Kilimanjaro Before Breakfast

When we met back in the mid-90’s, it was his energy and enthusiasm that caught my eye. Always on the go, impulsive, never still – expeditions, climbing trips, big days out on the hill and long nights in the pub. Me, I was more of a planner, one step at a time – easy does it. Though occasionally I’d let myself be swept away by a whirlwind.

I remember driving back through the fading light of Glencoe late on a Sunday evening, going at breakneck speed, getting indigestion at the sight of him simultaneously steering, talking and ravenously eating a fish supper perched precariously between his knees. This, all after a stunning days rock climbing on the Rannoch Wall. Although I’d gradually become a reasonably competent technical rock climber, I’d never experienced exposure like that before. January Jigsaw wasn’t a technically difficult climb but the sheer expanse of the rock face and the twenty metre pitches gave a girl more used to local quarries a touch of the trigger leg. But we’d managed it and I’d even lead a couple of the easier pitches. By the time we were sitting looking out towards the Devil’s Staircase and the Aanoch Eagach, my future was sealed. Exhilarated, exhausted, sunburnt and windswept, but confident that our differing approaches to life could be complementary and that together we could weather most storms.

Fast forward thirty years. Two children, now both flown the nest, two house moves and many bumps in the road. Like others we aged, though surely not as fast or as visibly, we smugly observed. As we grew older our climbs became walks and the wild camping became less frequent. Although we sometimes chose comfort over adventure for our holidays, we were always ready to rough it. What sane folk in their fifties choose to cycle the Hebridean Way with no accommodation booked? What post-menopausal woman would agree to camping in a farmer’s field beside the Callanish Stones? But the sunrise that morning will stay with me forever.

Then came the plan for Kilimanjaro. Surprisingly, it didn’t come from him but from our eldest, the child who had moaned her socks off about walking in the Cairngorms and cried on a snowy ascent in the Slovenian Tatras. The child who had sworn she had been switched at birth and wanted to be part of a normal family, a family who took beach holidays and enjoyed retail therapy. All that it took was a tentative suggestion from her and he seized it. This would be the family trip of a lifetime, forget Florida or California. This time we couldn’t just fly by the seat of our pants. Research was needed. Guides were to be booked, visas and permits obtained, vaccinations taken. What a relief when for the first time in thirty years he took charge.

Or it was, until the day he started bombarding me with information and options as I methodically ate my porridge and tried to plan my day. 'Lemoshu or Machame Route? Six days or seven? What about a safari afterwards? Did you know we’ll summit at sunrise?' 'Please, I need to leave for work in ten minutes!'

I suppose the odd bout of indigestion was what I signed up for that day on the Rannoch Wall.