A Good Night.....

We're Off, basically.

Last night saw every man, woman and animal from The Everest Test 09 descend upon London's glitzy Soho for the official launch for the official countdown to the official OFF. Officially.

It was also a chance for mates back home to get more involved, contribute to the overall bonhomie and get a feeling about the gravity and potential of this project now. A lot of hard work had obviously gone into the evening and public thanks to the Events Committee for putting on a great show. Certainly if the comments from my gaggle of mates was a good feel for the overall consensus on the night; impressions were very high indeed.

Walls were covered in alternating pictures from the many events taken place all over the country in the last 9 months or so. There's nothing better than walking into a place like that, with a group of your mates, get given a glass of what can only be described as lychee flavoured kerosene (marvellous by the way), and seeing a picture of my ginger Fat-Head with all its chins taking up the entire wall space. I think my wife's first knee-jerk comment was "uurghh", or something like that as if she had just trodden in a pile of dog-doo. That felt special.

It was great to meet Neil Laughton briefly; the expedition's Patron. I was somewhat in awe of the great man and I'm quite sure I was two sheets to the wind when we chatted briefly but it was great to shake the hand of a genuine legend. I think I'm going a little deaf too as although I realise that these places are hardly quiet; I find myself lip-reading these days a great deal as I genuinely can't hear shit. So I hope when I was crapping on about the Bath Half Marathon it was making sense. It wouldn't be the first time my lip-reading / I can't hear anything techniques have taken me down a conversational wrong way. Apologies if I was indeed talking the proverbial.

Unfortunately, with a babysitter ticking into triple over-time and the fact our last train was impending we had to leave well before stumps but all I can say is that is was a great night. I left with a plastic bracelet cutting off my blood-supply to my right hand, people getting well greased , smiling faces all around and Toovey "dancing" / trying to stay upright and balancing about 8 bottles of beer; you didn't need to be an Aboriginal tracker to say it was probably going to be a great final couple of hours. He didn't spill a drop either. Missed the raffle but if my usual success at cricket club raffles was true to form I could probably live without the Peek Freens shortbread, the can of De-Icer, the Mandarin Whisky, Timmy Mallet's Greatest Hits or the homemade pineapple upside-down cake, on this occasion.

A fitting send-off for the Everest Faithful as they embark on this monumental and record breaking trip.

Keep you posted.

PS - Don't forget Mothers Day.