A wee dram for an icicle whip

The familiar but infuriating sensation of over-heating due to a combination of physical exertion and over-enthusiastic layering against the cold. Except this is no train, and it's not crowds of people that are preventing layer shedding. Nope, it's the arctic (sub arctic?) conditions of a Scottish mountain.

Now, Scottish mountains sound tame. Green, heathery, a bit damp.

But no! They're not like that! They're an extreme, danger fuelled onslaught of snow, ice, thick walls of white blizzard, bitey 40 - 50mph winds and very hurty bits of exposed skin. And it's not worth the pain of trying to de-layer if you get a bit hot. Just stand still for 5 minutes and the feeling will disappear from your toes and the various technical fleeces, jackets and thermals start clinging desperately to that excess heat as it gets eaten by an icy gust.

Something hard and sting-y whips me in the face and I realise it's a lock of my own hair that's formed in to an icicle. One of my fellow adventurers points out that little icicles have also formed on my eyelashes within seconds of removing my goggles.

It's just white as far as you can see, and the odd blast completely engulfs my companions in blizzard so that they disappear. The steep slope up is all but a solid sheet of ice, only navigable by the wonder that is crampons. I'm like some sort of ice spider, marching on regardless over all manner of snow, ice and slippery rock. My ascent of Cairn Gorm mountain is hugely aided by the fierce winds being behind me, so it actually feels like a giant hand on my lower back driving me upwards.

The summit is a plateau of brutal winds, next to no visibility and more ice onslaught. But it's brilliant! I'm fairly sure that at some point we'd actually wandered in the the Arctic. It was just like those documentaries of people doing mad arctic treks. I wasn't going to expose my camera phone to those conditions, let alone take my hand out of my cosy double glove combination. But luckily, someone else did.

I managed a couple lower down, out of the wind:

That was a good NYE walk. Until that point, I'd thought there was a similar walk the day before when the weather was even worse but, on paper, it was actually only a up a ski slope.

The picture above is at the top of a red run slope that we proceeded to slide down. Serious fun. It was all in the name of learning some 'winter skills'.

This was an informal trip with my new mountaineering club. A four-day trip over the New Year break to seek winter climbing and a good old Scottish Hogmanay. A couple of us were new to the winter stuff and getting used to the equipment and conditions. Someone had referred to us as 'Team Training'. I refer to us as 'Team Awesome.'

In the foreground there is Mel, who was militant about post adventure tea (and medals) BEFORE ANYONE HAS A SHOWER. And quite rightly. A good re-group and catch up over builder's tea and gnarly climber's cake (the climbing is gnarly, not the cake) as we regaled each other with tales of the death defying adventures of the day.

Then further tales and nonsense in the little bar that was trying very hard to be some sort of alpine apres ski venue but in a sort of remote, hearty Scottish way. Everyone there was highly amused by the idea of a London mountaineering club. The landlord there was a small, friendly and well-seasoned winter climber/ ski mountaineer. He gave me a sample of one of the local beers that sited elderflower as one of the flavours.
"I like it." I said with enthusiasm, "You can really taste the elderflower!"
"Really? No-one has ever said that before..."

Ha. That's right, I can be a hardcore snow spider, survive the arctic and still come down and appreciate the elderflower notes in a Scottish pint.

I didn't get as far as doing a proper climb. The only day the conditions were up to it was New Years Day and I wasn't getting up at 7am to go out with the big boys after a night of apres mountain, Scottish tavern, terrible fireworks, better fireworks, whiskey (a 'wee dram' from a man in a kilt. It was anything but wee), dancing (wii dancing) and a late night youth hostel feast of anything we could cobble together.

Instead I opted for a little new year's walk, which turned in to a bit of an epic walk involving forest, snowy mountain, boggy mountain side and iced over boggy mountain plateau, which I imagined was a lot like how it would feel to walk on a creme brulee.

So some good new year views; hangover cured after the first summit and a solid Scrabble win later on over ginger cake and custard. I got even closer to going skiing than I did last year; experienced the unique sensation of frozen crispy waterproof jacket, ate my body weight in fried stuff and went tobogganing in a survival bag. Excellent start.

There's no place like...

I'm sitting in a little French cafe on Upper Street, Islington, London on an almost icy cold but bright and crispy Saturday with the genius invention that's the Flat White. On the next table there's a bespectacled slim arty man in a striped jumper reading a book (not a Kindle) that's no doubt excruciatingly arty and cool. When I'm on Upper Street, it's always sunny and I want to spend my life cycling up and down wearing an expensive coat and with a bouquet of flowers and probably some patisserie in my bike basket, stopping off for coffees and novel reading, or to buy things that are then wrapped in pretty paper. And I look around at that the other people (all ridiculously good looking and well dressed) and wonder "is this actually your life, or are you just weekend-pretending like me?"

In case you can't picture my Saturday, it's pretty much like this:

This is a distant dream on Monday morning's when I drag myself out in the dark and power walk to the train station where a completely jam packed train pulls up. "I'll never get in that" you think, but the insistent whistle blows, the doors give their taunting beeping noise and you have to get in it! So you launch yourself at the wall of people filling the carriage and then squeeze right up to stop any bits of coat or bag stopping the doors and you're in! Doors clearing all winter wear and accessories has the feeling of clearing a hurdle the height of your shoulder. My relief is quickly shattered, however, when I realise I'm wedged between three armpits, and the Metro I was looking forward to reading is now stuck to the side of my face. Then if it's raining you've got the issue of AGH WET UMBRELLA LEG! Oh and I walked very briskly to make the train and wore a lot of layers because it's bloody freezing outside and now I'm sweating in the searing heat of a prison of wool coat, scarf, armpits and train.

Step out of the moment for a second and there you are, sardined with a bunch of strangers in a game of: "Don't catch anyone's eye! Agh I just caught someones eye! Quick - dart eyes to one side and then keep looking around as if I've been doing that the whole time and then it will look like one of the places I stopped moving my eyes happened to be looking at your eyes. Good save."

Passing that many people every day, I can't believe nothing very noteworthy has happened yet. My bike wheel got stolen once, the lady that hands out Time Out magazine at West Hampstead station has a little song about it (that gets resolutely stuck in my head for a couple of days - Free Time Out! Free Time Out!) and sometimes people apologise for stepping on me, and sometimes they don't. When faced with that many people, no-one sees 'people' any more. Everyone zips themselves up in a little bubble of self absorption, aided by smartphone/book/paper/ipod. When I'm not in my bubble, I basically end up staring. If you are going to people watch on a train, well you just have to be okay with being a starer. No panicked eye-darting, unless you land on someone scary; then it's all about the shoes, invisible lint on the trousers and other such 'awkward social situation' safety nets.

So Marmalade had lost it's way a bit among the total assault on the mind, body and senses that was changing jobs and relocating but it's back, with the London chapter, an adventure to the Scottish Highlands, and the promise of a SE Asia expedition. Maybe even a mash up of some previous draft posts from the past few months. For now, it's back to my Saturday fantasy.