Take your dad to work day
Keswick Mountain Festival and getting older
Hello,
The last week has involved some ups and some downs.
I was working in Dublin, then headed straight to Keswick Mountain Festival for the weekend, which was brilliant - and so, so sunny. It seems to always be sunny on this specific weekend in May. If you want to book a British holiday then make sure you time it for when Ultra-Trail Snowdonia is on - there’s been a heatwave on UTS weekend for the last four years, or maybe even more.
The festival was great. I was there with The North Face and invited Dad along as my plus one. It’s been six months since he had his hip surgery and the idea was for us to do the 2 Peaks Hike together, which would be his longest walk post-op. And that was to be the extent of Dave’s involvement in the weekend - until the team at The North Face asked if he’d like to be involved in the Q&A after my talk, and the next thing we knew he was mic’d up and on stage.
It feels so crazy to me that 10 years ago I went on that silly little run around the British coast, and now I get to chat about adventures on stage with my Dad at one of the UK’s biggest adventure festivals. Isn’t it strange how things turn out?
Luckily the fame hasn’t gone to Dave’s head too much, although he was chuffed to get some new walking gear to wear for the weekend. And just in case he did need bringing back down to earth, less than a mile into our walk on Sunday he got a big nosebleed and spent most of the day trying to save his white t-shirt.
The walk went well though, minor medical emergencies aside. It was 11 miles in total and involved a boat trip across Derwentwater at the start. I’ve never caught a boat to the start of a hike before, so that was exciting. We were dropped off near Ashness Bridge and climbed Walla Crag first, descended into Keswick, looped up and around Latrigg and then back to the festival site to cross the finish line.
It was the first time Dad had pinned on a race number for more than two years and even though it wasn’t really a race (although it is always sort of a race, isn’t it?), that bib lit a fire in him. I’ve not seen him move so fast for a long time - even during the nosebleed incident - and he didn’t let me stop for snacks until 8 miles in, at the top of Latrigg. There, we finally smeared some butter stolen from the hotel breakfast buffet onto a baguette, ate it with salami and called it lunch. Well, until we reached the finished line an hour later, had a burger and called that actual lunch.
I do feel lucky to be able to do these things with Dad. One of the things we talked about in the Q&A was how he went from being a pretty fit marathon runner to needing a hip replacement in the space of just a few months, and he said something along the lines of: