I should have written this blog long ago, but recent weeks have passed in a blur. After 38 years in professional engineering, I’ve retired and now wonder where I ever got the time to go to work..! Finally, I’m sat at my keyboard and catching up with this ever-spinning world. Here we go…
Read More »Kendal Mountain Festival 2023 – Life in a Northern Town…
I’m a planner – I like to plan and prepare for my expeditions, speaking gigs and even my shopping. The 2022 Kendal Mountain Festival was on its way, so I watched my films, prepared my weekend diary and trying my best to help the environment, I booked trains from Derbyshire to the Lakes.
Read More »The Kendal Mountain Festival 2022 – Good to be Back…
When the call for the Kendal Mountain Festival came, I was up my backside in builders. Dust had found its way into every crevice and my lungs were a no go area. My office was piled high with boxes, but somewhere in the morass, I found my computer and typed that dangerous word – Yes. Of course I was coming…Read More »The Kendal Mountain Festival 2017 – Films, Floods and Flying Around…
I’d only been home from my latest Himalayan expedition a few days, before another adventure began. The Kendal Mountain Festival might only last a few days in the eyes of the public, but to the organisers, planning a trip to the moon would be easier. The tsunami of e-mails that my inbox sank under took some sorting, but by the Thursday morning of the festival, I was ready to go.
Well it was that time of year again. Time to head to Kendal for the Mountain Festival and volunteer as a presenter. Volunteer you say??? Well, I may be a professional speaker, but there are times when the outdoor community comes together and works together. We all give our time for free for the good of the community, and work harder than any professionally paid staff. Working in engineering, I hear a great deal that ‘Money is the greatest motivator’. If only these people knew how wrong they were. Passion drives people, love drives people, people drive people. And it’s the people I meet at the festival who drive me…
Read More »The Kendal Mountain Festival – backflips, books, slacklines and grand prizes…
The Kendal Mountain Festival is the highlight of the climbing calendar in the UK, but for me it wasn’t always that way. I had visited the festival years back and even had my Discovery Channel documentary “Nightmare at 20,000ft” premiered there, but I always felt a little lost. Was it because I was on my own? Or the fact that I didn’t know a soul? Who knows, but it all changed one day on the Hornli Ridge.