Guest blogger - a story that has to be told - Very High DRAMA, Langdon Beck

Regular readers and those of you that know me will know this blog is supposed to be about my art work and what inspires me - which in fact, is most things.... beauty and inspiration can be found everywhere  so this blog often digresses allover the place - life gets in the way - throws opportunities, lemons, beautiful sunsets and occasionally really dramatic events - yes we've had a few of those lately but this week we realised that is was 20 years to the day when Dr Fred my trusty sidekick - who puts up daily with my 'inspirational' life - had his most dramatic event and how he survived.... it makes grueling reading and its why I need to know what time to call mountain rescue when he goes off on some of his jaunts!!

He wrote this account 4 weeks after the event and hasn't looked at for a long time it until yesterday when we both read it and felt ill, relieved and thankful he is still here to read it!!! This was an event that happened before I met Dr Fred but that doesn't lessen its dramatic and potentially devastating impact for me when I hear this story.

So here is the tale - its a wee digression from normal but variety is the spice of life, some off you will know it already but here is the full unexpurgated tale, warts and all...written by Dr Fred...  its lengthy but worth a read..  no pictures..

Mid November 1999
 For the past 10 years I have been on a mission to try and visit every obscure crag in the country, in fact it now covers just about every piece of exposed rock greater than about 2 metres high or wide irrespective of the quantity or quality of vegetation it possesses. This term I have only been teaching for three evenings a week (Mon - Wed) and so I took the opportunity one Thursday (October 7th) to go for an explore of some crags, that I had previously noticed from a distance, in the wilds of Upper Teesdale

It began as a nice autumnal day and I drove the van up to Middleton in Teesdale taking in the beautiful scenery completely unaware of what the day had in store for me. About a mile past the High Force waterfall I had recalled seeing a disused whinsill quarry set back in a field on the west side of the road; this was to be my first port of call. I parked the van at a small chapel by the side of the road and walked back down to the quarry. I was then to continue my walk westwards across the river Tees to Cronkley Scar and then follow the river further into 'Englands last great wilderness' to the final objective of the day - Falcon Clints, on the north side of the river about a mile south-east of the Cow Green Reservoir.

On closer inspection the quarry turned out to be horrendously loose and covered in a generous coating of various species of lichen (as are most crags I visit on these 'expeditions'). Still, it had been ticked of the list and I carried on with the walk crossing the river Tees by a bridge where the path met the Pennine way. I followed the path to the west for about half a km and then veered of to the left to check out Cronkley Scar. I sloshed my way about a km or so across boggy ground before the edge of the steep escarpment rose from the river valley. The crags that had looked impressive from the road, perched high up on the escarpment slope, once again turned out to be very vegetated and were liberally covered in precarious looking blocks. I had a close up look at the main crag and after scrambling about a bit and finding precious little friction on the damp lichen decided against attempting to climb anything. I therefore followed the bottom of the crag to the north west where I had spotted a sunlit arete that looked quite good. Needless to say it was less impressive on closer inspection but I scrambled up it in the wellies anyway for the sake of a 'tick'.

The gulley to the south of the rib was a good way of reaching the top of the escarpment and from there I followed its edge, that respected the curve of the river below, until it was heading in a southerly direction. The view was quite stunning with the wide and flat bottomed river passing through steep golden bracken covered slopes. The weather was still bright but with a stiff breeze and the clouds were thickest over the highest hills of the Cross Fell range to the north and west. At this point I dropped below the crags again and had a look at some more solid looking whinsill towers where the scars ran out into the hillside. After having some lunch and scrambling about a bit on these rocks (disguised in a deceptive grey lichen) I headed down the slopes and continued along the river and around its next curve to the west. I saw a group of walkers heading east along the Pennine Way on the opposite bank. They had been the only people that I had seen all day so far. I thought to myself how much I enjoyed the isolation out in this relative wilderness and I wouldn't mind if I didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day.

After about 2km Falcon Clints came in to view and looked quite impressive. I was surprised to see that the grooveline in the upper part of the crag, that I had noticed a few years ago after a winter walk up Mickle Fell (that lay 3 miles to the south and that I had approached on that occasion by walking south from the reservoir), looked just about as I remembered it. It's surprising how sometimes you think you remembered seeing an impressive piece of rock or line of a possible route only to find out on a later inspection that in the intervening period your mind has exaggerated it out of all proportion.

The problem was that Falcon Clints were on the north side of the river I was on the south side and there was no bridge for several miles in either direction. Luckily I had been in this situation before on the aforementioned Mickle Fell trip and on that occasion had managed to wade across the river just managing to keep it below the level of my wellies. Unfortunately it had been raining a bit lately and the water level was probably higher than on the previous occasion which had been in winter when a lot of the drainage was tied up as snow and ice. I took of my socks (just in case) and put back on the wellies and tried several crossing points opposite the crag but they were all too deep. I therefore followed the river to a sharp bend to the north and tried my previous crossing point a few hundred metres further on. At that point the river was a little shallower but also wider - about 25metres or so. After about ten minutes balancing on slimy rocks and getting dizzy staring into the fast currents I reached about three quarters of the way across the river before the water overflowed the wellies. After that I just went for it to minimise the time I had to bear the freezing water on my feet and reached the other bank in about 15 seconds.

I emptied as much water as possible out of the wellies before following the path back eastwards towards the crag. I thought to myself that I was now on my way back, one more tick and I could follow the Pennine Way along the north side of the river all the way back to the bridge that I'd crossed earlier in the day and then I'd be virtually back at the van and soon be home.

The crag was in two main tiers with the upper tier looking most impressive but I thought that it would be entertaining to reach it by scrambling up the lower tier first. The lower tier itself was set back from the river and up a steep slope of scree and then grass before steepening into a band of crumbling limestone just before the whinsill intrusion that formed the main bulk of the crags. I thought that I would scramble up the crumbly rockband to a narrow ledge at the base of the whinsill where I could sort out my gear. On my way up I contemplated how this limestone had become so shattered. It must have been the tremendous heat and forces generated by the whinsill being intruded as molten rock all those millions of years ago - higher up towards the whinsill it actually looked burned. I reached the ledge and found a nice 'perch' of flat rock and finished of my flask of coffee and had a few biscuits. I removed the soaked wellies and set them upside down to drain water out while I was having a look at the crag. This was the first time that day that I had bothered to put on my rock boots. I thought I may as well as I'd been carrying them about all day and it would give the wellies a bit of time to dry out, not to mention the fact that the crag looked quite steep and the climbing might get a bit more serious.

I decided to investigate a crackline that I had seen from below that looked like a good hand jamming crack. I traversed along the ledge to the right about twenty feet and at close quarters the crack was an off-width and passed all the way round a column of whinsill that seemed to be perched on a small area (about two feet across) of the crumbling limestone layer at its base. I gave it a good thump and it sounded solid enough so I had ago at climbing up the crack on the right side of the pillar. Once again it was covered in lichen, quite slippery and also quite hard technically. I slithered up about six feet and thought to myself that it might be an idea to find a different route to reach the upper tier - preferably by walking round the left hand side of the lower tier which I could easily do from where I had dumped my gear. I therefore decided to reverse down to the ledge.

I began to reverse by laybacking down the crack which was proving to be a bit awkward so I transferred into a bridging position. To my right at waist level was a block that had a crack running along its left side. I reasoned that as long as I pushed down on it it would hold since whinsill cracks are always vertical or horizontal which produces rectangularish blocks so even a completely detached block could stay on if used correctly. This was the worst piece of reasoning that I have ever come up with. As I lent onto the block it immediately 'dinner-plated off and I was completely out of balance and so was taken off with it.

I must have just missed the narrow ledge, skimming off its outer edge and felt myself airborne. I had time to look down the crumbling rock band as I was falling thinking 'shit, this is going to be serious'. Before I new anymore I hit the grass slope below with a sickening thud and rolled a bit before coming to rest (I probably fell about 30 - 40 feet altogether). At first I couldn't believe I was conscious and didn't feel much pain but then I regained my senses and saw that my left hand was dislodged sideways from its usual position at the end of my arm. I then became aware of a pain in left side of my lower back and of a strange sensation in my left foot. I was horrified when I looked down and saw blood coming out of my rockboot and a gash across my ankle. I was even more horrified when I tried to move my leg and my foot seemed to want to stay where it was. It felt at first as if the contents of my left boot had been reduced to a mixture of blood and coarse gravel but eventually I came to the conclusion that the foot was still attached to my leg by something. Strangely my left foot was not that painful, I assumed that this was because I must have severed most of the nerves in it. By this time complete shock and an overwhelming sense of fear had set in. I was miles from anywhere, had a completely unusable left leg and arm, pains down the left side of my back, it was getting late in the day (about 4.30pm), the clouds were thickening to the west, and the chance of meeting someone out here now seemed as remote as my location.

I didn't know what to do. I began to shout help at the top of my voice and realised that the sound would travel no distance, especially with the sound of the river and the wind. I decided that at least I had to get myself down the rest of the slope to the main path at its base. I desperately tried to tie my foot on with my scarf which was just about impossible with one hand. I found that by balancing my left leg against my good right leg I could make slow progress without the foot moving out of position too much. The final part of the slope down through the scree was excruciating but I eventually rolled onto the path at its base. The wind was now feeling cold and I realised that my waterproofs were still in my sack on the ledge now about 60feet above me and there was no way I could get back up to them. Not that it would have made that much difference because I doubt if I could have put them on anyway. A little further along the path was a large cairn and so I decided to try and get around to the sheltered side of it out of the wind. I dragged myself along the path on my right side and huddled in the lee of the cairn shouting for help occasionally knowing it was futile. I regretted my earlier thoughts of not wanting to meet anyone else for the rest of the day - I have never been so desperate for the sight of a human being. Surely someone had been out for a long walk and would be returning down the track this evening?

I was getting increasingly cold and it was now just starting to drizzle. How long could I wait here for? If no one comes down the track soon I thought that I could easily lie there all night. With no extra clothing and my lack of subcutaneous fat would I survive? I remembered a good friend of mine, Ray Ellis, who had died in the Cairngorms several years ago - he was found next to a cairn having fallen asleep and succumbed to hypothermia. I couldn't let this happen to me. I knew that if I at least tried to make progress along the path in the right direction I would stay warmer and be closer to help. If someone did come down the track all well and good, they would just about have to step over me and after finding me they could alert the rescue. I wouldn't even be missed at home as Jenny was away at an English Heritage meeting in Derbyshire for two days. She wouldn't realise I was missing until at least Friday evening. This made me even more determined to get myself out.

Progress was painfully slow. By dragging myself along on my rightside the friction on the ground kept pulling down my tracksuit bottoms and it was difficult to pull them up again. In the end I decided that crawling was the only other option. This meant that I could no longer support my left foot and it slumped over hanging limp at right angles to my leg. I couldn't look at it without feeling sick, so I didn't. The next 100 metres or so went reasonably well. At this point the Pennine Way had been repaired with those huge sandstone slabs taken from the floors of old mills and the boggiest bits had railway sleepers in pairs and wrapped in chicken wire laid lengthways along the path. This was a bit hard going on the knees but that was the very least of my worries.

After this initial relatively easy section the path came closer to the river and went into the scree. This was a total nightmare. One small consolation was that the scree slope was quite steep so I didn't have to crawl that much but could balance my left knee on the slope and use my right leg almost normally leaning on other rocks with my left elbow and right hand. Progress was unbelievably slow and the light was fading fast as well as the rain getting heavier. I kept looking back at the cairn that still looked depressingly close. It hadn't been long ago that I had read Joe Simpsons' 'Touching the Void' and thought that in some respects I was in a similar predicament to what he had been (even though he had been in the Andes). I kept saying to myself 'If he could do it then so could I'. I was also reminded of Doug Scotts' epic on the Ogre and his long crawl on the glacial moraine. These stories showing just how strong the survival instinct can be spurred me on. I thought that once I was through this scree and round the bend in the river the path was flat and grassy and led in a couple of miles to Widdybank farm. I had seen the farm earlier in the day from the top of the escarpment across the river and it looked very big and busy with lots of vehicles parked. If I could make it to the farm then I would be out of this nightmare.

Eventually the scree came to an end - what a relief. The path continued with intermittent stone slabs and railway sleepers. As I rested with my head to the ground I noticed a small frog hopping across the path. It reminded me that I had not so long ago scythed a frog's back while cutting our 'meadow' and it seemed like a strange sort of omen. Ahead I could see the path disappear into more scree. Surely the path could skirt round the bottom of this on the river bank? Unfortunately not, and in fact this next section of scree went on for about three or four times the length of the first. The light had now faded to almost darkness and the rain continued with varying intensity. During the heaviest spells I decided to stick my head as far as I could under the bracken for some (mainly psychological) shelter.

Negotiating the second section of scree in the dark was desperate. I was at times just feeling my way. I felt for the most polished stones and if there was gravelly patches between them I assumed this was the path. I knew that so long as the river was close to my right and I didn't go up or down too much I would be near the path. The scree seemed to go on forever. I saw a silhouette of a small hawthorn bush some way ahead  and it seemed to take an age to reach it and pass under it. I was literally rolling head first over some of the bigger boulders in the scree.

With another tremendous sense of relief the scree ended and the path reached more open ground. It must have been about 8pm by this time. The chance of anyone coming down the track now was virtually zero and I resigned myself to reaching the farm. I knew at my present rate this would take a long time but I thought I might be there by midnight. I had been feeling thirsty for a while now and my mouth became unbelievably dry. After another half an hour or so I was really desperate. I had never in my life experienced such thirst, even on climbing trips on the hottest summers day. The path was still quite close to the river so I decided that I had to get to it to drink. It was more difficult reversing out of the river than reaching down to it but I felt better afterwards. After about ten minutes I was absolutely desperate for liquid again. I hung on until a small stream crossed the track and then I could stick my head down for a drink.

By this time I was soaked to the skin. Having to have my head down all of the time (I was now crawling on my knees and elbows since I couldn't use my left hand) meant that my T-shirt, jumper and polar jacket kept slipping down my back towards my head which was aided by the strong wind. This made trying to keep some semblance of heat in almost impossible. Every time I stopped for a rest (by just lying my head on my forearms) I began to shiver violently. I therefore only rested for short periods and tried to keep moving, if only very slowly. The only compensation for being so cold was that it numbed the pain.

I knew that there would be no moon that night which meant total darkness especially with so much cloud. Luckily there was just a bit of light pollution coming from the east, probably Darlington and Teesside. In this dim light I could just see the sky reflecting in the Landrover ruts that now followed the track. Even though I was parched I forced myself not to drink the stagnant puddles that were probably full of sheep crap. My head was so close to the ground most of the time it certainly smelt as though they would be. Eventually I saw the silhouette of a wall in front of me. This filled me with a sense of hope, because I had reached enclosed land, and dread, because if it had a tied up gate there was no way I could have climbed over it. It turned out to have a kissing gate which was easy to crawl into and almost impossible to get out of. In the end I had to struggle through by lifting myself up as far as I could using my right arm and left elbow. I sprawled out the other side tripping on my flopping left foot and screamed, more out of anger than pain.

At this point I was desperately hoping to see the lights of the farm come into view. Even if they were way off in the distance it would be something to aim for. I could see faint misty lights but it was impossible to judge their distances - I think they were farms miles away down Teesdale. Suddenly on the other side of the river I saw a light, at first I was convinced it was a bright torch or spotlight, could it be a fisherman? maybe even a helicopter?. I had still been occasionally shouting for help and heard my cries echoing off the cliffs that I had investigated earlier in the day. Had someone heard me after all? After several minutes of shouting and hoping I realised that the light was from a distant car on the road over the moors between Teesdale and St.Johns Chapel in Weardale, probably 5 or 6 miles away. After that disappointment I had to keep going. I passed the silhouette of a wooden structure that I had noticed from across the river earlier and reckoned that the farm could only be about a mile away.

Some stars appeared through the clouds and the drizzle subsided a little. I could see Jupiter and Saturn high up in the south and knew that it had to be about 10 or 11 pm. In a strange way the time had started to feel as if it was going more quickly. Any lights from the farm failed to appear and other deceptive lights raised my hopes only to be dashed again when I realised that they were not really moving towards me, it was just an illusion and they were probably buildings on the Teesdale road. Eventually after a rise in the path, that had now veered a few hundred metres north of the river, the silhouette of a barn appeared. Was this just an isolated barn or had I finally reached the farm. It seemed too quiet to be the farm but I didn't recall seeing any barns on their own. I reached a metal gate next to the barn that luckily had a descent sliding latch and so I pushed it open with my right arm and crawled through. It was the farm. I could make out the yard and the white painted farmhouse but why were there no lights on? Why were there no sounds of animals or dogs? I crawled to the farmhouse door and banged as hard as I could. No one answered. This couldn't be true, there had to be someone in. I banged the door to no avail. There were two vehicles in the yard. I reckoned that maybe the farmer had gone down the local pub and may be back soon? But surely they'd leave a light on, and it was so quiet.

So I was in another total dilemma. Should I wait here for someone to turn up? Should I seek shelter in a barn and try to get warm? If I did and then fell asleep then maybe no one would find me for days? I even thought about trying to break into the house. It had glass panels in the door but it wasn't a Yale type lock so I wouldn't be able reach in and undo it from the outside. In the end I decided that I couldn't take the risk of staying at the farm and had to carry on. I was starting to get used to my hopes being dashed.

I remembered that on the map the Pennine Way left the main farm track at this point and headed south for the riverside back to the bridge I had crossed earlier. I knew however that my best route now was to follow the main track that headed for the small hamlet of Langdon Beck. If I could make it there then I should definitely be able to find help even if I just lay in the middle of the road. Luckily the gate out of the farmyard nearest the farmhouse also opened easily. I just hoped that this gate was the right one and that the proper track I should take wasn't hidden in the darkness in another part of the farmyard. I heard the sound of another stream just along the track that gave me some incentive since I was again completely and utterly parched. So I got my head down and crawled on with the thought of probably having to cover the same distance all over again.

Rests were becoming more frequent and I was getting exhausted. It would have been so easy to just stay put, fall asleep and end this misery. But somehow I just kept going. The track was now composed of sharp gravel and so as much as possible I kept to the verges. They were impossible to follow when covered in thick sedge and occasionally I went to the wrong side of a particularly dense clump and ended up in a marsh. I was so exhausted I found it impossible to reverse direction and so just ploughed through the sedge until I was back on the track. I continued on, finding it more difficult to hold my left foot up high enough behind so that I could sometimes feel it bouncing along uselessly behind me.

The track was rising gently, as I thought it should, and eventually turned a bend to the north which I also vaguely remembered from the map. However it just seemed to go on and on and on for so long that I thought I must have missed another track that headed down to Langdon Beck and maybe I was now heading up the track to Cow Green reservoir. While carrying out these deliberations the sky had brightened and I caught a glimpse of Venus through the clouds. It was almost dawn! It must have taken me about four hours to cover the previous half mile. The sky became rapidly brighter and I could see the buildings along the Teesdale road that ran parallel to the track and about a mile to the east. It still didn't seem as if I was going to end up on the road at this rate and where was Langdon Beck that surely I should be able to see from here? I was so close to turning back and trying to find another way across to the road but thought I'd just get to the top of the next rise and maybe I'd get a view of where I was. It took for ever to reach the next hill and the track just kept going. Then I remembered that the reservoir road has a metalled surface and so this couldn't be it. I therefore thought that I must eventually reach the reservoir road as I knew I had to be to its south. If I turned right along it I must end up in Langdon Beck. So I just kept going. 

A cattle grid appeared and I was convinced that I saw the reservoir road just the other side of it. Once again my hopes were dashed and it must have been an hallucination. By this time I had given up with gates if they had a cattle grid next to them and just crawled over the grid with a knee on each bar. I knew my knees had to be trashed by this time but they were so waterlogged and numb that I couldn't feel anything. Despite seeing some stars earlier the cloud had thickened again and it was turning into a typical grey, misty and drizzly day in the North Pennines. There hadn't been any streams for drinking out of for a while so I tried, fairly unsuccessfully, to suck the water droplets of the grass.

After another few hundred metres I was convinced that I could finally see the reservoir road by a group of barns. Someone would surely be going up to look at the reservoir even on such a manky day as this? Within minutes I saw a car heading down the road from the reservoir direction. The trouble was I was still a couple of hundred metres from the road. I tried to kneel up as high as I could on my right leg, stabilising myself with my right arm, and shouted frantically while trying to wave with my useless left hand that hung limply like a strange type of claw. I will never know whether they had seen me. They continued down the road at a uniform speed and disappeared into a small valley.

About ten or fifteen minutes later I was finally at the road and after negotiating the last gate on the track knew that the next car couldn't fail to see me. However I still didn't feel as though I could stop and started to crawl along the road and took a diversion down a steep bank to another stream, that was excruciatingly difficult to get back up from even though it was probably a drop of only a few feet. At that point the road took a right bend and so I wouldn't get a good view of any approaching cars. Within a few minutes I heard the sound of an engine. Could this be the one to save me? If I'd had an ounce of strength left I would have become excited. As it was I just got into my previous pose not too far into the road in case it came around the bend too quickly to stop. The car stopped and the driver got out to have a look at the apparition before him. I didn't see his expression but think it was probably one of shock and horror. I must have looked a mess. He didn't hesitate when I told him that I needed an ambulance and he tried to ring for one on his mobile. Predictably it didn't work and so he got back into his car and sped off to the nearest house which luckily was only a few hundred yards away - I had almost made it to Langdon Beck (it was now about 9am). After he had gone it was hard to believe what had just happened so I continued crawling down the road in case it had been another hallucination. After a couple of minutes he was back and this time could stay with me and gave me a drink (my throat was by now quite sore from the dryness). The lady from the house brought me some blankets and a duvet and I lay in a state of shivering incomprehension on the wet verge.

It was a godsend that an ambulance is stationed in Middleton in Teesdale and within ten minutes the ambulance had arrived. They lifted me on to the stretcher in a space blanket and slid me into the ambulance and got the heaters on. It was so difficult for me to move  that they just cut off all my wet, blood and animal crap stained clothes and rockboots (that I had just had resoled, not that I minded, or even thought about at the time). It seemed to take ages for any heat to get through, I think I was still shivering when we arrived at Darlington hospital about half an hour later. I couldn't believe the state of me - even my good arm was so waterlogged it had swollen up and looked like something that had been found dead in a river. My circulation had receded from my extremities so much that the ambulance men found it impossible to find a vein and so couldn't give me any pain-killers - not that I was in much pain since I was still completely numb.

On arrival at hospital I went straight to the front of the queue at casualty since I had been out all night. It had taken me nearly 17 hours to crawl just over three miles. A first priority was to let Jenny know where I was and luckily I could remember where she was staying with English Heritage. The staff managed to get  the number and luckily Jenny and co. hadn't left for the days site visits. I had a quick word to reassure Jenny that I was still alive. They managed to find a vein and gave me morphine and some sort of gas (that is apparently used by women in labour) while they 'pulled' my foot. While this didn't particularly hurt the sensation of grinding bone was horrible. I assumed that  this was to get my foot back onto the end of my leg. I then had x-rays taken from head to foot to check for other injuries. Luckily there were none of major importance apart from the badly fractured wrist and foot. By now I was warming up and the pain in my pelvic area returned and the left wrist became particularly painful. By the time I was heading for theatre I was pleading to be put out.

I awoke in a drugged haze several hours later (about 7.30pm) with Jenny at my bedside. After another shot of morphine I was out for the night. For the next couple of days I had to lay on my back (they were still not sure if I had cracked a vertebra or not) with my left leg and arm elevated and with various tubes entering my body at different points. I could hardly move for lack of strength and pains in my back but they reckoned that there were no serious injuries in that area which was good news. When I could finally lift my head enough to see my knees they looked fairly disgusting. As JM later commented, they looked as if they had been 'surformed'. Six weeks later one of the scabs still hasn't fallen off. My elbows took a lot less weight during 'the long crawl' and only suffered minor abrasions. My foot ended up with 5 screws and some wire in it - mainly in the Talus bone that had shattered into several pieces.

After two weeks in hospital I was due to come home. However, after taking check x-rays on the wrist and foot they noticed that the top of the arm bone that snapped off had moved and so decided to pin it into position. This meant going back to theatre and having another operation, which turned out to be the most painful experience of all. So after another week spent in hospital (luckily I had a bed by the window so I could see the world outside and watch the trees turning yellow and the moon and stars at night) I returned home to Thirsk by ambulance. This was a very strange and emotional experience after what I had just been through. It was difficult to remember what life was like before October 7th.

While I was in hospital I was overwhelmed by the kindness of people (I still am). Both the ambulance man and the guy who found me, Chris, had telephoned the hospital the night I had been admitted to see how I was. The latter couldn't believe that  the surgeons had saved my foot. Ray and Heather Sharples kindly offered to collect the van from Teesdale and brought it back to Thirsk (it has now been sold and we have an automatic car that both Jenny and I can drive - at least I should be able to eventually). Chris and his girlfriend also visited me in hospital and he had been given my rucksack and gear by some walkers (it turns out that he works for English Nature at the farm I had passed in the night) but my walking stick remains at the site - maybe I will be able to retrieve it someday. During the three weeks Jenny acted as my social secretary and made sure that I had someone to visit me at almost every visiting time. It was very convenient that our friends Phil and Claire lived only a stones throw from the hospital - this gave Jenny somewhere to stay and Phil became my pizza delivery man! Boozer from Botton Village became my carrot delivery man! (he's a farmer). Chris (an x student of mine) brought me a laptop with a planetarium programme on it to play with and Gabrielle and Ben brought me a supply of tea and digestives. Andy, Michelle and Stephen brought me a large supply of varied reading material and a dinosaur! For all of these and other gifts, get well cards and support I will be eternally grateful.

I have now been back home for 4 weeks. Yesterday was my first outpatients visit and they took off the plasters. My completely shrivelled and discoloured limbs looked disgusting and it was then that I realised why they were going to have to remove the pins from the wrist - because they had left them sticking half an inch out of my arm! They pulled them out with a pair of pliers and no anaesthetic! The next stage is some serious physiotherapy since I haven't put any weight on my leg for over six weeks (still waiting for an appointment so its a bit 'do it yourself' at present). Because I have damaged my arm and leg I have a 'gutter crutch that you lie your forearm on and put the weight through your elbow.

Meanwhile I am reading a lot and being waited on hand and foot by Jenny who is now on leave. I have managed to stagger a few hundred metres to the postbox and to friends in Front Street. I even managed to observe the Leonid meteor shower on the 18th November from about 2 - 4am. I hobbled out into the garden on my crutches and got into the reclining garden chair. Jenny then covered me in blankets, hats etc and with three hot waterbottles I managed to stay quite warm. It was a good display despite some clouds but didn't quite live up to expectations (wasn't as spectacular as last year). My next outpatients appointment is on January 4th. Hopefully there will be some progress towards regaining some semblance of fitness by then.

AND HE STILL GOES CLIMBING!!!!!!