All being well I will resume my weekly blogs on Sunday 7 December and time permitting post a catch-up blog during the week.
If you've checking back for my weekly blog updates, please accept my apologies. Things have been so hectic the last couple of weeks I literally haven't had the luxury of sitting down to update the blog. That or my life is so boring I've not had anything happen worth blogging about. I'll leave you to be the judge of which is more likely to be true.
All being well I will resume my weekly blogs on Sunday 7 December and time permitting post a catch-up blog during the week.
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The highlight of this week has to be successfully completing the Kili-mock-jaro challenge. Not only did the 30 strong team Sandwell complete the task, but finished an hour ahead of schedule. Between us scaling the height of Kilimanjaro (5,895 metres or 19,341 feet above sea level) in around 5 hours. While not the strongest climber in the team, I managed around 20 complete ascents of the wall, contributing approximately 200 meters to the total. However far more important, than claiming the bragging rights for the most meters climbed and massaging egos, is the money raised. At the time of writing an impressive £1,599 for BBC Children in Need. A special thank you goes to my fellow National Three Peaks Challenge colleague Sue, who had a whip round in her office raising £75 and came to support us all on the day. The Portway Lifestyle Centre (where the climb took place) is a fantastic new facility for the whole community and centre of excellence for people with disabilities. In the picture above you can see see the 8-10 meter feature wall on the left. I did most of my climbing on this as its closest to rock climbing and scrambling. Which I've been known to do from time to time on my hill walks. The other wall is a full on 12 meter climbing wall which we used for traversing (going around rather up). This was far harder than the vertical climb, in my opinion, unless your into bouldering. The other wall not shown was a 12 meter vertical wall with auto belays. These don't require someone on the other end of the rope. It's automatically taken in as you climb and released to lower you safely back down when you let go of the wall. The event attracted a lot of local media coverage, with both BBC local radio and Midlands Today local TV news covering the event. Fortunately for me, most of the footage seems to have ended up on the cutting room floor, with only a few brief clips being show. As the skin hugging Lycra bottoms I was wearing don't show me in the most flattering light! Although apart from my fashion sense I appear to have emerged unscathed, other that a bruised knee and grazed elbow. I might even do a hill walk or scramble to wind down this weekend. Meanwhile back on the writing front I'm now just over half-way through the re-edit of Exiles. So hopefully a new version minus typos and grammatical faux-pars will be released shortly. I'm playing around with three or four ideas at the moment and about 10,000 words in to one of the future projects listed on my website/blog, Planefall. Blog Update Just had a severe meowing too from the cat. Before sitting down to write the blog I fed her and let her out. Then, thinking she was back in, shut the door and put my ipod on, before sitting down to write my blog. So all the while I was typing away she was sitting outside the back door caterwauling to be let back in. Not sure what the cat equivalent of a dog house is but I'm in it! It's been a mixed bag this week. My eldest daughter tore a ligament in her ankle, although it should be healed in time for her Christmas performances at Croome. The shower packed up mid-week necessitating a trip to B&Q for a replacement. Which, more by luck than judgement, aligned with the plumbing, wires, etc. of the old one, making the job relatively painless. Plus the day job has been a pain in the proverbial, so I've spent far too much time gaming to distract myself. Leading Birmingham City to glory on FIFA and getting to grips with Civilisation Beyond Earth. The latter being a very topical, given Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is in cinema's this weekend. On the plus side last weekend's visit to Croome certainly lived up to expectations. The scaffold wrap looks amazing covered with urban art. Certain sections of the scaffolding are open to the public giving amazing once-in-a-lifetime views. I can't wait for the skyline cafe to open. Hard-hat tours will also be available once the restoration work starts. Allowing the public to get up close and personal with the fabric of the building in way no one's done since Capability Brown remodelled Croome. Not forgetting my daughters fiancé who turned in an excellent acting performance in a 'A Strange Encounter'. In amongst all this I've actually managed to do some writing, mapping out another new project (more fantasy than Sci-fi this time) and continuing the grammatical revisions to my ebook, Exiles. Where I'm seriously reducing the comma count and upping the number of full stops, cutting back the number of follow-on sentences. One of the traits with which my dyslexia has blessed my writing. Still if I worried about that, I'd have never published it in the first place. The best way to deal with life is face it head on, tick as many things as you can of your personal bucket list, and worry about making a fool of yourself afterwards. Which is probably why I've signed up to the Kili-mock-Jaro climbing wall challenge next Friday to raise money for Children-in-Need. So I'll be doing some last minute training this weekend, other commitments permitting. At the time of writing we're nearly three-quarters of the way to our £1,000 fund raising target. Everyone taking part has given up a day's annual leave and clubbed together to hire the climbing wall, and other costs. So every penny raised goes to those who need it. Please support it if you can. A very brief blog as I've got a busy weekend ahead of me. Including another trip to the National Trust property of Croome. Where my eldest daughters finance is appearing in 'A Strange Encounter'. A live story telling performance that explores the many strange goings on associated with one of the trusts most haunted houses. My daughter will be appearing in their Christmas production. Which I'm sure I'll be blogging about more in the future. Its really exciting to see my family involved in this flagship project. It will also be an opportunity to admire Worcestershires largest work of 'urban art'. As part of a £4 million restoration project the building is currently covered in scaffolding and under wraps. The wrap itself has been given over to five local artists who have been commissioned to interpret Croome's rich and varied history. Like the live performances its part of a much wider project to ensure that the National Trust remains relevant and accessible in the twenty-first century. Confusingly the photo on this weeks blog has nothing to do with Croome. It was taken on route to Castell Dinas Brân (The Crows Fortress) overlooking Llangollen in Wales. Its one of those places you pass on route to to Snowdon, but seldom, if ever, visit. However with the shorter days and darker evenings brought about by the end of British Summer Time it and the surrounding hills make the perfect day trip. The tree caught my eye as it seemed a strangely appropriate image for Halloween. You can find images of the ruins of what was reputed to be wales most impressive medieval castle in the Facebook album of my walk and elsewhere on the web. Not to mention the impressive limestone cliffs of Eglwyseg that were also a feature of the walk. I find walking gives me the thinking space I need for writing and the places I explore quite often throw up some unexpected ideas. Talking of which I'm making slow but steady progress on the grammatical revisions to 'Exiles' and working on a couple of more substantial stories. So all being well work on 'Reunions' the next book in my Ark Worlds Series should begin in the New Year. |
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May 2017
RichardHiker, hillwaker, Indie author of sci-fi and fantasy. Writing a novel is like climbing a mountain; no matter how many times you do it each journey is different. Categories |