Since this is a blog that started way back in 2010 and has had a number of long breaks, it's worth a brief summary to bring you all up to speed and hopefully draw in some new and interested followers.
My library, as I like to call it, for it is a room largely filled with wall to wall book shelves, has a section almost entirely given to adventure stories. They are the classics, Ernest Shackleton's, 'South', Kurt Diemburger's 'The White Spider', and Sir Ranolf Feinnes' 'Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know', but there are so many more from the early days of mountaineering, polar adventures and circumnavigations of the globe, either by sea or north and south via the poles. I devoured them all when I was younger and wondered what it was that made these men and women the pioneers that they certainly were. The world has changed immeasurably in the intervening years and whilst you still have to be driven, accessability it really can be said is determined by money and the willingness of someone far more experienced to lead whoever can pay. I have no doubt that it is a first world luxury, but I'm equally sure it's what you do with this opportunity that determines at least an element of its acceptability, for in the end, we all make choices about how we spend our spare time.
So I'm not a Sir Ranulph Feinnes or Sir Chris Bonnington, in fact I'm as far from that as I can imagine it's possible to be, but I still want to stretch myself, to learn and share, and hope that in some small way, my little adventures will encourage some, help others and even enthrall a group of followers who take something from the bloke next door, who just pushes the boundaries of every day, just a little bit further than most.
I'm not doing anything new, but as Margaret Dye, -the late wife of the ocean sailing maverick Frank Dye, who sailed his Wayfarer dinghy to Spitzburgen and beyond-, said to me when I ventured that rowing the Atlantic wasn't something that hadn't been done before, 'No', she said, 'but you haven't done it!' (Margaret Dye was then in her 90s, and she absolutely 'got it!').
Since 2010, when I cycled from Lands' End to John O'Groats via the 3 peaks, (see previous blog posts https://johnnygiant-lejog4samaritans.blogspot.com/), there have been three attempts at the trans-continental bike race, a completion of the trans-Atlantic way race down the west coast of Ireland, (1100 miles in 7 days), a ride from Aberystwyth to Lowestoft in a fraction over 25 hours and countless miles of walking, running and cycling in between. In each case, I have tried to raise awareness and money for numerous charities. The NSPCC, The Samaritans, Breast Cancer UK, The East of England Air Ambulance and now I start a new partnership with the Benjamin Foundation.
No comments:
Post a Comment