In which Roger of
Sicily completes his daring journey home. Oh, hold on – that’s given away the
ending. CONTAINS SPOILERS. Too late.
Part 4 – The Ramp
Five minutes before we got back onto the correct route for a
671 bus, I had texted Elvira saying that if the bus didn’t speed up, I was
going to get off and walk.
Oh! The folly of impetuous youth, dear reader!
Turns out, we were stuck behind two cars that had collided
in the middle of the road.
Why is it that by the time you get to the scene of an
accident, they’ve always just managed to clear it out of the road?
Obviously, I’m not addressing that rhetorical question to
any emergency rescue personnel who may be reading. It’s more directed at the
casual sitter-and-waiter in traffic jams.
Into Rodley we headed, and I expected the worst. The road up
to the notorious Rodley roundabout (the precise
analogue of the Traverse of the Gods on the Eiger’s Nordwand) is almost
always jammed up. The road from Calverley to Greengates is always jammed too,
so I expected gridlock from this point onwards to the end of my bus journey.
“Hold on”, called the driver as we rounded the corner on the
approach to the roundabout. I think he meant it in a jaunty, team-spirity way
rather than in a literal, alarming way. But I did, just in case.
Well, the roundabout was indeed jammed – but NOT IN THE WAY WE WERE GOING!
I cannot tell you of the joy that went around the bus as we
realised that traffic was coming out of Calverley, but none was going in. If
the other passengers or myself had spoken to or looked at each other, I’m sure
we would all have shared a very special moment of camaraderie. Still, it was
implicit.
And on we sped, unimpeded by further traffic. Now that we
were back on route, we started picking up passengers – loudmouthed secondary
school gobshites mostly.
What is it about being in a school uniform and in a group
that makes young people feel an obligation to shout?
And to shout complete bollocks at that?
We crossed the border into Bradford. Friendly territory at
last. The bus pulled up and I barged past the teenage guttersnipes. “Well done”,
I said to the bus driver as I disembarked.
Part 5 – The Second
Ice Field
I had rested for about two hours by this time, and my
clothing – while hardly dry – was at least warm.
I must here take the opportunity to pay tribute to my shoes.
The standard, black leather lace-up, brogue-style ankle boot
may not be the most fashionable piece of footwear in the men’s department right
now. Especially when it has a rounded toe and a rubber sole with “Clarks”
embossed on it.
But by god they kept my feet warm and dry, no matter what I
was walking through. And as we all know, wet feet are objectively the single worst thing in the whole universe.
Those shoes are the unsung heroes to whom I must pay
tribute.
I hopped off the bus and immediately noticed a change in the
road conditions since I had boarded.
The snow was now much wetter and rain-like. The road was
covered in slush.
Oh brown slush! Child of snow and mud and sly dog poo - how
I had missed you!
The thaw had truly begun.
Thus heartened, I began the final yomp back to Casa Sicily.
Walking on snow is really quite uncomfortable. As I had
discovered while trying to haul my bike to a suitable berth, brogues afford
relatively little purchase. You are therefore forced to walk with flat feet,
splayed outward, rolling your shoulders to maintain balance and forward
momentum – in a manner reminiscent of the young Liam Gallagher.
[Facebook friends –
notice anything familiar? Yes, I am reusing status updates from last month!
ODHSNM used to be so much better...]
Back to the plot.
Are we all familiar with the thoracolumbar fascia? Also
known as the thoracolumbar aponeurosis?
Good.
Long-term readers will know that this is an area of my back
with which I have – if not outright trouble – then nagging doubts.
It turns out that this bit of muscle – which, I must say,
feels a little bit too deep to be called a “fascia” – does a hell of a lot of
the work when you’re walking uphill in snowy conditions with your feet turned
out. And waterlogged, falling-down overtrousers etc.
15 minutes after arriving home, I was unable to bend at the
waist. Two days later, the tops of my thighs and the backs of my calves joined
in.
Strange, isn’t it, how one’s muscles will often wait a day
or so before complaining about over extertion? It makes me think of that
terrible silence between the crash and the child starting to cry. The longer that
silence is, the more serious you know the screaming is going to be.
Onward and upward, upward and onward I went. By now, the
snow was pretty much just rain. I was steaming like a Grand National winner. I
kept telling myself “just get to that point then you can stop for a rest”.
I soon realised that “stopping for a rest” would result in
my entire body ceasing to function properly – which would necessitate what the
mountaineers call a “bivouac” (ie sleeping in a ditch until someone rescued
me). In the words of Gaston
Rebuffat:
“The human animal in me was unhappy”.
So I didn’t stop and on and on I went. I measured the
distance covered the next day. Two miles.
I know it doesn’t sound very impressive. But then the Eiger
is only about 13000 feet high, which is about two and a half miles. And I
walked further than that. Yes, with a bus journey in the middle, and yes, on a
slightly shallower gradient. But a GREATER
DISTANCE nonetheless.
Eventually I made it home. My children rejoiced at my
return: Roger Jr by carrying on watching TV in the living room; and Tancred by
attempting to bring me in on his side in his ongoing, screamed demand for
crisps.
Always Tancred with the crisps. Oddly, after he was bought
off with chocolate buttons, he proclaimed “I’m not crying any more Daddy” – as if
he had only just noticed. However, he started again soon after the buttons were
gone.
Part 6 – Epilogue
That evening, I took one final leaf out of the book of
Heinrich Harrer – and indeed of the many other 19th and early 20th
century explorers whose books I have been reading in recent years.
They often treat brandy as a medicine for fortifying people.
In general, we no longer use strong alcohol as a means of bringing people to
their senses – but I thought, why not? If it was good enough to get Andreas Heckmair
down the mountain, it should be good enough for me.
However, by mistake I drank the best part of half a bottle
of whisky and instead of being fortified and revived, I became even more tired –
and had a hangover on top of the manifold aches and pains the next day.
Clearly, my constitution differs from theirs in more ways than one.
Nevertheless, I did manage to get my bike back the next day.
All the snow melted overnight, as if it had never been there. Had it all been a dream?
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