‘What are you doing on Sunday evening?’ asked my friend Colin. ‘The usual,’ I said. ‘Feed the horses, drive back into town, have a bath, make cheese on toast, go to bed.’ I’m all about the glamour.
‘Well, come over for dinner. It’s just a few friends hanging out. I’m cooking chilli.’
My friend is a clever man. He managed to make it all sound so innocuous. But as soon as I got to his neat, suburban house I knew I was about to be roped into something. A collection of very fit, very selfless-looking people were sitting in his living room. I could tell from one look at them that they were used to doing voluntary work in the developing world. My fears were confirmed by the presence of a projector.
‘What’s all this?’ I asked Colin, who was wearing an apron and walking in and out of the kitchen with soft drinks.
‘Oh, that. That’s just a little slide show we’re going to have while we eat. Don’t worry about it.’
But I was worrying. There were now 12 people in his living room, all looking suspiciously healthy, intrepid and, above all, philanthropic.
I heaped a stress-sized portion of chilli on to my plate and hid myself at the furthest corner of the dining table. As I ate, a tall man who looked like a natural leader got up and called everyone to attention.
He switched on his laptop, which was hooked up to the projector, and pressed a button. Uh-oh. It appeared that we were going to climb Kilimanjaro. Now I came to think of it, my friend had mentioned this to me a few weeks earlier. To be polite I had said, ‘What a great idea.’
I might even have joked that I was thinking about joining him. I might have intimated vaguely that it would be good for me as my 40th birthday loomed to get a mountain climb under my belt, to stave off the inevitable mid-life crisis.
But I would put my prospective Kilimanjaro-climbing enthusiasm at no more than that. I’m pretty sure I did not say ‘for the love of God, take me with you’. Certainly, I was only at his house because chilli sounded better than cheese on toast.
As our leader, a very nice man called Martin, began the slide show I shovelled vast quantities down in a panic. I had it all clear in my mind. One more helping — and maybe a bit of that trifle — then I would leave. Of course it would be embarrassing picking my way through the selfless people diligently making notes, and I would have to tell a huge lie, to wit: ‘Ehem, I’m terribly sorry, everyone, but I’ve got a serious underlying heart condition, so that’s me out.’
As I rehearsed my exit, Martin began explaining that the expedition would be raising funds for Kenya’s street children. A picture of a group of smiling boys holding bowls came up on the screen. I was putting a forkful of chilli into my mouth as he explained, ‘If we don’t feed them, they don’t eat. They get one meal a day, because we give it to them.’
Fine. So I’m climbing Kilimanjaro, if it’s the last thing I do, which it very well could be. ‘I’m not going to make it,’ I hissed at my friend, ‘and it’s going to be your fault.’
To be clear, I am not fit. I horse-ride nearly every day, but the only time it gets cardiovascular is when Tara the chestnut mare is in one of her violent moods. I’m not good with discomfort. I get heat rash and chilblains at the drop of a hat. I have never camped. I like travelling with a lot of shoe choices.
I put my hand up and asked Martin to spell out exactly how fit I would need to be. Were we talking personal trainer, spinning classes, performance-enhancing drugs?
‘Oh, you’ll be fine. Just do a bit of walking. The last time I did it, I saw little old ladies flying past me on their way to the summit.’
For a second, the chilli stopped churning. ‘Really? Oh, thank God,’ I said. Then he said, ‘Mind you, I was hallucinating badly at that point.’
It turned out that, while Martin had escaped the chronic altitude sickness that took out two thirds of his group, he had been hit by an extreme state of exhaustion and disorientation that can overpower you as you do the last and toughest part of the climb in darkness. It all sounds pretty hard core. If it’s as bad as trying to push a shopping trolley to the top deck of Waitrose car park in Cobham I’m going to be seriously screwed.
To sponsor Melissa’s Kilimanjaro challenge: www.justgiving.com/Melissa-Kite
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