I don’t mention my children a lot in this blog, partly because this is written for them, and partly because I don’t want to put them in the limelight, but today is my youngest child’s tenth birthday, and I’ll make an exception. Not because I want to write about the immense joy and love he and his older sister have filled my life with every day of their existence, but because the anniversary made me realise that the time I’ve had with them thus far has passed all too quickly. That made me pause and think.

If a decade can go by so fast, shouldn’t I be planning ahead for the next one? I’ve been setting out goals for the coming year for some years now, but surely the same principle should be applicable to longer term goals as well? I’ve just never really done it, because the notion seems like hubris – how can you expect to know what you want from a point in time so distant as a decade away? But to use the words of Mark Twain: “You should plan your future. You’ll be spending the rest of your life there.” And besides, as today shows only too clearly, a decade passes in the blink of an eye.

So where do I want to be in 2028? Well, still around, and of sound body and mind, first of all. Keeping fit and reading and staying active should help with that. Eating well, too.

Being financially secure would be nice. In ten years’ time I will have paid off my mortgage and will hopefully still be gainfully employed, so that should be ok. The worry is that technological or political developments render interpreters superfluous, but I’m not too concerned about that.

So assuming I’m alive and well and financially doing quite alright, what do I want out of life?

I want to see my children well on their way to being well educated with good job prospects, whatever that means in the Blade Runner era. The rest of my family are hopefully also well (with the exception of my father, who could pass away long before that), but there is little I can do to affect the latter.

I will be 57 in 2028, so resolutely middle-aged but not yet old. As I see it, I will still be living in Belgium, in the same house, as the kids will (hopefully) be coming to see me regularly if they have moved out, and might have boyfriends and girlfriends with them. Besides, there is precious little chance of retiring at that tender age, so I will have to stick around for work.

Having been single for four years I find it difficult to imagine I will be cohabiting with anyone (I may be wrong – nothing is more difficult to predict than the future, after all!). Misty will be nearing the end of her life, if she isn’t gone already, so I guess one thing I will be able to do is let my house for longer periods and live elsewhere. It would be fantastic to spend a month at a time in places like Central America, South Africa, Canada, south-east Asia, Japan…

Speaking of work, I guess I will never quit being an interpreter, but it would be nice to try something else. As I’m already spending almost as much time working for the Communications unit as I’m in the booth (and writing this blog in my spare time) clearly this is the way to go. Speech writer for politicians, maybe? I would like to take a stab at writing a novel one day, too.

I also want to live greener. Installing solar panels and becoming self-sufficient in terms of energy is part of this. Having chickens and bees, as well. If I could I would buy the empty plot across from my house and keep goats, but that takes the kind of money I don’t have. At least not now. Installing a swimming pond in the garden would help local wildlife and give me somewhere to swim.

What else? I hope I can cultivate friendships – old and new – so that people come and visit me and enjoy the garden, as having it on my own seems more of a chore than anything.

So that’s me in 2028. What about you? Will you join me? Have I forgotten something vital? What about 2038? A condo on Mars? Or fighting over scraps with a few other straggling survivors, fearing rabid dogs and killer rabbits? Time will tell.

It might sound like a Dwayne Johnson movie, but “Fast and faster” is the working title of a project of a different kind. Not a Hollywood blockbuster, but my latest challenge. Fasting.

No, I haven’t become Muslim and joined in Ramadan – Ramadan Mubarak to those who are and do! – but there are similarities. Ramadan means you don’t eat from dawn until dusk, so it’s a kind of cyclical fasting, which is exactly what I’m doing, but to a different beat.

Cyclical or intermittent fasting (IF) is supposedly very good for your organism, amongst other things because it induces ketosis – a state in which your body starts to burn reserves of body fat rather than constantly working through the latest batch of fast carbs you’ve been feeding it. I’ve tried this last year, when I lived on a paleo diet for the better part of a month, and the results were good, but it seems fasting might be an even better way to do it.

The rationale is much the same: caveman eating patterns were dictated by availability, and so we have evolved to go without food for periods of time. Modern food is anything but scarce so we tend not to, but proponents argue that our bodies actually do better with less, so I figured it was worth a try. And if I lose a couple of pounds and/or become a faster runner in the process, so much the better…

There are different ways of doing IF: some suggest going without food entirely for two days out of seven, others follow the Warrior Diet (which – cool name aside – means you eat during a window of four hours every day). I have chosen to fast 16 hours every day, giving me an eight hour window (between noon and eight in the evening) during which I eat what I want.

Why this particular pattern? Frankly, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop myself from eating even for that long, so it seemed sensible to start easy.

I was nervous about the effects on my training regime, but I needn’t have been. The first day I biked to work and back on an empty stomach (38k) without feeling the worse for wear. True, I did ensure that the trip back was timed so I could eat right after I got home, but working half a day on an empty stomach after an hour of biking wasn’t a problem.

I was also concerned about my general well-being. Fasting is about depriving yourself of essential fuel, after all. Again, I bredbent have been. If anything I feel better for it. I’m on day five of this challenge, and I feel less bloated, fitter and more focused. I haven’t checked my weight (this not being the prime reason for my trying this), but I look leaner already, my energy levels are great and I haven’t experienced any “hanger” – irritability as a result of low blood sugar – so things are looking good.

As per usual I’ll try it for a month and report what happens. Next weekend I have a 20k race planned in the morning – that’s a two hour workout without anything to eat – it will be interesting to see how that works.

I’m deep in the densest of jungles, following a barely visible track over huge granite boulders and around insidious vines. Ten meters below me the surf is crashing on the shore with ferocious force, and the skies have just opened up in a monsoon rain that renders everything startlingly slippery. I’m stuck. I also have a sense of deja vu. But the worst is yet to come.

How did I end up here? To find that out we have to go back a couple of days.

We have come to the Seychelles to dive, Miss Adventure and I. We’ve signed up with Trek Divers, one of two outfits operating out of the one harbour on La Digue, a rural island in the middle of the archipelago, incredibly scenic and unexploited.

If you think of the prettiest picture you’ve ever seen of a beach – secluded, jungle right down to the white sand, followed by turquoise waters – chances are you’re picturing Anse Source d’Argent or one of the other beaches here, as they are often featured in travel magazines.

So mornings are spent on the boat, going out to local dive sites. The diving is good enough – better than the Andaman Sea, but nowhere near as good as Pemba – and we see plenty of things: morays of all sizes from endearingly cute to scary big, snappers hiding in large schools under the many granite rocks that have been tossed up by nature to form tunnels and caves, through which we swim with our hearts in our throats.

Then there are massive humphead wrasse, octopi – always hiding in crevices, often pulling bits of dead coral on top of their already camouflaged selves, the better to become invisible – and incredibly graceful turtles, the octopus’s polar opposite, as they sometimes swim unconcernedly in our midst, checking us out with stern countenances as much as we do them, one of them even allowing me to stroke its shell-clad belly.

Further out in the big blue are reef sharks – shy, sleepy critters – and barracudas who look grumpy and a lot more menacing than the sharks. Speaking of sharks: on one dive a remora (one of those little fish that attach themselves to shark bellies) decided to try its luck with me instead, and spent the rest of the dive darting in and out between my legs, trying to find a comfortable spot. I was a bit concerned that it might succeed (especially when it tried to get into my bathing shorts!), but took great joy in the fact that I apparently move enough like a shark to fool its closest companions…! 😋

We saw dolphins a couple of times, but only from afar and whilst on the catamaran or on land – still, not too shoddy as breakfast entertainment – but the greatest sighting was a magnificent marbled ray, two meters in diametre, lying on the ocean floor covered in four of five other sting rays, taking it in turns to seek protection from their giant cousin, forming a subaquatic stack of enormous pancakes.

So we were doing well, diving wise. Back on the island it’s hotter and more humid than Satan’s anus, but as long as you’re on a bike and/or in the shade it’s ok. Afternoons are spent exploring, first the west side of the island as far as you can go – the jungle is so dense that hiking through the surf and tide is the only option after a while, but that just makes it feel more adventurous – and we trek far beyond the beaten path, discovering ever more secluded beaches as we go.

The next day we set out for the top of the island. We try biking as far as we can up the incredibly steep road, and then push our bikes, sweating more in the process than I ever have before or since, until finally abandoning the bikes and trudging the rest of the way on foot. The last fifteen minutes is nothing but jungle trail – fruit bats are our only company now, flying around in the canopy, occasionally fighting it out over a particularly choice morsel of fruit (all whilst hanging upside down) – but in the end we make it to the top and are rewarded with breathtaking views.

So it’s against this background that we go east the next afternoon. The road stops halfway around the island, so to get to the southwest you have to hike through the jungle – in fact that’s the only way to get to the fabled Anse Cocos, the one beach on the island with a lagoon – but since our other exploratory expeditions have gone well, we think ourselves easily capable of this feat. That is until the monsoon begins.

And so it is we find ourselves stuck in the jungle. We’ve had our share of misadventures (the latest one was coming close to being robbed in Marrakesh), and know that it often ends well, so we consider pushing on, but it’s too dangerous. One false move and you’ve slipped on the unforgiving rocks or stumbled on a treacherous vine – at best you get badly hurt, at worst you plummet to the boulders and the surf below. So like the main character in The Beach we give up, thwarted by the elements. We make it back ok to the road – going ever so slowly through the jungle – then set out on bikes again through the skyfall to make it home.

We’re soaked through but in good spirits, so when we encounter one of the giant tortoises that roam the island in a semi-wild state, we even stop and feed it an orange in the downpour – something which the Jurassic giant clearly appreciates! He comes at me at surprising speed and isn’t the least bit shy about taking slices out of my hand – although his aim isn’t the greatest, so I fear a little for my fingers until I change my grip to that favoured by horse owners everywhere, something which also brings the benefit of getting to experience what it’s like to have my palm licked by a bone fide dinosaur.

Our next stop is the fateful one, however, even though it doesn’t seem like it at the time. We stop by a beach-side restaurant and reserve a table for the evening. Big mistake. Although the food is good, it is also very, very bad, as we both come down with a case of severe food poisoning hours later.

Miss A gets off slightly easier, but I spend the hours of the night running shuttle from bed to bathroom with the worst case of tummy bug I’ve ever had. If it weren’t so gross and painful it would almost be comical, as my body is in such a hurry to expel the germs that I am literally performing acrobatic feats trying to make sure that both ends face the right way as they compete with each other to wring the most out of my suffering body.

All told, the bacteria eat up 36 hours of the holiday, but after that I’m back on my feet – if a little unsteady – just in time to get the ferry back to Mahe, the main island, and the journey home. It’s a(nother) shock to the system to re-enter civilisation, so we avoid it as best we can by hiking through the jungle to the top of the second highest summit in the island – no mean feat with a wrecked tummy – but I can’t help but feel that we have arrived here a hundred years too late. If only this guy could talk…!

Marrakesh. I’ve been once before, years ago, on one of my very first adventures. I had recently decided to try to pull myself together after my wife left me, and travelling on my own and online dating were two equally unexplored areas in my life, so I combined the two, sitting on a rooftop café in the medina, overlooking Djmaa el Fna, the market square, and browsed OKCupid for the highest percentage matches I could find. There was a Bostonian woman that sounded more interesting than most, so I sent off my scribblings on Marrakesh by way of introduction, not thinking there was much chance of getting a reply. Fast forward three years and I am making my way across el Fna to another riad, where the same woman now awaits my arrival.

We’ve shared many adventures and misadventures over these years, and to celebrate that it seems logical to return to where it all began. L is just back from a tour of the desert, but she has already had a run-in with the denizens of the labyrinth, a young man who showed her to the door of the hotel (all of fifty metres away) and demanded five dollars for his “service”. It is a suitable intro to this weekend, for we will get lost many a time over the course of the next two days, as the meandering alleyways and many dead ends of the medieval medina make it a virtual maze to navigate. Add to that the constant bustle and the cornucopia of trinkets and strange food and woven carpets and intricate woodwork and Berber knitware and a hundred other wares on offer, plus the insistent hawkers and street urchins – all out to get your attention and consequently your money – and you have a streetscape that is equal parts Escher and Bruegel does Baghdad.

The one thing I didn’t do last time I was here was buy lamps. Among the many, many things on offer, the Morroccans make wonderful chiselled lamps and lamp screens out of beaten copper, silver and other metals. Hidden away in a back street we find a 500-year-old funduq, or caravanserail, which is like entering Ali Baba’s cave of treasures. I know what I want, and after a long but pleasant haggling match we come away with a drop-shaped lamp each, plus two shield-shaped screens for me.

Another place we venture into is a natural apothecary, where we stock up on argan oil (made in situ by a woman seated on the floor) and other ointments and unguents. L finds a shawl purveyor in the dyers’ district where she buys cashmere pashminas at ridiculous prices, and I shop sturdy leatherbelts from an equally sturdy and leathery artisan and a knitted hat from a Berber woman in the slave market that she sells so cheaply that it’s as if slavery was still a thing.

The constant negotiations are fun if you are in the mood, irksome if you’re not, and exhausting regardless, so we divide our day up in excursions into the fray and downtime either back at base in the riad or on a rooftop café somewhere. Interestingly, since all houses have these outdoor living rooms on top of them, it’s a whole different world up here: the chaotic, labyrinthine existence of the old streets below fall away, and lush, open, contemplative one takes its place. The streets are narrow partly to keep the sun’s rays out, which of course is needed when it gets really hot, but which also makes it quite oppressive when you’re down there, especially since the blocked-out sun would have otherwise provided at least some help in navigating the winding passages. How lovely then to suddenly rise above the din and take in the Atlas Mountains and the many terraces adorned with shrubs, ornamental flowers and even whole fruit trees.

In the evenings we go to el Fna to eat at the many portable kitchens that set up shop there every night. It is a scene that has to be seen to be believed. In between snake charmers and henna artists and acrobats are dozens of mini-restaurants, all vying for your custom. You move between the stands, taking a starter of snail soup here, a main course of lamb’s head there, and maybe some halva (sesame seed paste) dessert, washed down with wonderfully spicy tea.

The second day we venture away from the main shopping districts and end up being taken on a tour of the Berber tanneries. The Berbers come down from the mountains twice per week to sell their skins (goat and camel, mainly), and then they are prepared in open air tanneries where they are scraped, soften (by being trampled in large pits filled with guano) and dyed, using various plants. It is a sight to behold, and the smell is quite powerful – although nothing like what it would be on a hot day. Besides, we have a Berber gas mask (a sprig of wild mint) each to hold under our noses, so that’s bearable. Less so is the fact that our impromptu guide again tries to impose a rather hefty fee on us for his troubles, ex post. This is after we have already been ushered into a shop where L has bought a pair of fine leather slippers, but that doesn’t let us off the hook, apparently. In the end we gave him something for his troubles (which we had planned on doing anyway), but the experience was made less pleasant as a result.

As it would turn out, that was only the beginning of our troubles. On the way back from the tanneries we got hopelessly lost. This happens all the time and didn’t really worry me. The only thing I wanted to avoid was having a kid walking us all the way, so instead I asked a shop keeper woman if she could point us the right direction. She declined to do so, but called to a young man in a shop across the road and asked him to help us. I repeated my wish to only have the direction given to me, and he gave us some, but then soon caught up with us in the next alley and started walking ahead of us whilst pointing out nonsensical facts. I didn’t like the look of that, especially since we seemed to be moving away from the more populated streets, and lo and behold, before long we were in a culdesac, and three or four of his friends materialise as if from nowhere, demanding we pay him for his ” tour guide service”. One of them quickly gets physical and tries to grab me, asking why I won’t talk to him – I merely snarl at him, demanding he get his hands off me. I’m furious, mostly with myself for not seeing this coming, and am fully prepared to fight my way out. L says afterwards that I looked ready to go berserk. Maybe that’s what saves us, or maybe it would have got us both into more trouble still, had I acted upon it. We will never know, because next my assailant tries to provoke me by calling me a woman. What is probably a mortal insult to him is nothing of the sort to me, coming from a different cultural background, and that realisation is all I need to get out of the red haze. I look around to ensure L is ok, and then stalk out of there, not even looking to see what the miscreants will do, and within a minute we are back in a bustling food market, and the only blood on the ground is that of a fishmonger’s wares.

It’s the sort of experience that can make you go off a place, but for the most part people here really are lovely. Like the women who applaud L as we go running together (something which I admit I wasn’t at all certain how people would react to), or the family of three that we end up seated next to that same evening at the Fna food stands. They let me taste their food to help me decide which local delicacy I like best (the answer is tangia, lamb and dried plums cooked in sealed crockery that is submerged into a bed of embers). Unfortunately the grand Fna-le ends on a low note, as one of the young men employed by the food vendors to get you to sit at their table suddenly confronts us and accuses us of lying for not coming to eat at his establishment. I cannot even say that I remember having spoken to him before – there are so many of them, and for the most part I try to ignore them – but he gets more and more upset, finally telling us to “go home, we don’t need people like you in Morrocco!”

And so we do. It’s a sad ending to the adventure, which has had more than its share of ups and downs. The maze has one more trick up its sleeve, however. The next morning sees the Marrakesh marathon coincide with my departure. I have asked several times in the riad if this will impact on my travel arrangements, and been assured repeatedly that it won’t. But as I try to leave for the airport, we don’t get five minutes before traffic is first diverted by, and then comes to a complete stop as a result of thousands of runners blocking our way. 45 minutes of nervous waiting later I decide that I can’t risk it, and get my bags out of the back of the taxi, get directions from the driver (who isn’t charging anything for that or any other service) and set off on foot towards the airport, running against the steady stream of marathoners. In the end I make it with time to spare, and the driver even catches up with me right outside the gates, and takes me the last three hundred meters to the departure hall, so my very last impression of the country is a positive one, after all.

I write this blog because I enjoy it, and hopefully it can be entertaining for others to read as well, but it’s meant more than that. Last year I got a job in communications principally because people at work had read it and liked what they saw. Gratifying, to say the least!

So I’ve been conducting interviews and writing about what goes on in my work place, but this autumn I got to do something really special: I was put in charge of writing a movie script for an infomercial – a task both daunting and exciting, as I’ve never done anything like that before.

The brief was to sell my organisation as the go-to-place for big conferences and similar events. And while it might be a little too American-action-movie-trailer-y for some*, I really like how it turned out. Hope you do, too:

As you may have noticed, I ended up doing the voice-over narration as well, which was fun. That inspired me to do a commercial of a rather dissimilar nature – for my application to go on the Fjällräven Polar expedition**. It’s a different beast altogether, but I think it is rather sweet. Here it is:

So in one month I’ve done two whole movies (and never mind that they’re two minutes each)! Writer/director/narrator/animator would look good on a business card, wouldn’t it?

Joking aside, I don’t know that movie making will be a regular feature in the future, but voice acting I could see myself doing more of. The reviews are in, and they range from “sexier than Morgan Freeman” to “laglag malawal”, which is foreign speak for “underwear-droppingly good” (or so I’m told), so maybe there’s a sideline to be had in that department? 😄 A dear friend has already said she would scout the market for me.

Maybe I should add that to my list of challenges for next year…?

* On the other hand, my kids lobbied hard for Deadpool to have a cameo – just goes to show you can’t please everyone.

** If you’re reading this before 14 December there’s still time to vote – what are you waiting for??

Recently I wrote about my dream job. Well, today I signed up for a dream trip. Or applied, at least. You see, the clever marketing folk over at Fjällräven have an annual event they organise, where anyone thus inclined can try to get picked to go on a polar expedition. It’s a cunning way to get people to do your advertising for you, of course – much like I’m doing right now – but it is an extraordinary adventure, too.

The lucky ones get to travel through 300 kilometres of arctic wilderness using dog sleds – not only riding along, you understand, but learning how to handle the dogs and the sled, sleeping out under the stars, equipped with the very best Fjällräven has to offer.

Some might view this as sheer hell, of course. I see it as a fantastic way to fulfil my ambitions of challenging myself, experiencing extraordinary nature and meeting people and learning about things I would otherwise never encounter.

There is a snag, tho. They pick the participants based on their popularity, so if you want me to go to Hell/have the time of my life, you can help. Vote for me here. Then copy the link and send it to all the people you know and blackmail them into voting, too, and you might just get to see me do my finest eskimo impression. So you see, there is something Inuit for you, too…!

I came to Sweden this week hoping to continue braving Bergslagsleden, a trail I began hiking earlier this year with my brother. Alas, it wasn’t to be. His back was giving him trouble, and sleeping out in tents when temperatures drop to -4C at night was unlikely to make him better. So we decided to postpone that adventure and go hiking in Sodermanland instead. 

We poured over detailed maps, setting a route. There were a couple of restraints. We’d only do day trips, and we wouldn’t go too far from mom’s place, as we were dependent on her to get us to our starting points. 

The first day we decide to hike around Långhalsen, a lake in the vicinity that is famous for having manors and stately homes all along its shores. The reason for this is simple: the lake forms part of a chain of interconnected waterways that can take you all the way to Stockholm, and in medieval times that route was much easier to traverse than any roads on land, so naturally noble families – landed gentry – established themselves along such waters. Today, their descendants still live there, like Count Falkenberg of Lagmansö, whose ancestors have held this seat for hundreds of years. 

We set out in gloriously crisp autumnal weather – the air so clear it feels as if you could reach out across the lake and pick an apple from the count’s orchards, and the low November sun lending an aura of cold warmth to every leaf it touches. Not a single indigenous tree here has any red foliage (so I can’t fuel my autumnal addiction) but the copper and silver and gold on oak and ash and birch more than make up for it. 

The landscape is varied agricultural land, rolling hills and the lake ever on our left, as we walk into the rising sun. It’s eerily still, the water a perfect mirror image of the opposite shore. It’s also utterly devoid of people. If it weren’t for the occasional krrp of a raven or the fleeting movement of a disappearing roe deer it would be like walking inside a water colour. 

We pass several great houses, one of them an exact copy of a manor as it would have been constructed in the early 18th century, another one – Ekenäs – the former home of one of our own ancestors, before he went and willed it to the state, the silly bugger. 

There is a Viking grave field right at the opposite end of the lake that would have been nice to stay and inspect a little closer, but by this time we have realised that we have misread the map – instead of a 16 kilometre round-trip it will likely be something like double that – so we press on, well aware that sunlight is a rare commodity here. 

We make it back 45 minutes after sundown. I had forgotten just how pitch-black it gets in Sweden at this time of the year! The pale moonlight is enough to show us the outline of the road when we’re in the open, but once in the enclosing folds of spruce and fir there is nothing you can do but trust your instincts. It’s a special experience, and the fact that we are 30+ kilometres into this first day does nothing to take away from it all – quite the contrary, especially when met by hot food and a warm shower. Or at least that’s how I feel. 

Unfortunately, my brother’s back and feet aren’t improved by this shock treatment. The next day he has to stop after an hour, as he’s limping badly. I continue on my own, but it seems everything that was good yesterday has turned bad today: the weather is a drizzly gray, and the landscape seems drained of colour. 

Worse, the area I’m hiking used to be an old mining community, and even though almost every trace of it is gone, the crofts and tenant farms I pass all look like they are inhabited by the kind of white trash you’d imagine would linger on in a ghost town – every farmyard is strewn with rusting pieces of machinery, every torp has a half-finished porch, whirlpool or similarly incongruous feature bolted on to it, old cars and broken toys litter their yards – it’s a sad sight. 

Closer to home is prettier, so next day I set out on foot from my parents’ place. As I’m on my own, I ditch the backpack and run instead. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but never really did: just run down whichever path I happen to chose, discovering the land as I go. It’s lovely. I end up following a horse trail – Ridled Sormland – that we’ve touched upon on our walks, and it takes me on beautiful back roads, through forests, past lakes and a reconstructed Stone Age village (and even a small nature reserve that I never knew was right at my parents’ front door!). I go for nearly 20k before finding myself back for a late lunch. Not a bad way to go exploring!

After lunch my brother – despondent over his ordeal – decides to head back home, so all hope of continued hiking together is lost. I go with him to Stockholm and spend a couple of jolly nice days meeting friends, and go on another long run – this time around a very pretty Djurgården, which used to be royal hunting grounds, marvelling at the romantic 19th century wooden houses that dot the island, so rural in the middle of the capital – but it’s not quite the same. 

Maybe spring will be the season when we finally do the rest of the hike. Time will tell. Now all I want to do is go home be with the kids, and prepare for my last adventure this year, which won’t entail much hiking at all: learning to paraglide in Andalusia. 

So there’s this job… travel writer for the New York Times. I don’t think I can imagine a cooler assignment than travelling the globe for a year and writing about the places and people I encounter. 

But first you have to get selected, right? And with 2,500 or so applications in the first 24 hours, it won’t be easy. The brief is to write 500 words each on “What themes would you like to explore during your travels?” and “What’s the most interesting place you’ve been and why?”. I figured it was an interesting challenge in itself to answer those questions comprehensively and clearly, and since they are both themes in keeping with this blog anyway, here are my attempts – do let me know what you think!

What themes would you like to explore during your travels?

I started writing about my journeys as a way of leaving a legacy for my children – this is my small contribution to making the world a better place. And so the themes I would like to explore during my year of travels are the ones I habitually look for on my own journeys: pristine nature, exotic culture, physical challenges and unlikely encounters. 

I am a nature lover by nature. In fact I believe we all are. Nothing mankind has created can compete with the breath-taking grandiosity of the Himalayas, the intricate beauty of a coral reef, or the sheer complexity of an ordinary autumn leaf. I’m not a religious person, but natural wonders bring a sense of awe to me that naught else can. 

That’s not to say that humanity’s endeavours do not mesmerise me; expressions of human ingenuity regularly have me humbled and baffled, particularly examples dating back thousands of years. The Stone Age temples on Gozo, the Incan grass bridges, and the hand-hewn Guoliang tunnel are all astonishing feats of fearless engineering carried out in an age we tend to think of as unsophisticated – to encounter such proof of our species coming together for the greater good never fails to inspire me. 

Pushing my body to its limits is for me a way of feeling even more alive. I train to be fit, in order to live long and healthily, but in doing so I have found a new way of exploring my world: whether it be by running the length of Hadrian’s Wall in a day or travelling by dog sled across the frozen wastes of Lapland, whether kayaking in the mangrove swamps of the Dominican Republic, climbing the Alps or hiking the Appalachian Trail, I have found that overcoming your own perceived limitations not only brings a sense of achievement and a heightened awareness of our surroundings, it is also a fantastic way of meeting people. 

That last piece in the puzzle is the most elusive one: you obviously cannot plan chance encounters, but you can put yourself in situations where they are more likely to occur. And so I favour travelling alone and to places outside of the more well-trodden paths, as I find people to be more willing to interact with strangers that way. Outside of our comfort zones we are sometimes, paradoxically, more open to others than we would otherwise be. Would I have met a telenovela actress in her native Argentina, or a Latvian porn star in Tallinn? Unlikely. But on a tropical island off the coast of Africa, and in a beer hall in Bavaria those meetings happened effortlessly. I learnt that the former wanted to be a psychiatrist and the latter an author of children’s books. That, too, is the wonder of discovery.

They say travelling broadens the mind. Not all people can have that experience first hand, unfortunately, but I want to take my readers on a trip every time I put pen to paper. 
What’s the most interesting place you’ve been and why?

My latest trip was to Amsterdam last weekend to run the marathon. It didn’t require a passport. Pemba did. To me it was the perfect trip, embodying everything I want when travelling: pristine nature, exotic culture, physical challenges and unlikely encounters.

Unlike its famous neighbour Zanzibar, Pemba is devoid of tourism; its obscurity one of the reasons why it’s home to the best diving in the world. 

As you descend into the blue, you arrive in a different universe. There are fire corals, like glowing lava, cream-coloured porcelain corals, orange staghorn corals, corals shaped like trees and pink fans and black chimneys and yellow bubble baths and sponges and a hundred other different shapes and sizes and hues, nearly every one of them favoured by different species of fish. Never have I dived in such perfect waters, in such a rich flora and fauna. I surface with an enormous grin on my face. 

In the mornings we go diving, after lunch we go exploring. We traverse the jungle and see silk monkeys and crested hornbills (think Rowan Atkinson in The Lion King) and flying foxes, we paddle along the coast and in mangrove forests – the trees look like giant spiders, and the volcanic rock walls are alive with hundreds of crabs, clambering along the razor-edged volcanic overhangs.

When I go running I have a continuous chorus of children calling me. They shout “bye bye” by way of greeting, and laugh and stare, obviously thinking me a very strange sight. Once we pass a group of serious-looking young girls in beautiful scarves and dresses, and I blew them a kiss. The fact that child marriage and polygamy are allowed is difficult to comprehend for a westerner, and for a moment I was worried that I might have committed a serious faux-pas, but it resulted in an explosion of giggles. Even the adults seemed pleased, much like I expect they would have if a monkey had performed a particularly good trick. It’s a strange feeling to find yourself part of a tiny minority, and quite the eye-opener.

We spend one last day on Zanzibar, in Stonetown, a place that will forever live in infamy as the biggest slave market in the world.

Having been taken across the sound to Zanzibar the traders would cull their stock, throwing the weak ones off the ships to drown rather than having to pay duties for them. The cargo would then be incarcerated in tiny, overcrowded cellars underground for a couple of days to weed out all but the strongest, who would finally be taken to the market to be inspected, bought and sold like so much cattle that their new masters could then take to all the corners of the world, for – lest we forget – this was a global commercial endeavour. It beggars belief. 

And with that sobering reentry into civilisation, plus a parting gift of torrential rain and ditto diarrhoea, Zanzibar speeds us on our long way home. 

I never thought I would find my dream job, and then this morning it found me. In a newsletter from the New York Times. 

They are looking for a “Writer At Large”, and boy, would this job live up to the title! The newspaper has a feature called “52 places to go“, and the job would mean exactly that: for an entire year, the person picked would pack up and go to a new place every week, and report back on the experience in writing and on social media. Sound like someone you know?

The ideal candidate should have a well-worn passport (✔️), having traveled to several destinations (✔️), have documented travels in writing, social media or elsewhere (✔️), have prior experience at a media organisation (✔️), and be able to commit to a whole year (…might be a stumbling block, but what the hell!).

So now the task is this: write 500 words on the most interesting place I’ve been and why that is, and 500 words on the themes I’d like to explore during my travels. Send it off together with samples of my social media writing (that would be this blog) and other credentials, adding crossed digits and allow to simmer at low heat. Easy as pie, right?!

Eh… maybe not, but it would be a genuine once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I’m gonna do it anyway. I’ll keep you posted. 

My credo for the last couple of years has been to either go on an adventure or set myself a challenge every month. Now, in terms of physical challenges I had already run marathons and even a couple of ultras, so the question was what to do to take it to the next level in 2017?

A triathlon seemed the logical step – and a half length Ironman seemed about right. Combining swimming and biking and running in a course covering 113 kilometres, an Ironman 70.3 is something that could challenge anyone, but to me it was a daunting proposition for a couple of specific reasons: I’ve never learnt how to crawl properly, and I didn’t have any experience with road bikes – both fairly essential skill sets to triathletes…! 

But then it wouldn’t be a challenge if it weren’t slightly intimidating, would it? And so I signed up for the Luxembourg Ironman 70.3 Remich-Moselle triathlon, happy in the knowledge that I had five months in which to prepare. Well, fast forward five months and I still haven’t learnt how to crawl, and I’ve used my new bike a grand total of three times… and yesterday was the day. 

Here’s what happened:

First impression when I arrive at Remich? These are some seriously athletic people. They look like they eat marathoners for breakfast. It’s hard not to descend into homoerotica when describing these men (and even the women look like men!) – suffice to say even oldtimers look like gray-haired terminators. Or possibly these grizzled fellows are still young, and this is what too much triathloning does to you?

Second impression? These are people who take their kit seriously. Most bikes look like something Batman would be happy to cycle around Gotham on, if Bats was into eco-friendly neighbourhood policing. They might have heat-seeking missiles on them, for all I know, and a bat fax hidden underneath the saddle. 

Overall, the level of logistics involved is slightly bewildering to a simple runner like myself. There are bikes to be checked in, red bags for running kit, blue ones for biking (I’m not sure if it’s purposely done to be (R)ed for running and (B)lue for biking, but it would explain the (W)hite bag for afterwards, when all that’s left to do is whimpering…). 

Queuing up for the start, I look out across the Mosel river and a sea of neoprene-clad racers, nearly all of them in black, and already sweltering, because it’s proving to be a very warm day. Thankfully, in spite of the heatwave that makes this quiet village in Luxembourg feel like an outpost of the Serengeti, the organisers have dispensed with the traditional wildebeest-start for this event (where everyone stampedes into the water at the same time, turning it into a churning cauldron of thrashing limbs). This means I’m able to get in line at the very end – in the 50-60 minute bracket – where my breaststroke won’t upset anyone. 

Even so, once we get in the water there are other athletes who are clearly not too good at crawling, but who don’t let that fact stop them from zig-zagging back and forth along the river. I’m quite happy to actually see where I’m going, as in the end that proves rather useful, allowing me to take the shortest route from buoy to buoy, and avoiding detours into Germany. 

I think I did quite well considering this was my first attempt at competitive open water swimming, but I have no way of knowing, because when I stumble out of the water and jog into the transition area I realise my Garmin hasn’t recorded anything. Drat. 

Pulling off my wetsuit and grabbing all my biking kit I laugh a little at a piece of advice I got off the Internet. I piously took a picture of my bike when I had parked it and memorised the surroundings to be able to find it today, but since I’m one of the last to enter the T zone I can easily spot it from a hundred metres away. 

And so I hop on my bike and set off. The biking part is the great unknown for me. I haven’t done more than 18k in one go on this bike; I’ve only owned it for two weeks – and ten days out of those it was in repair back at the factory, since it fell apart on my third outing and nearly killed me, due to an assembly mistake – so there is no way of knowing how this will go. 

As it turns out, I’m in for a pleasant surprise. The first 35-40k are along the Mosel river, first upriver all the way to the French border, then down again – and I average 30kph, which is considerably faster than I had thought possible. Then it’s inland and hilly, ridiculously pretty countryside, but even the longest, steepest uphill stretches feel eminently doable, and I pass quite a few athletes, in spite of my being unable to get at the energy bars and gels I have brought along. (Note to self: flip belts do not work well when biking!) 

Before long, I’ve done more than half, and then suddenly it’s the last 20k, which are either downhill or flat, and I’m flying back into Remich for the last transit. 

As I get off the bike, my legs object loudly to doing anything but pedal, but that was expected, and once I get out of the T zone, they know what’s expected of them. Running, at least, I know how to do. Ironically, that almost proves my downfall. 

Muscle memory dictates what speed I’m going, and that means I am going fast. Way too fast. The first kilometre flies by at 5:05, the second at 5:15. I have to make a conscious decision to reign myself in before I bonk. Quite beside the fact that I’ve been exercising for four hours plus already, its gruellingly hot, 28C in the shade, and precious little shade on offer. 

But once I’ve made my peace with this, and don’t treat the running as if it were a normal half marathon, it becomes surprisingly easy. The run is made up of four laps, each one taking you tantalisingly close to the finish before throwing you out of Remich and down along the river once more to collect another bracelet (one per lap), downhill on the way out, uphill on the way back. 

Around me, people are suffering, throwing up, groaning as they attain to keep running. I take a different approach: I walk when it feels hard, stop to help a couple of people with cramps (salted raisins – work like a charm), and run with an easy gait for as long as it feels good. It won’t be my fastest half marathon, and I won’t meet my goal of making the run in under two hours, but I feel great. I even have enough energy left to show off a little on the finish line (which sadly, since it was only a live feed, you will never see!) before collecting my first triathlon medal. 

My main ambition was to finish the race at all, and my hope of coming in under seven hours I managed with quite some margin, at 6:22:59. Can I improve upon that? Sure. Give me a year of actually training with a bike and some lessons in crawling and I will knock another 23 minutes off that time. More importantly, am I happy about having become (half an) Ironman? Affirmative, Jarvis. 

Death and beauty in Tiveden.

Bergslagsleden is a trail that goes straight through the heart of Sweden. It also happens to pass through one of the last areas of true wilderness in the southern half of the country, Tiveden forest, making it a worthy candidate to follow in the footsteps of the wonders of Slovenia and Mallorca.

On those occasions we rented places to stay and made day tours, but this would be something else: we would start at the southern-most end of the trail and hike northward, bringing all the kit and food we needed along on our backs. Quite another challenge, and one – it would soon become apparent – we had very different ideas about what it would take to tackle. 

I arrived in Sweden on Monday, and met up with my brother at my parents’ place. I felt well prepared, having collected gear for this kind of expedition for almost a year, finding the right equipment one item at a time. My brother on the other hand had seen a cobbler that morning, seeking advice on how best to glue the soles back on his walking boots(!).

In the car to the trailhead he was in the back, performing the equivalent of an appendicitis operation on his shoes. To say that I was stressed out about this would be an understatement; if he couldn’t get them in working order, the trip would be over before it had begun. 

He also hadn’t brought a tent, so the first night we shared Big Agnes between us. It was cold, considerably more so than the forecast had said, and I was lying there fully clothed in my sleeping bag, unable to sleep – you see, my brother snores. A lot. If snoring had been an appreciated art form, like, say, opera, my brother would have drawn crowds like Pavarotti. As it was, I was the only one to hear what sounded like a buffalo mating with a seal.

At one in the morning it started to rain. The weather forecast had specifically said there would be no rain! My brother roused himself long enough to ask me to bring his freshly glued shoes inside the tent. And so, with the rain competing with the snoring over who can assault my ears the most, the fumes from the glue finally had me drifting off to sleep. 

The next morning brought glorious sun and clear blue skies, however, and Anders’s shoes looked well enough, so we broke camp and set off, eager to start our journey into Tiveden.

Tiveden, literally the Wood of Tyr*, god of war, or the wood of “Tiva”, the gods, in Old Norse, is a forbidding place. The inland ice that covered Scandinavia 10,000 years ago deposited so many erratic boulders here as to create a landscape that was difficult to traverse and impossible to tame, and thus it has remained a wilderness, a forest untouched by modern forestry, and a refuge for wildlife. 

Now it’s a national park and a national treasure, but it used to be place people feared to go; wild animals were a real threat, and stigmän (literally “path men”) robbers would ambush any merchants and pilgrims foolhardy enough to travel without sufficient guard, only to melt back into the dark woods again on hidden trails. On top of that, local lore has always populated the area with a plethora of trolls, giants and other scary critters, so it’s small wonder the area was shunned as far as possible. 

We made it through the park unscathed, however, touched only by its natural beauty. We stopped to have lunch on top of Trollkyrka, a fortress-like accumulation of boulders deep in the heart of Tiveden, where Norse gods were allegedly worshipped for centuries after Sweden was officially christened. It’s easy to imagine blood sacrifices taking place here at night, the ancient trees standing sentinel in the dark around the bare rocks under a starry sky, flickering torches lighting the scene as the old gods are given their due. There were a few American tourists around, and it’s tempting, but we restrained ourselves…

At the end of the day we make our camp at a tärn, a forest lake, that is as picture perfect as is imaginable. The camp sites along the trail are all equally well placed, and kept in beautiful repair: timber bivouacs with ample firewood for the campfire, a clean outdoor loo and almost always overlooking a lake. 

Feeling hot and sweaty we brave the cold, black water, and here things could have taken a turn for the worse. The plankway leading across the moss that encroaches the waters is slippery, and Anders loses his balance and sinks waist deep into the bog quagmire. Luckily he can pull himself up, but he’s hurt his knee, which means our expedition is threatened yet again. 

The author doing his best John Bauer-troll impression.

North of Tiveden national park Tiveden forest still continues unabated, if slightly less wild. We pass Tivedstorp and Ykullen, picturesque old villages deep in the forests, still intact, still remote. Legend has it that the area was first populated when famine threatened the local kingdom and the king ordered every tenth family to be executed to save the others. His queen – who was apparently a little less brutal, or just more cunning – convinced him to send the unfortunate families to settle on the outskirts of Tiveden instead. Apparently doing so was seen as tantamount to a commuted death sentence; gives you an idea how hard life must have been here back in the day…

The third day we enter the borderlands between the ancient kingdoms of the Svea and Göta tribes. Here, the inland ice sheet has left a shingle ridge that rises sharply above marshlands, forming at once a natural bulwark and a road across the boggy surroundings. This natural feature meant that any attempt to invade your neighbours this way was almost certainly doomed, but that didn’t stop either tribe from trying, again and again. In more peaceful times the ridge was part of a well established path for monks and pilgrims and other travellers, particularly appreciated since it offered a natural vantage point from which to spy dangers from afar. I read this on an information signpost before climbing the ridge, and I hadn’t gone ten metres on it before I almost stepped on a snake. So much for that theory!

After the bog lands we enter an area of commercial forestry, which is considerably less pretty, but we have a lot of fun anyway, sharing woodsman tips. I’ve been reading the excellent Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs, so we test various tricks to tell directions using trees (it seems the trees haven’t read the book though, because they are rubbish at it!), and my brother – who knows a lot about plants – points out various edible things along the way; so many that I begin to feel there is nothing in the forest that can’t be brewed as a tea. 

Thankfully we don’t have to put that theory to the test, because when we reach the end of the day, my old classmate Jessica – whom I haven’t seen in 25 years but who tipped me off about the trail (hooray for social media!) is there with her husband Per, waiting to take us in their car past this uninteresting stretch and into more pristine forests 20 kilometres to the north. 

We stop at another campsite that looks as if it belongs in a fairytale, and – glory be! – they bring out a cooler full of marvellous brioche, Brie and beer! It was a feast and an evening not soon to be forgotten; the years fall away, and it’s as if a month has past since last we saw each other, not a quarter of a century.

If it’s all the food we ate or the fact that the bivouac faces due east I don’t know, but the next morning I wake at four and watch the sun rise. It’s a lovely experience, but my timing is crap, because this is the day when we need to hike the longest by far – 32 kilometres. 

We set out by eight and it takes us ten hours, but then we do stop to explore the caves in Fasaskogen (literally the forest of horror) where local lore has it the giant Diger lives, and have lunch in an abandoned mine, where centuries old graffiti tell of miners – real-life troglodytes – long gone. 

By the end of the day I’m very, very tired and the soles of my feet are hurting to the point where all I want is to cool them down in a lake. Two kilometres before we reach our campsite we pass a moss, and the plank-ways we balance on sink into the ice cold waters, utterly submerging my feet. I try to tell myself that if I want to see the glass (and my shoes!) as half full rather than half empty I had been wishing for a way to cool my feet – I just didn’t imagine them to be in my shoes as I did so! Another woodsman’s trick – this one from Ronja the Robber’s daughter – sees me picking dry white moss that I stuff into my shoes. They dry up very quickly. 

And so we near the end of our hike. One last glorious sunset, one last meal cooked on the Primus – Anders goes all out with linseed patties, minced meat and grilled vegetables, and a family of four earns its place in the hikers’ pantheon of unsung heroes by offering us a beer each – and one last night spent playing hide and seek with the midges, before we make our way to the end of the trail. For now. You see, we did 105km but Bergslagsleden in its entirety is 280km, and finishes near the part of Sweden where we grew up. We’ll be back, braving Bergslagsleden again.
—–
*Of Tyr’s Day fame – or Tuesday, as it is more commonly known.

I said at the beginning of the year that I hoped 2017 would be a year of wanders. Well, I’ve already done one walking holiday, in Madeira, but next week my brother and I are thru-hiking part of Bergslagsleden in Sweden, and fending for yourself 24/7 is a different proposition altogether. To put it differently: for extended hiking you really only need one thing. Gear. Lots of it. 

So I figured I would put together a list of all the gear that I’m bringing with me on Bergslagsleden next week. It’s my first attempt at this, meaning chances are there will be things that are superfluous, or that I should have thought to bring but didn’t. We’ll see. 

(Oh, and all the links are to Amazon.com in case you want to find out more about a given product. If you were to buy anything using those links I get a percentage (without it costing you more) but I’d recommend snooping around for better prices. ?) Here goes:

Backpack. Osprey Atmos 65. A wonder of comfortableness, even when filled to the brim. And it will be.

Tent. Big Agnes. Interesting name. She is surprisingly light considering her volume, and easy to get up, down, into and out of. ‘Nuf said. 

Sleeping bag. Marmot Trestles 30. A bit of a conundrum, this. I can’t sleep in tight sleeping bags, but this one is huge. Will bring it if I can figure out how to get it to fit into the backpack, otherwise I will have to make do with one of the kidlets’.  

Sleeping mat. Therm-A-Rest. Comfortable and light, but squeaky and takes a bit of time to inflate orally. Had I known I might have sprung for another model. 

Clothes. Arcteryx shell jacket. Two pairs of running socks, two t-shirts (one with long sleeves), one pair of shorts, one pair of Arcteryx trousers – yes, I love Arcteryx, and no, I’m not bringing any underwear. I’m going commando. Seems fitting, no?

Shoes. My trusty Saucony Xodus. If they could carry me 90 kilometres in a day for Ultravasan, they will do here, too. 

Water kit. Camelbak 1.5l bladder (for filtered water) and LifeStraw, which proved its salt in Sardinia (to filter water). 

Kitchen. PrimusLite+. Gas canister. Spork.

Food. Mountain House ready-made freeze-dried bags of assorted meals, 12 portions. Brother is bringing home-made versions of the same. Figured we’d get by on this if we bring a sausage or two, plus stop at a couple of hostels on the way to have real food. Home-made energy bars. Oh, and instant coffee – gotta have a start engine!

Electronics. IPhone 6 with downloaded maps and information about the trail. Garmin Fenix 2.0 for recording our passage. Doubles as compass. Spare battery. Cables. 

Small essentials. Matches, two boxes. Toilet paper, one roll. Ecological soap, 100ml. Sunglasses (cheap ones bought in Mallorca – if they sufficed there, they will do in Sweden). Contact lenses, five pairs. Ibuprofen. Anti-chafing bandaids. Small super-absorbant towel. Anti-bear pellets. 

And that’s about it. I worry that I might have forgotten something trivial yet fantastically necessary. We will soon see, I guess. Until then, happy trails!

January 15

I dived a lot as a young man. Went to the Red Sea and had some fantastic experiences, and then… Nothing.

For years I didn’t dare go diving for the sake of my ears. I have tinnitus, and it’s difficult to cope with as it is from time to time, I don’t need more of it, and so that fear – and the fact that my wife wasn’t overly keen – made me try to forget diving, but I couldn’t. And so last year in the Dominican Republic I decided to give it a try, and almost ended up swimming with a humpback whale.

With this in mind, I knew diving would be one of the things I did this year. But it’s not advisable to just suit up and jump in the ocean like I did in the DR, so I figured I needed to try my gills in a more controlled environment. Luckily, Brussels is host to Nemo33, the deepest indoor pool in the world.

And so I found myself entering a crowded foyer this Saturday morn, jostling fifty or so Belgians who had had the same idea as me. It was a quarter to twelve and I was on a tight schedule, as my son needed a ride to a friend in two hours. Since they only let people in on the hour, and the one woman manning the reception desk moved with continental speed, I figured it wasn’t going to work, but two decades in this country has taught me a thing or two.

I left the queue and went to the bar, where a man who was obviously a diving instructor was seated (Just the thing! Drunk diving!). I asked him if he knew how I should go about things if I wanted to dive, and he immediately got the woman out from the reception desk (while the fifty other divers-in-spe stood and looked on, grim-faced), got her to sign me in (“No PADI card? I don’t have time to look you up. What level are you? Advanced? Ok, in you go.”) and five minutes later I was kitting up on the edge of the pool with Yves, my new dive buddy.

Turns out diving is a lot like riding a bicycle (apart from the fact that you don’t have to assemble your bike every time you want to go biking), so once I was in the water it was as if it were only yesterday. The free divers have the deep part of the pool to themselves for the first ten minutes of every hour, but Yves had us on the edge of the abyss before anyone else, and so we were the first to slowly descend into the part of the pool that gives Nemo33 its name – a man-made blue hole, the depth of a ten-story building. It’s an awesome feeling, looking up at the surface from such a distance, and it wasn’t made any less impressive by the sight of groups of divers slowly drifting down towards us in clouds of bubbles.

Once they were down, though, it was a different story. Think blubbery seals boldly bouncing into each other whilst taking selfies and you have a fairly accurate picture. So we made our way up again and spent the rest of the dive exploring the tunnels and caves (“zey zerve ze champagne here”, Yves informed me, as we briefly stopped in the largest one), made faces at the people in the restaurant on the other side of the windows, and generally amused ourselves as best we could – Yves had me take off my fins and “run” on the pool floor and then onto the wall and perform a backflip, Kung fu-movie style.

It was a good experience, though, and it served its purpose, showing me that I can dive. As I got out of the pool and gravity reasserted its grip on me, I felt elated, and more than ready to take this old/new adventure to the next level: a live-aboard diving safari in the Andaman Sea off of Thailand! Watch this space…

‘Tis the season… for people to start thinking about what they want out of next year.

Unfortunately this is often done in a rather tipsy state on New Year’s Eve, which doesn’t help making the resolutions any more achievable, but more importantly, the intentions – however good – aren’t accompanied by a plan for how to accomplish whatever healthy habit-pickuppery/unhealthy habit-kickery the resolution takes aim at, and so by the end of January things have largely returned to normal.

I’m no different. In fact, the few times I recall having carried out my resolutions to the letter have all been when I was able to have a plan for how to do it, and measure the rate of implementation.

When I was twelve my father and I agreed we would do 10,000 push-ups each in a year. I got a little notebook and wrote down however many I did each day, and by the end of the year I reached the goal. (Dad dropped out long before that, making me suspect that his motifs were somewhat different than mine…).

This year I’ve done something similar, in that I set out to run 1,000 kilometres, and used my Garmin account to track my progress. The counter currently stands at 995, so unless something really untoward happens tomorrow it should be in the bag.

These goals are a tad simplistic, admittedly. It is after all merely a matter of dividing a random (but hopefully impressive) number by 365 and then averaging that much every day, but the principle is sound; if you want to achieve something, have a clear goal in mind, do it incrementally and make sure progress is easily measured.

So can I apply this to my ambitions? Well, first I have to figure out what I want. Luckily, what I noted when I wrote the initial text about me still holds true. I want to improve intellectually and physically, and I want to go on adventures and have new experiences.

So how to make this quantifiable?

Improve intellectually

Overarching goals: Get better at piano playing and French, read more non-fiction.

Specific goals: learn a challenging piece by heart, e.g. the theme from The Piano; incorporate 1,000 new words and 300 new expressions in active vocabulary, read 25 books.

Incremental steps: play piano 30 minutes per day when at home, take lessons; read French texts, look up and memorise terms and phrases, and incorporate in conversations; make a list of non-fiction, read 30 minutes per day, utilising modern technology to bring books when travelling, write reviews on GoodReads.

Improve physically

Overarching goals: Get in better shape.

Specific goals: Run a marathon in under 4 hours; run the 90k ultra marathon UltraVasan; (possibly) do a half Iron Man.

Incremental steps: work out continuously six days per week (depending on if I have the kidlets or not), three days running, one day biking, one day swimming and/or two days weight lifting; eat healthily (no refined sugar, alcohol, and little carbs) with the exception of a Cheat Day every two weeks, and sleep enough (ideally eight hours per night); measure improvements.

Adventures and new experiences

Overarching goals: travel to new countries, try new things, test my limits

Specific goals: do at least one thing every month that falls into this category:

• January:   Go diving at Nemo 33
• February: Go to Malta to dive?
• March:      Run Barcelona marathon
• April:         Take kids to Disneyland
• May:           Go to London with ten-year old
• June:           Go hiking in the Alps
• July:             Try western riding
• August        UltraVasan
• September Learn how to fly a delta wing?
• October       Go to Mozambique to dive?
• November  ?
• December   ?

Most of these are not yet set in stone as I need to check when I can go travelling and when the various destinations are at their best, but it’s a starting point.

Finally, in order to stay on the straight and narrow, I will report on my progress here throughout the year. It will be an experiment, and I’m not sure how it will turn out – if nothing else it will certainly make for a Happy New Year!