But seriously, why did I decide to do this?
A few months ago Sue Harper Todd joined my yoga class at the Yorkshire Centre for Well-Being in Harrogate. We became friendly and I found out that she was the 5th British woman to have climbed Mount Everest and the first British woman to lead an expedition to the summit. She is now a life coach and motivational speaker and leads treks in the Himalayas. I immediately thought, yes, what a useful person to know, I want to do one of her treks at some point in the future.
Then, quite suddenly, I had to revise the comfortable ‘some point in the future’ timescale when I learned that Sue was taking a group to Everest Base Camp in October this year and linking up with the charity Women for Women International whose work I immediately wanted to support.
For about a week I thought about nothing else and I talked to my husband, my sisters and a number of friends about the idea. Although there were quite a few negative comments, mainly about the amount I had to raise and the time I had to do it in, they were no worse than the things I was saying to myself. And yet I still felt very drawn to the challenge.
What eventually helped me decide was thinking about how I’d feel if I didn’t do it. Flat, very flat. And how did I feel about doing it? Scared, excited, exhilarated, scared! I preferred the second set of feelings so on Monday 4th April I signed up.
