I got put off walking up big hills just over 10 years ago, when I did my Queen's Scout expedition. 50 miles over 5 days in the lake district, carrying just over 1/3 my body weight. With no hill walking experience and no real basic fitness level. Twisted my ankle on day 1 and struggled on from there. Was glad not to have given up or anything but went through a period of getting various random joint pains and vowed 'never again'.

But lately I've been enjoying walking around Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire and London so much that I started to wonder if I'm missing something with the Big Hills. Also, a consultant has since diagnosed the random joint pains as due to hypermobility (double jointedness) - i.e. not so much walking related. Maybe time to give it another go - but on a more moderate level. So was really excited when Eddie invited a bunch of us up to the Peak District for walking over Easter weekend.

Visibly less 'kitted out' than the rest, almost certainly less fit and definitely less male - I was a bit nervous of being able to keep up. I raced up the first slope, panting desparately near the top I turned round to see everyone else looking just as knackered as me so that was a relief. As we headed up the rest of the slope the sun quickly melted away and the hail showers raced in. But as pieces of ice whipped my face I was still really enjoying the whole experience (Paul's mega-thick ski-gloves helped a bit). All in all, a really pleasant experience, went back to Eddie and Vicky's place a happy chappy.

By the start of day 2, I was feeling totally knackered. I'd just about persuaded my body to wake up sufficiently to stride along but my brain was refusing to think quickly enough to negotiate boulders and water and icy slippery bits as we climbed up a river path. Then we encountered icicles - which were pretty magic. But then, we saw these ice features - simply stunning, never seen anything like that before. At this point I decided it had been worth getting up and climbing a big hill and started loving it again.

It snowed several times that day - less painful than the previous day's hail. On crossing the top we had adventures crossing some quite boggy areas. It unnerved Mike quite a bit as he had got sunk to his thighs last year apparantly! But I found it quite fun once I'd decided I didn't really mind being sunk as far as my ankles. We found a stream to follow - with bog cliffs either side of us. Got freezing water in my trainers when I foolishly just walked into the water. That quickly warmed up to foot-temperature and I managed to avoid the wettest bits from then on.

We then spent the next 2 hours racing down the hill to make it back before dusk (which we did). By this stage nearly everyone was suffering from some degree of leg pain and Paul particularly was walking very strangely and making loud complaining noises. My knee was sore so was quite glad we took day 3 and 4 at a more sedate pace - touristy stuff in York and a bimble round the local park. I absolutely loved the walking tho - I need to do more of this stuff :-). Just not too much all at once.