5:58, big strong coffee, in my starbucks mug from alaska, which i bought in 2012 when i attempted to climb mount denali, the coldest mountain in the world.
i say attempted, because i never summited unfortunately.
i remember the trip well, as it was my first experience of real mountain dangers.
one of our guides, a strong lean american, with thick dark unkempt hair, was to get h.a.c.e. (high altitude cerebral edema) as we got high on the mountain, which meant that his brain was swelling with fluid due to being at high altitude, and unless he got to lower altitude quickly there was a strong likelihood that he would die.
as we got him down the hill, stumbling like a late night drunk, and into the medical tent, and waited for the helicopter to air evacuate him, or as the cool kids say air evac, me and a couple of our team went in to wish him good luck, and oh my days, i have never seen anyone before or since that looked that close to death, and as the chopper rose, majestically into the air, dusting everything around it with snow, like icing sugar on a chocolate cake, i remember thinking “he ain’t gonna make it”.
fortunately he did, but our summit push was over, which taught me a great lesson about mountaineering, you can’t always get the summit, but you can still have a great adventure, which i firmly believe is everything, and a great metaphor for life.
we returned to talkeetna, and then anchorage, ready to head back to our places of origin, only before we did we had one evening and overnight to fill.
michael palij, a canadian, uk resident, and part of our climbing team had a plan.
michael was a ‘master of wine’ of which there are still ten years later only 419 in the world, and basically he knows his stuff when it comes to wine, and his palate is amazing, all new info for the party of four scruffy climbers that set out for dinner that evening to a restaurant in anchorage recommended by michael.
https://www.mastersofwine.org/michael-palij-mw
the restaurant, https://www.marxcafe.com/home a strange kind of place that looked from the outside like a detached house, and my expectations were low.
however, the evening moved through the gears rather quickly, and once seated, the sommelier approached our table, and engaged with michael, and they spoke with a passion, that two people with a shared love of anything does, and it wasn’t too long before michael was invited to inspect the marx bros cafe wine cellar.
after what seemed like ages, michael returned with a child like exuberance and proclaimed “you guys are paying for the food, and i am paying for the wine” and the rest of the evening was spent with michael extolling the virtues of every wine we had, and his unbridled enthusiasm swept us all along like a runaway horse drawn carriage, where there has just been a gunshot like in the old black and white cowboy films.
alaska was cool.
for many reasons.
and my aforementioned coffee mug with it’s moose and bear on it gives me great vibes whenever i sip from it, though as i have started to gather quite a collection of these tacky souvenirs, tania informed me that when i die she is going to put them all in my coffin, not, dear reader as some romantic gesture for me to carry my memories to the afterlife, but merely as a way of clearing a now overcrowded mug cupboard, the woman is heartless, but practical.
i digress (quite a lot)
so.
here we are again, another week closer to the 31st december, when we have set ourselves a target of raising one million pounds for bigmoose.
that’s only 169 days left.
and currently we have raised a whopping £141,275, which is truly brilliant for such a small charity, but by my calcs, leaves us £858,725 left to go, divided by 169 days, means we need to raise an average of £5081 a day.
now, that is scary.
do we still believe we can do it?
no.
we know we can do it.
we just need to believe with every molecule of our being.
if you truly believe, you can make anything happen, just watch, it ain’t gonna be a miracle, but it is gonna be a spectacular thing to observe, people power, enthusiasm and energy, and it’s going to inspire others, and it is one hundred percent going to save people from killing themselves, so if you’re reading this, we really need you, we need your help to make this happen, so please reach out, today, and join us on this adventure to create something amazingly powerful in it’s energy.
here’s what we need:
connections, to people, businesses, schools, decision makers, celebrities, influencers, anybody you think can help.
ideas and inspiration on how to achieve our goal.
your commitment, to help us in some way, we need more people on the team, wanna join?
great, sales pitch over for this week.
i haven’t really written a blog this week, i’ve just rambled, and i apologise if this seems a little discombobulated, but there is just so much going on, like the last week, which has seen so much happen, and has had us hold our bigmoose abseil, raising nearly £22k and getting 75 people down a rope, and everyone thoroughly loving the experience, even if they were dreading it before they scaled the 133ft up to come down, success.
i personally have turned 59, so now entering my 60th trip around the sun, chloe and bigmoose have been chosen as prime ministers ‘points of light’ https://www.pointsoflight.gov.uk/bigmoose-coffee-co/ which was a rather subdued event last week as bojo wrecked our parade, but still a fun accolade 😂
also, last night was, eventually, the airing of our appearance on the ‘one show’ which wasn’t as embarrassing as i’d expected, and can be found on iplayer, if you ever find yourself just struggling to sleep.
finally, our mad mad world saw us wish bon voyage to our mates craig and aimee, aka kinging - it, who are pushing each other in a wheelie bin from north to south wales, starting today, and fundraising for us, so follow their adventure on instagram at @wearekingingit
i am hoping we finish the week strong, and we have a few meetings today that could top a fab seven days, wish us luck.
finally, keep your eye on our furndraising here, i have a premonition we are gonna hit £150k today 🤞 https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/project1million
have a great week, i’ll try to write a less flaky blog next week.
i’ll be seeing ya,
blue skies,
jeff