Last year I set myself a ‘Peaks, Polaroids and Prosecco’ challenge. Admittedly, the only challenging part of it was the peaks. Drinking Prosecco and taking polaroids was easy.
I had never climbed a mountain before. I had climbed a ladder. I had climbed a flight of stairs but that’s where my expertise ended.
My energy and enthusiasm would more than make up for my lack of experience, I told myself as I looked at the enormous peak in the distance and thought how easy it was going to be to reach the top.
FYI there was nothing easy about it. I huffed and puffed, clambered and crawled, stumbled and staggered up to the summit. I wanted to give up and go back many times. I whinged and wailed that I couldn’t do it but finally I made it.
‘I’m a mountaineer!’ I threw my hands in the air, triumphant, victorious.
‘No, you’re not,’ my partner, who had been so supportive and encouraging on the way up, told me, ‘you’re a hillwalker.’
I ignored him. The lack of oxygen at the top of this 600m beast was clearly affecting his brain. I had climbed a mountain, therefore I was a mountaineer!
I felt like Sir Edmund Hillary and wished I’d brought a flag with me. Instead I took a polaroid for posterity of me standing at my first peak.
Writing my book was just like climbing my first mountain. It was challenging, tough and there were times I thought I would never make it but patience, perseverance and persistence paid off and Prosecco was popped!
Sarah T Wright 