Girls on Top

Friends and their crazy schemes.

For a significant birthday recently (yes, a pattern is evolving), my dear friend Sharon announced that she would like to climb a mountain. Our birthday weekends usually involved being holed up in a forest lodge for a few days with plenty of food, gin and hot tub dips, exercise optional.
But this was on Sharon's bucket list, so without further ado and about six weeks in which to do it all, the organising began. As plans were made, my attention was not so much on the mountain (as I knew I couldn't possibly climb up with them) but on the three hour drive there and back, the activity-heavy days and keeping myself crash-free. That would be focus enough.

Wooden lodge booked (with our compulsory hot tub) with Hoseasons in Bala Town, Snowdonia, preparations were underway.
 I began my research. I'd be taking my manual chair as there just wasn't room in the car for my powerchair so my anxiety was (quietly) through the roof. I have the dearest friends but I hate losing my independence at the best of times and since purchasing my GunMetal Grey power chair last year, and while they certainly wouldn't mind, being pushed around in a manual chair always fills me with dread.
A few years ago, on another dear friend's birthday trip,  I'd toured Belfast in my manual chair and  survived but that was before GunMetal Grey was on the scene. As they say, give a girl a taste of freedom and she doesn't want to give it up!
But needs must I thought.
Planning for the rest of the group involved power walking and running. For me, it involved researching Snowdon, the accessibility of Llanberis..

I was aware of a Snowdon train  but had all but ruled it out as I remembered the rickety nature of the wooden seats when I’d been up two years earlier with my boys and sadly this would no longer be an option. I would go and be part of the holiday but mountain climbing would not be possible.

On the journey down to Wales, Debs suggested I ring the Snowdon train office and be advised by them as I now had a burning desire to somehow say I’d been part of the climb - maybe just up to a certain point or even go up anyway and suffer the consequences!
I was informed that Snowdon also had a diesel train with wheelchair spaces which is a much smoother ride. I was saved! I booked my wheelchair place there and then. Who knew? The girl on the phone answered all my questions and I felt reassured. ‘You will go to the ball, my dear!’

After arrival at our wooden lodge, we settled in with a cuppa and made plans. We were staying in Bala Town, where the largest Welsh Cake in the world was made, certified by Guinness World Records no less. We felt that getting our bearings on Saturday and eating plenty would be our only priorities in preparation for conquering Mount Snowdon on Sunday.
All we had to focus on was us. No hungry teenagers in sight. No laundry baskets bursting at the seams. Just four girls, a hot tub and a mountain to climb.

Saturday involved a wander down to Bala Town lake, the largest natural lake in Wales. We took in an art exhibition by local artists and browsed through old LPs and musical instruments in a quaint antique fair. My team pushed me the length and breadth of Bala Town as I was (allegedly) the pre-Snowdon warm up - when I saw pics of my lovely Kay pushing me once back home I could see they had some rather hilly moments bless ‘em. But we laughed lots and built up our strength with plenty of hot tea and Bara Brith.

Before we knew it, Snowdon Day was upon us and, with our lunches packed and tin foiled, we drove up to Llanberis Pass. Misty and cool, we were unsure how much of a view we’d be seeing but as weather is something one can never predict, we were undeterred.

Once at Llanberis Base Camp, the girls set off at 10.00am in order to meet me at 1.00pm at the summit. They had read three hours was an average climb time on the route they were undertaking and my train was at 12.30pm. After waving them off, I parked up with my book, my writing accoutrements and the first of many cups of tea.

Now, at this point, since the onset of my latest health crash, I’d not been out alone and began to feel a little panicky. The prospect of being on my own at home holds no fear but where being outside is concerned I’ve swung between agoraphobia and terrified day-tripper for years held together purely with various pain medications and alcohol. This was a big step. And I was sober.
About six weeks previously, I had started a Pain Management Programme via Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, which covers a whole host of areas such as the physiology of pain, psychology, stress and coping strategies. The course has been a life saver and I’d recommend any one in persistent pain to look up similar programs nearby.

With my PMP (Pain Management Programme) toolbox in mind, I sat down and opened my notebook where my To Do List lay. I was safe, I reminded myself. I was surrounded by climbers, walkers and cafe staff. But my underlying fears started to overwhelm me and I found myself almost in tears. I’d already collected my ticket and was reassured to know one of the train staff would be on hand to get me on the train at 12.00 but I had two hours to survive without keeling over and my heart beat so fast I became light headed and thought I was about to faint.
I looked at my To Do List. Deep breaths, I read. Square breathing.

For the uninitiated, this is a PMP trick I’d learned several weeks earlier. It involves breathing in for 5, holding for 5, breathing out for 5, pausing for 5, all the while drawing four lines of a square either mentally or physically. On my leg works for me as this tends to also help ground me.

While my heat pad ebbed soothingly across my back and my extra jumper kept me toasty, I repeatedly thought ‘I am safe. I am brave. I am achieving great things today’: another great PMP tool of reciting affirmations. It may sound bizarre but it really works. I also happen to be the queen of the meme so had plenty in mind to soothe me.
I sat with my tea, calmly, enjoyed a little people watching as girls wandered by kitted out in their walking gear while sporting perfectly coiffed 1950s hair dos set with diamante clips. 




I finished my book, watched and smelled the steam trains pulling in and out and before I knew it, the time had come to board my train. I was readily adopted by a fab family from Liverpool and sat next to their wheelchair-using son Marty which cheered me. I’m happier in a crowd of wheelies that’s for sure. 
Being in my cushioned chair provided perfect suspension for my bones and allowed me to flit between chatting with Danielle, her parents Mick and Dee and watching the scenery roll out as we rose upward towards the summit.

Looking out in the wilds of mountain sheep, welsh bluebells and waving groups of walkers cannot be beaten. Yes. I would have loved to have had my walking boots on and climbed it myself but as I repeat to myself at least twenty times a day, It is what it is. You work with what you’ve got. AND THAT'S OKAY.

My Snowdon Family were preparing for a sponsored Snowdon Climb the following Sunday with seventy of their family and friends. This was for a cancer charity, a cause very close to their hearts after losing three to cancer recently. We were certainly counting our blessings after that conversation.

As we climbed higher and higher, a fairy fog descended, the stuff of Tolkien and Arthur Rackham.
'Do you know why the Welsh have a dragon on their flag?' Daniella asked. 'It's their smoky breath on the mountains. That's where the story comes from.'
I searched for a dragon or two but could only see curious lambs and their mothers peeping at through the mist.

We reached the summit and there was one of my girls, Debs, waving me up the final few feet. We had made it! My Snowdon family and the Snowdon rail staff helped me down as my sticks would suffice for a gentle wander at the top. My brain fog fitted in perfectly up here as the air is thinner and less oxygen has that effect on everybody so I was in good company. My heart beat hard and fast against my ribs my chest as though I was being rewarded with my own cardiac drum roll - I was so proud of us all! 

My girls had certainly had battled with the elements: that fairy fog I had so loved was responsible for rather wet and soggy hugs as we reunited before hot coffee and our celebratory packed lunch. I wasn't able to climb up to the very top as I had with my boys a few years before but that was okay. I was near enough. What a day. The day I climbed my very own mountain. The exhilaration and sense of achievement will stay with me always.