32 days to go

I consumed my last alcoholic drink before I head out yesterday. From now on no beer, no cider, no vodka, no whiskey and no rum. It also means remembering to take my waterproofs with me rather than trusting the British weather not to dump the contents of the sky on my head when previously it had been sunny.

A big big thank you to everyone who has donated so far. I'm touched by your generosity and will do my best to provide both pictures and lurid descriptions of me suffering so that everyone gets a bit of what they want ;-)

How bad do you want to feel?

Here's your dilemma. You have to have 7 injections over the course of the next month. 1 of which is repeated 3 times. How many days do you want to spread this out over? You can be a big girly wussbucket and have 7 appointments or endure needle frenzy and guarantee to feel something approaching a combination of dead arms and the sensation of pre-"whitey" you get when you're brain is figuring out whether passing out makes more sense then staying conscious.

On the basis of wanting as much pain out of the way as possible but that I have no personal interest in how bad it's possible to feee - I went for
- Rabies because it sounds really painful
- Hepatitis B because it's repeated
- Tetanus because, as my sister reminds me often, I passed out after having one of these after a bike crash when I was 16.

Then I have 2 more Hep B's, a Hep A and Typhoid to go but at least the next ones won't involve both arms getting stabbed. I think I'll give it an hour of so before I contemplate hitting the gym as I want my head to settle down a tad. It reminds of the time I had my Japanese Encephalitis jabs when I was living in Tokyo. The doctor I was booked in to see spoke almost no English. I spoke almost no Japanese. All I remember is he pulled out a seemingly gigantic needle and kept muttering something about "complications" over and over again. He was right though - I felt godawful after those jabs. Strike one for either medical science or hypochondria.

And whilst I've got your sympathy I guess I should plug http://justgiving.com/andz-mera again and also say a big thank you to the kind folks at Google where I work for their generosity in donating over the last few days. Thanks to them I'm now up to 38% of my (somewhat ambitious) target.

Is that you John Wayne?

Picked up the boots at lunchtime. It's hard to describe how warm they are and how much I look like John Wayne when I try to walk in them.

And another tribute to the powers of photography in my Nexus S. I was impressed with the camera on the Nexus One. The new phone seems to be even better.

"Don't die of altitude sickness"

That's the first line of a detailed and informative description of symptoms of traveling to altitude. It goes on to say about Acute Mountain Sickness (the mild form of things):

The most prominent symptom is usually headache, and most people also experience nausea and even vomiting, lethargy, dizziness and poor sleep. Symptoms are very similar to a really bad hangover. Acute mountain sickness can be diagnosed using a self-assessment score sheet. If you have recently ascended to over 2500m, have a headache and your total score is 3 points or more on the score sheet, then you have acute mountain sickness. 

Unless my memory is completely faulty or I adapt better this time I can expect this to be knocking on my door at around the 4500m mark. After which the next few days are likely to be fairly unpleasant before it starts to recede. Not getting the sick is the key here - last time I had a head cold when I left Namche Bazaar and arrived in Pheriche 7 hours later having gained 800m in altitude and feeling utterly wretched. Much to the excitement of the BBC film crew who had been waiting like particularly well spoken vultures for somebody to get sick for several days.

41 days

After going off track with training in California (thank you long distance flying for making me ill, again) I'm back at it. Fully paid up for my trip and into the serious business of training and shopping.

The stuff I care about most is being warm at night (hai to you new sleeping bag), having warm feet (hello soon-to-be-purchased new clunky boots) and not falling to my death - hello ice axe and crampons.

Unfortunately, crampons come the the associated inevitability of stabbing myself repeatedly. Much in the same way as idly playing with a stapler ends in a staple in my hand every time I've picked one up since the age of about 8.

Weekend training is hiking - so boots and ankle weights to simulate heavy feet and carrying a loaded bag to simulate... well, carrying a loaded bag. I have 6 weekends of training between me and Nepal. And six weeks of going to the gym every day to provoke my cardiovascular system into some form of readiness.

Oh and I should probably sort out my visa. And some innoculations. And maybe what I'm going to do about cameras... Dammit, some form of list perhaps.