As the great Graham Chapman of Monty Python notoriety once famously said, 'Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb you know, most of it's up until you reach the very very top, then it tends to fall away rather sharply!' What has it got to do with my tale you might say? Well, stand up David Horan, the young man mentioned earlier in this blog; the young man who was planning to trek up Kilimanjaro. Well, he's planning no more! In fact, he knows exactly what Graham Chapman meant 'cos............he's only gone and done it!!! A fantastic achievement and over £1500 raised for Mencap; magnificent effort David, truly brilliant!
 

And that brings me to the first 'great movie' mentioned in the title of this blog; Gregory Peck's 1952 epic based on what Ernest Hemingway considers to be his finest story, 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'.....and could this picture be more perfect?

But enough chatter about this young show-off, let's get back to the main deal and an update on progress with my C2C training. A couple of months to go and the miles keep on piling up. Two particular events stand out during the last month. Firstly, a trip to sleepy Eastbourne primarily to feed our 'Strictly' diet with a visit to Vincent & Flavia's new show called 'Dance til Dawn' - a proper musical and well worth seeing if anyone gets the chance.

But don't think that training for the Coast to Coast ground to a halt while living it up in sunny Eastbourne. No sir, it did not! Good friend, Pete Wedgbury (who is joining us for one leg of the C2C) joined me on an 8 mile round trip trek to the world famous Beachy Head. Great weather and amazing views in an iconic location. This was my first time to Beachy Head and although it is perhaps best known, for desperate, tragic people determined to 'take their own lives', one of the most memorable views we saw was a simple, but moving tribute to the 55,000 crew of Bomber Command who had 'their lives taken from them' during the Second World War.  



As the memorial says, 'For many, Beachy Head would have been their last sight of England'. And this brings us to our next 'great movie', namely Graham Greene's classic 'Brighton Rock', with major scenes filmed around Beachy Head and with Eastbourne being used as a 'body double' for Brighton itself! Strange, but absolutely true!!







A couple of weeks later Steve Forbes and his lovely daughter Sarah came to stay for a couple of days while Steve's wife was enjoying a holiday of a lifetime in the Galapogos Islands. Nothing so grand for Steve and I as we racked up 22 miles over two days doing the 8 mile Three Locks walk and the 14 mile village walk (both mentioned earlier in the blog). The 8 miler was uneventful, but the longer trek helped with one of the key decisions for our C2C team.........Steve will not be our first aider! There we were at the half way point, enjoying a drink and a sandwich, when I managed to start choking on a tuna-mayo mouthful. While silently gasping for breath and contemplating a premature end in the middle of nowhere, Steve (rather than rush to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre), happily kept munching away on his own lunch, blissfully unaware. To be fair, I had turned my back on Steve so he couldn't see me struggling.........if I was gonna die, it wouldn't be of embarrassment!! Anyway, one last attempted swallow and John West's best was,mercifully, gone and normal service was resumed. In effect, I saved myself and Steve.........finished his lunch!

But all choking apart (geddit?), Steve and I really enjoyed the walk, but if the truth be known, enjoyed the pint at the end of it even more! A 4-5 hour walk, across extreme terrain dreaming of a long cool drink at the end and there's our third great movie, the 1958 classic 'Ice Cold in Alex'. The famous final scene with the stars knocking back ice cold beers in a bar in Alexandria, was faithfully recreated by Steve and I........in the White Horse in Linslade....how apt!!!