Back "home" again :/

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And so I breathe under a leaden sky again...

Long flights home through the loosely organised mayhem that is Kathmandu airport, Delhi airport, and finally dear old Heathrow. Both mentally and physically exhausted by the time I arrived at Heathrow so very grateful to dear friends for collection and delivery to mighty fine dinner (it's amazing how good real food tastes after three weeks of bland carbs) and bubbles - Rob, Annie - you are sanity-savers 😊

I leave behind a Nepal in a confused mess. It feels like the whole country is slipping out of its own control. I really hope the near future is not as grim as I fear it might be for Nepal and the Himalaya. I feel privileged to have been there, to have walked amongst the greatest mountains in the world but I'm not sure how much longer the opportunity to do so in the manner I did will be available. I hope I'm wrong and a way will be found to preserve the ecosystems of Sagarmata National Park for me (and maybe the odd privileged other) to visit again.

As usual when I return from a trip, I now have many more things to plan, many more things to track, many more threads to follow up, many more ideas to chase. It all makes me run even faster. There's so much of the world happening out there...I really must find a way to tell my brain it doesn't have to chase down all of it...problem is, I happen to agree with my brain on this one...

Thanks for being "with me" on this journey. Now I begin (in a couple of hours) my training regime in preparation for the ascent of Kilimanjaro in eight weeks' time.

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