that rivers were low. Thus, fording the delightful River Orrin, which was wide but shallow, just after the Luipmaldrig Bothy was possible. This allowed us to avoid a short but marshy detour upstream to the bridge. Clad in trail shoes I just walked across; Al in his boots managed to rock hop and remain dry shod throughout.

Descending through the peat

Peat is another notorious obstacle in the Highlands, making for slow progress on some trackless ground. It can potentially add significant distances to a planned walk as you must detour to get around the hags. The exceptionally dry ground this year made our lives much easier. Indeed, Al led us for long distances down gullies in the hags that would normally be impassable. What could have been tortuous sections of our route became thoroughly enjoyable. As a result of Al’s ingenuity and cunningness in this matter, I have taken him off my list of bastards, which he went on temporarily after the incident of the deer fence. Mind you, if he publishes those photographs of me attempting to get head first through that gap his name will be straight back on the list. In capital letters.

Al laughs to himself as he thinks up a shocking fate for me

Challenging Amnesia

This water near Strathcarron is a tidal inlet of Loch Carron and the Atlantic Ocean - honest

I remember being born.  That might sound fanciful but it's true. I'm not going to explain further here. If you want to know more you will need to read my autobiography. I shall be writing that once greatness is thrust upon me. But given the fact that I can remember my earliest moments in this world it may be all the more surprising that I cannot for the life of me remember much of the detail about my walk across Scotland last month.  This is partly the fault of my excellent walking companion, Alan Sloman .

My three previous TGO Challenges, in 2013, 2014 and 2015, were undertaken solo.  I planned those routes completely by myself, and was entirely responsible for navigating successfully from west coast to east coast.  In 2017 Alan and Phil Lambert did almost all the route planning, and on the walk, I am afraid to say, I let Alan take the lion’s share of studying the map every few minutes. Thus, I was less involved with the thinking that goes into such a walk, both before and during. In addition, having Alan as company every step of the way meant that a good deal of chatting took place. When you walk solo you are possibly more aware of your surroundings, although Alan frequently reminded me of the importance of enjoying the Challenge. This means regular pauses to stop, take in the views, the shape of the land and so on, both that under and around your feet, and also that which stretches to the distant horizons.  So for these reasons I recall less of the walk.  Alternatively, it may just be that my brain has finally become completely addled.

As my recollection of events is hazy I am not planning a day-by-day account in a succession of blog posts.  Instead I will provide a jumble of random thoughts and memories about the 2017 experience.  This approach means that I will not have to embellish or make up any interesting anecdotes to pad out my posts. Every word that I write will be true. Every word, mind. Every single one.  

Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee, who hails from Croydon in New South London. Or something like that.

So let me start with Mick Dundee from Croydon, South Australia.  Why?  Because the day before the walk proper started Mick and I pottered along from the official start point at the Strathcarron Hotel to the sea.  Well not exactly the sea, as the bit we got to looked like a small river, but the OS map showed it was a tidal inlet, so that was sufficient for me. 

Now, Mick is an extraordinary man. Let’s face it. He looks completely radgered.  His, clearly, was not an easy paper round.  When he is walking he always appears to be completely done in, and he never looks like he’ll survive the day, yet alone get to dip his toes in the North Sea.  But Mick was almost always ahead of us on the walk and, more importantly, he is one of the most generous and entertaining of Challengers. He is also one of life’s philosophers. He asks questions that put you on the spot and makes you think. Thinking is a dangerous pastime. I try not to do it more than is necessary.  But we walked together in the sunshine and Mick asked me questions, in that strong Australian accent he has, and I answered.  When Mick asks you a question you answer.  You have no choice.  You answer.  It just feels safer that way.

Al and Mick. Just before Mick wisely headed towards a valley whilst we headed upwards. That hat went walkabout later in the Challenge. Mick was not best pleased.

The next day Alan, Phil and I headed off.  Phil was feeling well below par and decided to go back. Al and I continued. By mid afternoon we came to this ridgy thing we were supposed to follow. It was called Creag a Chaorainn. Indeed, it probably still is called this. The topography is complex. The ridge is divided by a series of seemingly deep valleys coming in at odd angles. Overall route finding was easy. The day was sunny and it was obvious where we were heading; but we constantly had to tweek our direction to minimise the myriad of uppy and downy bits.  Well Al tweeked, with me usually in front on this last part of our first day.  Al was just behind.  “Left a bit”, “right a bit”, “head towards that boulder”, “go to the left of the lochan” and so on.  He was Sandy Shaw.  I was the puppet on a string.  It could have been irritating.  But it wasn’t. I’ve been hill walking now for the best part of fifty years. I like to think I have some skill based on those years of experience.  Yet it soon became apparent that Al has a sort of sixth sense when it comes to picking out the best line to take. A sixth sense, together with the experience of twenty-two Challenges as well as a walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats under his belt.

Al also kept whipping his camera out and stopping me with requests such as “I need some perspective in this photo.  Drape yourself over that boulder…..Come on, pout for daddy.  That’s lovely”. Or “Wow! Look at the view north. Just go and stand over there. Oh come on. Look heroic. And I’ve told you before. Pout.”  I stood on the exact spots, just as directed. "Left. No. Right six inches. Yes, just there". I also had to sit on boulders, and my pouting became so practiced that it would have made Kate Moss look like an amateur.

We camped by a lochan on a bealach in the sun.  We woke to clag and rain.  We abandoned the planned Corbett and did our foul weather route.  No soft touch as it involved several trackless kilometres and a steep pull up to the Bhearnais Bealach and then a long trudge by the River Meig to a super camp spot with lovely Emma already in residence, smiling away and brewing up for us. Soon after, lovely Humphrey also arrived and then spent the evening doing his impression of the most chilled and relaxed man on the planet.

Not a bad spot to make dinner. On the shores of the lochan at our first night camp spot

The first wild camp of  the 2017 Challenge

Having been forewarned about my snoring, Al pitches his trail star at the minimum safe distance to my Scarp

The Great Outdoors Challenge 2017: A Plot is Hatched

My apologies for the quality of photos in this post. All pictures were taken using telephoto lenses during covert surveillance by a well known government agency investigating reports of cannibalism in the Highlands of Scotland, rumoured to take place each May. 

October 2016

A telephone conversation is taking place in those "lonely hours" between country pubs closing for the afternoon and re-opening for the evening.

Peer of the Realm (PotR): I’m not sure I want to do it again, Al. Lugging a heavy pack all across Scotland.  It’s not really the camping equipment. It’s all the food. Weighs a ton.

Lord Elpus

The String Puller (TSP): Don’t worry Phil.  I have a plan. We take food that can walk itself across.

The String Puller

PotR: I’m not herding sheep and chickens across the Highlands.

TSP: I wasn’t thinking of sheep or chickens.  I was thinking of something rather more special if you get my drift.

PotR: “Special stuff?”  Now you’re talking.  But Mad 'n’ Bad has been on that 5 and 2 Diet.  He’d be no use.  All gristle and bone.

Mad 'n' Bad

TSP: How about Mick Dundee from Croydon?  Plenty of meat on him.

Mick Dundee from Croydon

PotR: Are you crazy?  We might just take him if he’s in a drunken stupor or really fast asleep.  But we’d likely end with our limbs torn off.

TSP: I’ve got it!  Fellbound.  He’s become a right porker since he stopped walking as much, what with that alleged gammy leg.  We’ll invite him to walk with us.

Fellbound

PotR: Genius.  I'll bring along a nice bottle of Chianti. The evening meal on Day 4 will be one to remember.

April 2017 The Lake District Pre-Walk Daunder

Furtive whispering on Scotgate Campsite, Braithwaite.

PotR: The bastard’s been on a diet too. He's lost weight.  Now we’re saddled with a guy with a gammy leg who’s no use to anyone.

TSP: I’ll bring some Smoky BBQ sauce anyway.  In case we get desperate.  And we can send him ahead in the boggy bits to work out the depth. Anyway, I'm getting rather bored with only having you to photograph.  He's actually rather pretty now he's lost weight.  He could make a half-decent model....[Shouts]: Hey, Fellbound, drape yourself over that table would you? I just need you in the foreground to put those hills into proper perspective. And pout, man, pout. 

Fellbound after losing 20 pounds of fat

Days 2 and 3: The Pre-Walk Daunder Finishes (me off)

It was a lazy start to the second day of the walk. The schismers had to head down Tongue Gill to our camp spot so we brewed up and chatted in the spring sun as we waited for them. By 9.15 am all 14 of us were in the same place at the same time for almost the first time on the walk, and this number simply emphasised the obvious, that it was far better that we split into smaller groups. As we headed to Seatoller some members of the party decided that more hills (or, for some, any hills), would be a bad idea.

The schism temporarily healed, Mick makes a speech explaining why it would be much better to abandon the day's walk and head to a pub for fish finger sandwiches

So at Seatoller we schismed again, and half of us headed into the fabulozy Combe Gill and then along the delightful path up Thornythwaite Fell and on to Glaramara. About 30 minutes before the top Johnboy, who had been walking near me, suddenly changed gear, arriving at the summit an hour before I did. I know that Einstein and the laws of physics would tell you that would be impossible but I am simply telling you what actually happened.  And, in case you are wondering, by the time we were on the top our fellow Daunderers were eating the largest platefuls of fish finger sandwiches that ever came out of the North Sea at the pub in Rosthwaite.

    Andy, Jaimie, Robin and Johnboy heading up Thornythwaite Fell above Combe Gill

Happy Bunny on Thornythwaite Fell

The path to Allen Crags is also full of loveliness and the sun shone, and the views were sharp and clear and wonderful and the fells were at their absolute best and we generally revelled in the walk, despite hitting the busyness of the Esk Hause to Angle Tarn path. Then on down by Angle Tarn Beck into Langstrath. If you haven't walked Langstrath this is, for the Lakes, a long, long valley. I first came down this way in March 1973 and found it tiring as a fit 16 year old. Now I'm far less fit but know what to expect when I walk this valley. Thus, if loins are girded at Angle Tarn it does not feel as bad as it did all those years ago.  Even better, as we put our tents up on the campsite at Stonethwaite Judith, who had taken the shorter route, raced around collecting our water bottles and generally looking after the more weary amongst us. Then it was bar snack time.

On Allen Crags

Stonethwaite Campsite

Which takes us to Sunday and another delightful path, but this time low down through Borrowdale and back to Braithwaite. We managed to stick together almost to Grange, when a tea shop with tables in the sun proved too much of a temptation to those amongst us who understood the true meaning of a Daunder.  The group I was in pootled on ahead, stopping only when we came to a handily placed ice cream van below Catbells. My fellow walkers were so enjoying the walk itself that despite the route going right past the Swinside Inn we just carried on. But a pub, right next to the route?  We never saw the laggards again. I believe they are all still alive and I suspect their legs were rather less stiff than mine were the following day. 

Johnboy naively looks to the hills whilst Al and Phil discuss the locations of pubs and cafes

One of the prettiest views in England: Derwent Water, Skiddaw, Blencathra and Keswick

Some of those who made my three days so enjoyable

Stats: Day 2 - 19.4 km, 1020m ascent, 8 hours 30 minutes

          Day 3 - 14.0 km, 336m ascent, 4 hours 30 minutes

Pre-Walk Daunder: Early days and even earlier schisms

A gratuitous shot of some cuben fibre that I own (taken before the herd of cats arrived at Braithwaite campsite)

Thursday and Friday

I had arranged for us (fourteen in all, to my horror, thanks to some string pulling) to meet at the Scotgate Campsite in Braithwaite near Keswick for the first night of the Pre-Walk Daunder. There is a pub close at hand and an excellent café on site. So I had passed the first test.

I failed the second test, though. Friday morning came and the hills were shrouded in clag.  A very heavy, wetting drizzle as we took our tents down drove us into the café as soon as packs were packed.  Al and Phil huddled at a table, consulting a map, whispering.

“We aren’t really planning to go up Robinson and along the ridge in this are we?” asked Al of me, smiling. I wasn't certain if this was a question, a suggestion or an instruction. Al is perfectly capable of doing a male version of that Mrs Thatcher thing. You know the one. The smile of Marilyn Monroe, the eyes of Caligula.

The idea that I had once had in my head that my role had been simply to plan a possible route and book the table at the pub was dissolving rapidly. It seemed my responsibilities had been extended to that of cat herder. “We can decide at Little Town,” I announced, pretending to be in charge. “Well I’ve already decided”, said a small bearded chap eating a pie and holding a dog lead. “I’m going up the valley.” The schism had begun and we hadn’t even set foot outside.

We walked along a pleasant level path by the beck and onto a country lane in the beautiful Newlands Valley. I turned left up another lane, which would take us upwards and on to a path along the lower edge of Catbells.  This lane was therefore the start of two long legs on the route shaped like a narrow-based triangle.  All followed.  Well all except Al and Phil. They had seen a tea shop sign pointing along the narrow base of the triangle.  It meant they could cut a corner, not climb the first hill and have tea and cake. Well I suppose we had been walking for 30 minutes. The schism was growing.

Daunderers at lovely Little Town Church and School Room

We got to Little Town Church.  High Snab Bank, heading towards Robinson, was in the distance, looking steep, claggy, wet and windy. The schism grew.  I was tempted to join the valley huggers. But no. I had planned the route. The weather was not that bad. It would clear. Half the group headed up. Half headed along.

There are a few rocky steps on High Snab Bank. Short but steep scrambles.  I stopped and stowed my poles so that I could safely overcome these obstacles. I was just behind Johnboy. He had been carrying both his poles horizontally in one hand all morning and he didn’t bother stowing them as he approached the rock. As I was heaving myself up using hands, feet and knees I looked up. Johnboy was walking up the rock, hands in pockets and looking at the views all around as he did so. I looked back. No it wasn’t me. Robin, and Gerry were also using every hand that they possessed and Andy, Jaimie and Emma had taken another path to skirt sections of the scramble.

Summit of Hindscarth. That's Andy third from left, not a smurf

The drizzle had now stopped but the wind had increased significantly on the ridge.  Breaks in the cloud gave magnificent views back as we walked over Robinson, Hindscarth and Dale Head.

As we dropped down towards Dale Head Tarn we knew that if we camped at our original planned spot above Wilson’s Bield on the way towards High Spy we would be in for a wild night. We could see seven tents below us at the tarn – the schism group had come to the same decision, but a couple of hours earlier. We arrived, but had already decided that as they would have taken the best spots, and given the general bleakness and blowyness of the day we would make them suffer for their choice of a short day. We would deprive them of our company. That’d learn them.  Dale Head Tarn is, in any case, a notorious spot for wild campers who are in the know. It is so popular, and has just a few obvious places to pitch, that what can look like an idyllic place in the sun is actually just a huge mass of human excrement under a thin layer of grass and peat, and the outflow stream is marginally less clean than a London Sewer.

Our rather squished camp spot just above the intake wall

So we headed on, covering a couple of km of the planned next day’s walk, down Tongue Gill to a lovely sheltered location that Robin knew.  I was glad to arrive.  The day had been plenty long enough for me.  But the evening sun broke through and Gerry went round with a Platy bag containing Rusty Nails and all was well in our little world.

Andy seen through his bug netting

Stats: 18.3km distance, 1158 m ascent, 7 hours 50 minutes

Marching Orders

A pub in Lincolnshire

Empty pint glasses and Ordnance Survey maps cover the table.

Peer of the Realm (PotR):  “So. Another fine TGO Challenge route put to bed. Tell me again, though. Why did you invite that oik to walk with us?”

String Puller-in-Chief (SPiC):  “It’s a social service. The man needs help. And I suppose he just might come in useful at some stage.”

PotR: “But the fella is a cad. Couldn’t be bothered to drive from Wales to Lincolnshire to help. We’ve done all this route planning ourselves. He’s a bounder, sir, make no mistake.”

SPiC: “You have him all wrong. He is actually a veryvery nice man. But let’s be realistic. He doesn’t know his Trossachs from his Pentlands.  It was better we just got on with it.” 

PotR: “Anyway, that’s the easy bit. Now we need to sort the Pre-Walk Daunder.”

SPiC: “Indeed. And didn't I just say he might come in useful.  We need a fall guy. …..”

A telephone conversation the following day

Puppet (aka Fellbound, for it is he): “I’m feeling guilty that I left the TGOC route planning to you guys. What can I do to help?”

SPiC: “Well there is one tiny little thing. You couldn’t plan the Pre-Walk Daunder could you?”

Puppet, aloud: “Yes of course, no problem.”

Puppet, silently: “Shit”.

SpiC: “You sure that’s ok?”

Puppet: “Sure. As I said. No problem.”

SPiC (in cod German accent):  “Gut. Now. You vil submit all ze details to me. I vil vet vem. You vil ven put vem into operation. You vil not fail me, vil you. No vat was not a qvestion. Vat was a statement.  Ve last man who failed me is now buried in concrete below a vind turbine in the North-Vest Highlands. Ve do not tolerate failure.  Relax, David. Only joking. But don't mess up. Seriously. Don't mess up.