Part tw0
2022
06/01/2022
It looks as if we will be starting on the 11th of July, so my sabbatical will need to commence on 4th July, just in case. It turns out that the break must be at least 3 months and I have two weeks on-call that would have been starting on 26th September, so I set my return date as 10th October 2022. I also decide to demit my Chief of Service managerial role. Our Covid recovery needs a lot of work and it is not fair for the specialities to have no support for over three months. I have also been occupying the position for somewhat longer than the original tenure. This has meant that I have become the first port of call if a surgeon is required on any Trust committee and my diary has become an unwieldy behemoth, with limited time for clinical care or my family. I do not regret the decision.
January 2022
I start telling people about the walk. Tim Leary, my managerial boss, says that it’s very brave. I’ve never thought of it like that because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for such a long time that it feels inevitable. We’re also very lucky to be financially secure even though the reasons for that are grim. I am worried about my fitness though.
21/01/2022
Today is Tim’s funeral, exactly a year after his grandfather’s. There is a private cremation and then we go to Westerham Church for the funeral itself. There are over 100 people attending and Janet’s godson has composed a piece of music especially for the occasion. The vicar taps his feet along to the Oasis tracks. I’m guessing that he is a similar age to Timothy. My mother’s cousin, Susan has come down from Manchester with her son and we finally exchange phone numbers. It's a great comfort to Janet and Philip that so many family and friends have come to celebrate Tim’s life. Unfortunately, 5 days later, Janet and Philip both test positive for Covid and feel quite unwell.
Coronavirus really is a cruel bastard.
26/01/2022
I restart Zumba, now on Wednesday evenings at Little Melton Village Hall. It’s a slightly younger group than the previous Sunday class I used to attend (now defunct), so it’s more vigorous. I have been running short distances three times per week during Covid but that has clearly had little effect. I really am not fit.
30/01/2022
Rich has gone away for the first time in over a year, this time to Nebraska. We have recently had some trees chopped down so I start transporting the logs in a wheelbarrow from our wooded area and outside our gates down the hill up to our woodstore close to the top of the hill our house is built on. It’s hard work and good training.
February 2022
Richard has put 8kg of bricks into an old ruck sack for him to wear during training walks (he is quite obviously deranged). I pack my Fly fashion boots and some thickish socks into a hessian bag and put them in my car to take to work. I am going to start practice walks round the hospital. The original plan is to do these at lunchtime, but I fail dismally at this for a variety of reasons: lack of time and embarrassment being foremost. After work though, no-one can see me and I set off along the Woodland Walk accessible from the staff carpark. It’s amazing.
There are numerous paths around the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, the Norwich Research Park and the University of East Anglia and every evening I go, I find another route to explore next time. I am soon doing 1-2 hour brisk walks at least once a week after work. I have missed out on all this on my doorstep for the last 18 years. I could even have been walking when I am waiting to do cases in theatre on-call. Why did I never do it? I also hanker after a ‘Gran Torino’ walk I have devised across all three sites.
16/02/2022
I am on-call and start assembling our kit list in earnest on The HocWalk Excel spreadsheet. I write a few things I have forgotten down on a piece of paper on top of the microwave in our kitchen. I notice later that Rich has written ‘gin’ on the list. An interesting idea but hardly a vital piece of lightweight kit! He thought the piece of paper was our weekly shopping list.
18/02/2022
Still on-call. The wind is whistling eerily along the corridors of the hospital. Storm Eunice has arrived. We haven’t finished tidying the trees that were chopped down in our garden and now four more have blown down. Still, it’s a good training opportunity once I finish my two weeks on-call.
04/03/2022
Rich is away again, this time in Charles City, Iowa. He was trying desperately to arrange car hire prior to flying out, but it all seemed very confused. There is no car hire firm in Charles City so Rich is uncharacteristically relying on taxis and lifts. Tom and I drive to Kent for Tim’s interment. The weather is cold and windy and the long-haired vicar is wearing a black cloak. The grave-digger is leaning on his spade at a distance and there is an older woman standing by. The trees are bare and a crow is cawing. It feels as if we are in an Edgar Allan Poe novel. Janet tells me that the grave-digger and the older lady are family friends who knew Tim well, but don’t want to come closer as they are clinically vulnerable, so nothing sinister after all.
20/03/2022
Rich and I go up to Cumbria as I have some leave. Tom can’t come as he has Covid and Robert doesn’t want to. Cathy is by now living in London and working as a night news reporter on a national, so she isn’t joining us either. We create an odd dinner from food out of the freezer and vow to go shopping tomorrow at least for some frozen peas for nutritional value. We are also going to climb Blencathra.
21/03/2022
It’s a beautiful sunny day; warm but not hot. We climb Blencathra via our favourite Hall’s Fell route and only meet one other person. The initial slog feels hard, probably because it’s almost two years since we climbed anything (nothing to do with my lack of fitness obviously) and the day is glorious. Causey Pikes tomorrow.
22/03/2022
Another day of incredible weather and our first foray into buying kit. I have made an appointment with Atom Pack in Keswick to sort out our bespoke lightweight packs. Dexter is incredibly helpful and really enthusiastic about our walk, probably because he has done something similar (though much grander) himself. I note that I need an extra large pack belt. So does Richard, but he has a much larger frame than I do.
We then climb Causey Pikes. We are limited for time but have another amazing half day and freshly cooked fish and chips from Cockermouth in the evening.
23/03/2022
Time to return to Norfolk, but not before we have visited Ultralight Outdoors in Teeside. I have made an appointment here too thinking we could get everything done very quickly, especially as Lois has already sorted out some thing for us to try from the kit list I sent.
They are amazing but it it’s a much more complicated process than I thought (typical surgeon). 6 hours, 3 boxes and £3483 pounds later and we’re mostly there though there are a few things still on order, in part because I am struggling to find things that fit.
30/03/2022
I have an over 50’s nurse check today. My blood pressure is up, which has never happened before and I weigh 94.5kg! The two are almost certainly related and are definitely because of failing to keep fit during the last year of the pandemic. The nurse gives me a week long home blood pressure chart, assuming that I have a home blood pressure monitor. Why would I? I’ve never had high blood pressure before. I buy the cheapest machine available and realise that I also need to lose weight.
I break the news to Richard. He comments that he didn’t think I was worried about my weight. I’m not, but I am worried about my blood pressure and my joints during a three month long distance walk. I tell him that I don’t’ know how to lose weight. He points out that I lost weight to try out for lightweight rowing at university, what did I do then? Meal replacements was the answer and, after a short and confusing internet search, I vow to ask Kelly, my other secretary (who is an expert on these matters) what are the best options.
31/03/2022
Kelly and I mull over the diet options and I decide to go for Slimfast shakes and bars as a relatively cheap and reliable choice. Another trip to the supermarket after work ensues. Over the next few weeks, I bemoan my lack of obvious progress but, with the training walks and the diet regimen, I am slowly losing weight and feeling fitter.
My week’s blood pressure monitoring is fine and I ascribe the unusually high readings to the mug of strong coffee I drank before my appointment. I still definitely need to lose weight before July though.
01/04/2022
The diet has started and so has our more detailed route finding. I regularly do clinics at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn and have expressed concern that Castle Acre is not the 17 miles away from our house that Richard says it is. Looking at the maps on the floor, I remain convinced that he is wrong about the distance, despite his usually flawless map-reading abilities.
We are not going to resolve this from looking at maps on the floor and we have been talking about doing this first day as a practice. There are, however, no buses from Castle Acre, so we decide to stay the first night at The Ostrich as planned and then walk on to King’s Lynn, where we can get a bus back to Hockering. At least then, we will have the first two days tried and tested. We decide to begin on the next Bank Holiday weekend as this will give us time to do our weekend chores first and anyway, I have that week booked as Annual Leave. To our surprise, our son Thomas wants to join us.
10/04/2022
As part of our preparation, we decide to try out the tent in the back garden. We don’t want the first time we erect the tent to be in a force 8 wind and driving rain. As ever, we learn a bit about where everything goes (it’s all colour coded) and it seems very spacious without any of our gear in it.
14/04/2022 – 23/04/2022
I continue to do training walks at work, discovering the University of East Anglia broad and various woodland walks with beautiful blue bells, both at work and in Hockering. It’s all building up to our test walk in a few days’ time.