We met walking. And by that I mean it was when we first really spent time doing something that we both loved to do. The summit of Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons, Wales in late summer of 2003 will always hold a very special place in our collective memories: it was where ‘We’ began. Continue reading
Sunday dawned deep blue and windless, a perfect combination. Closing the window and walking to the bathroom the aches from yesterday’s rapid ascent of Montana Machu Picchu – 1,850-feet in 50-minutes if you care to know – were experienced afresh. Today was therefore designated a rest day and also happened to be the final of the French Open taking place over 6,000-miles away and 6-hours ahead of us in Paris. Andy Murray would be taking on Novak Djokovic, a scenario that is currently the greatest rivalry in tennis. Murray would be playing to gain his third Grand Slam and a place amongst only ten players to have won three slams, whilst Djokovic would be playing to be the current holder of all four grand slams, a feat achieved only by a few other players in the entire history of tennis in the open era. It was also National election day in Peru. Setting my priorities accordingly we went in search of a television set that might happen to be capable of showing the tennis. Continue reading
I stared at the large sunken stone-lined bath: you could fit a whole rugby team in it, maybe even both sides. Empty now but with the lifting of two wooden gates hot mineral rich water from deep underground would race through stone cut channels and fill it to the brim. A bath fit for a king, as indeed it was on the 16th November 1532 when the Incan Emperor Atahualpa was soaking away the cares from administering to an empire that extended for over two thousand miles either side of the massive spine of the Andes in South America. Continue reading
I got my first surfboard on my 17th birthday, 12th May 1979. It wasn’t a custom made model but was what was called a ‘pop-out’ in those days. At 7-foot long, white with a long red arrow on the deck (presumably to indicate which was the front and the intended direction of travel!), it was the perfect present for a Londoner newly arrived to the wilds of North Cornwall. Continue reading
It all went quiet, the ‘Toril’ (Gates of Death) were flung open and 550-kilograms of prime Ecuadorian fighting bull charged across the freshly raked sand and into the centre of the arena. Separated from the herd and in a circular ring with no place to hide his hackles were up and everything in the ring was a potential threat. Selectively bred from Iberian cattle to possess an overwhelming urge to charge any aggravating shapes that appeared before him, everything had led to this occasion, his sole reason for being born at all, his fifteen minutes in the limelight, his time to die. Continue reading
Ashby's World 