Sweeties, Pies and Ginger

I've pretty much had no life for the last week or so as I've had to work extra hours at work. This is seen my work all weekend and late into the evening, culminating in a session that saw me leave the office at 01.35 this morning. Such is life when there is a deadline...

The last few days have been a bit weird from an eating point of view as I think I'm nearly over the initial hate period of durians. For those of you who don't know what a durian is, it's a big expensive fruit that grows in Asia and is eaten by Orang-utans. It stinks to high heaven, tastes like onion ice cream and is band from the Kuala Lumpur underground system.

So why have I been eating it...? In raw foodist circles the durian is highly prized, you can't understand why until you've tried it. On Sunday Karen and myself were round at Karen and Pete's, they run the Fresh Network a raw food support and supply network. We were also joined by Shazzie, of shazzie.com (who lives round the corner) and David Wolfe, raw food author, speaker and general nice bloke.

So we ate some food, chatted, went for a walk and then the durian came out for pudding. Karen's bought durian in the past but I've never really liked it as I get this nasty gag reflex on the first bite due to the taste. So I had a couple of bites from a bit that Karen had and didn't really get on with it too well, so I didn't have any more.

Monday night we ended up round at Shazzie's house for a bit as there were loads of people round whom were all going off to Germany to give talks and play in a raw food rock band - The Healing Waters Band. So more durian was split open and again I tried some, it wasn't as bad this time, although that nasty gag reflex was still there. I was starting to feel torn; half of me really wanted to try more, but the other half wanted to run a mile. I think this meant that I was starting to get over the initial distaste period, which means the full on addiction period is just round the corner.

With all this durian activity going on Karen had ordered one, so on Tuesday night she cracked it open. I was really quite full from dinner and didn't really want to eat anything else, but the half of me that seems to want more durian kicked in and I had a few bites. I wasn't overly impressed, so I just went back to potting up some seedling for the garden.

Last night Karen cracked open the final part of the durian and handed me a whole segment. Now segments of durian and a pale ivory colour and they look sort of look like human organs and I imagine they feel just how a rotten kidney or spleen would feel, so not really that pleasant to look at or hold. I was sort of surprised at myself as even though I was repulsed by the look and smell of the thing I couldn't help but take bite after bite.

I only managed about half of the segment though as I was really full and the creamy taste was starting to get to me a bit. So next time we're in London I'm sure we'll be stopping off to buy some durian on the way home. Evidently there's a god place in the North that you can drive to, which will be quite convenient as you get funny looks when you take them on the tube...

I've just finished my first week in my new job and it's been a bit of a topsy turvy ride. It's unlike anywhere else I've ever worked in terms of office layout and mentality, so it was always going to be a challenge. What I wasn't expecting was to get dumped into a team doing C++ when I've been doing Java for the last six years. Now I enjoy a challenge as much as the next guy, but having to re-learn C++ overnight is not my idea of a fun challenge.

Overall it's been a bit on the stressful side as I've been trying to build the product in a development system I'm not familiar with, using out of date build files. It took my three days to compile one quarter of the product and most of that time was spent adding header files and libraries into the relevant parts of the build files. I did get it all working by Thursday though, which was a bit of a relief. So now I've got to do some modifications next week, hopefully I'll have a better understanding of what's going on by then.

I've just got back from a great week in Scotland which saw my finally get back to doing a bit of hill walking. The initial idea had been to go to Scotland and sit on a hill for a few day pondering my future, however, I hadn't expected to find another job so quickly so I didn't need to do any of the thinking bit. This meant that I could go back home, seem my family and friends and bag a few Munro's on the way.

It's been ages since I've been away hill walking and the idea was to go away for a couple of days to the Glen Shee area then come home for a day and head off for Glen Coe for another couple of days. In reality I wouldn't have been able to manage this as my feet took a battering on the first day, which left me with huge blisters on both heals. My right knee was also in agony and I could hardly walk the following day, there's no way I'd have been able to attempt another couple of hills.

So I decided that I should go away for a single day on the Monday and then have two day back home which would allow my to visit my sister and my Grandmother. Since I wanted to do more than just a single hill I headed into Glen Lyon and the Cairn Gorm to Meall na Aighean route which also takes in Meall Garbh and Carn Mairg. All in all it took about 6 hours 20 minutes to go from car to car, which wasn't bad going considering I hadn't been in the hills for about six years.

One thing it did reinforce though was the need to go into the Scottish hills prepared. I'd thought about not bothering to pack any gloves or a hat, but boy did I need them! When I got to the top of the first hill, Cairn Gorm, the wind really picked up and the cloud base dropped to the same height as the mountain. This meant that the temperature dropped and the cloud base started to make my clothes damp. So on went the Gore Tex jacket, gloves and fleece hat and off I went.

The cloud base seemed to rise and fall slightly throughout the rest of the day, which meant that for periods I was in the cloud and then out of it again. It was a bit of a shame really as I was hoping for slightly better weather as the forecast hadn't made it out to be that bad. It was typical really, as the next day was a complete scorcher! I decided on the way down from the last Munro that I was going to have to do something with my boots, as they were really killing my knees. So the next day I decided to try and get a set of moulded insoles for them.

So it was off to Edinburgh bright and early on Tuesday morning to do a bit of shopping, when I say bright and early, in reality it was bright and early afternoon by the time I'd managed to coerce my body out of bed. After doing a bit of window-shopping I ended up in Tiso on Rose Street, I used to work there ten years ago and how it's changed. I didn't recognise the shop layout or any of the staff, times change so I would have been really surprised to see any of the folks I used to work with there.

The end result of being in Tiso was that I didn't get any insoles, as they didn't have my size, which was just as well as they were charging £65 for a pair. So I hot footed it down to Nevis Sport and came away with a £25 pair of moulded insoles, only time would tell if they would do the trick or not. That evening I treated my sister to a meal at Black Bo's, a veggie restaurant in Edinburgh. The décor wasn't much to write home about, but the food was excellent. I can't remember what we each had, but it was really, really good, definitely a place I'll go back to.

After spending the night at my Sisters I headed off to visit my Grandma in Lanark before heading back home to pack my bags for a two day trip to Glen Coe. The weather was supposed to by okay, I had the new insoles for the boots and I was really ready to tackle some more Munro's. I'd packed the car the night before, so I managed to get away at a decent time in the morning and make good time to the White Corries ski area at the south end of the Glen. I'd decided the previous day that I was going to tackle the mountains of the Black Mount, four Munro's and a few tops, split over two days. Today I was going to be climbing Meall a'Bhuiridh and Creise plus two tops accessible from Creise.

It was looking like it was going to be a scorcher, but as I was going up the first Munro the weather wasn't all that good and I ended up with my Gore Tex jacket on. I made the first summit ion quite good time and I had no knee pain, so the insoles looked like they were working. After a quick bite to eat it was a steepish decent onto a col followed by a steepish ascent, which turned slightly scrambley at the top. It was all quite exciting and totally different to the broad grassy ridges of Mondays walking.

The wind got up a bit when I got to the broad ridge linking one of the tops to Creise, but it didn't last long. The clouds had parted slightly leaving the most wonderful view over some of the finest countryside you'll ever see. When Scotland gets good weather, there's nowhere in the World that can beat it, it's without doubt the most beautiful place on the planet. I felt really happy to be up there with a marvellous view and perfect solitude, which allowed for lots of thinking. I promised myself that I wouldn't leave it 6 years before I went back to climb some more mountains.

When I got back to the car I was quite surprised to find that my knees had held up well, the new insoles had stopped my arches from collapsing and thus I was spared the pain. I need to trim the front of them though as they bruised a coupe of my toe nails a bit, but if that's all I have to put up with I think I can live with it. I decided that it was a bit early to head to the King's House, so I drove up and down Glen Coe taking photos of all the mountains and marvelling at the scenery.

After pitching the tent and having a quick bite to eat I headed back down the road to a well-known photographic spot. I was trying for the classic sunset photo over the Black Mount, but was some what foiled by a huge low ominous cloud that was obscuring everything. I managed to take a couple of shots that might be okay, but everything else I took was pretty much useless, so I just headed back to the King's House for a few beers.

I woke early as I really wanted to get the classic shot of the sunrise on the Buachaille Etive Mor, but when I woke at half past four the sound of rain on the tent didn't really inspire much confidence for a good sunrise. I poked my head out of the tent to be greeted by really low grey clouds and pelting rain, not the sort of weather you want to be going mountaineering in. I tried to get back to sleep, but mainly tossed an turned until about eight o'clock when I decide to scrap that days walking and just head home.

It was a shame as I was really looking forward to doing Stob Ghabhar and Stob a' Choire Odhair which are the other two mountains of the Black Mount. It did mean I got home early though, which enabled me to pack my car ready to come home the next day. I went out in the evening to see all my friends and have a few beers, which was really good. Karen was expecting me back on Sunday, so you can imagine the surprise she got when I came barrelling through the door with a bottle of bubbly and a bunch of flowers as day early.