8 Keeling brothers

Lola's Puppies ...... 7 surviving.......5 girls and 2 boys

David on Mt Olympus

Gosh, its all been expeditions recently. The Arctic, now Mount Olympus and Kilimanjaro coming soon, I believe. David gave me his short report on his ascent of Mt Olympus this Summer 2008 and some scary photos to go with it.

Also, I added photos today to Simon's Arctic stories, see below. George, editor.

Tales of a 50th birthday

Thank you all for your kind messages of support for my birthday!

The usual questions about what feels different on being 50 were of course asked by various jokers in Rattlesden. Not much, but I do find I totter a bit more on having a drink or two. Perhaps the key to this is to develop a Grandpa shuffle keeping the feet in contact with the ground at all times.

I braved up to having a party in our local pub, Camilla providing a mini banquet. Poppy cleverly engineered some free time after a successful show in London at the weekend and joined us. Thirty or so local friends came and everyone had a bit more to drink than usual - so my totter went unnoticed under the circumstances.

I'm not sure how many of you know, perhaps everyone given the grapevine, but I've not been well the last three months. But I had a good day yesterday and I think I'm over the worst and looking forward to being back to normal.

Lots of love of love, David.

10 Albert Place

Anyone want to move nearer home? You've just missed an opportunity as they've completed on the above - at a cool 8.75 million!

From the Horses Mouth

Simon recently wrote to me describing his accident, and this is what he said (with the author's per):

I have spoken to a few friends who were on the ski-ing trip with me and the description of plunging 150m down a ravine seems to be more or less accurate. It seems we had skied off piste, after lunch, in good visibility and across nice snow which had fallen the night before. The guide led us down and through a wooded area. The drop and the woods continued to make the snow cover on the ground pretty poor and I think we were following a path to the left with quite a steep (45 degrees) gradient going down on the right. I think the guide encouraged me to follow him and there was a bit of side-stepping from patch to patch of snow, sometimes being able to jump and turn. Afterwards the guide said he had deliberately not mentioned that the steep incline to the right led to a sort of lip over a steep fall that couldn't be seen from where we were. (He didn't want to unsettle us.)

Anyway I crossed my skis, tripped over and tumbled to the right. Whatever happened next was quite quick but I slid over the lip and disappeared from the view of the people just behind me. By peering over a moment later they could see below a litter of skis and sticks, but no sign of me. The guide forbade them to try to follow me down reckoning that one casualty in a day was quite enough. Instead he called up a rescue helicopter which arrived about 45 minutes later. This machine also couldn't see me and neither could it land in the densely forested area but it was able to lower an action man on a rope who did find me, did tie me to a rope and the rescue helicopter then soared up above the trees and there was me dangling at the bottom of a rope but apparently the right way up and, to the other skiers, recognisably OK. I was then whisked off to the Austrian Hospital (Feldkirch) and re-emerged into consciousness at about 10 pm or later that night. By that time the Austrian doctors had assessed me for fractured skull, broken vertebrae (neck), broken ribs, broken collar bone and seriously dislocated knee including twisted  and broke ligaments, cartilage and a broken bone at the end of the fibula. One of the co-skiers had spoken to Ursula who by then was making her way out from London to Austria, no doubt feeling very worried about me.

Amazingly, for all the injuries I had picked up, I wasn't encased in any plaster, I wasn't in intensive care and nor did I have any probes or drips sticking into me. All that went on for a few days was a diet of dried bread and paracetamol while Ursula came and looked after me, ferried stuff back to London for me and then set up a welcoming committee for me at St Thomas's. <end>

Simon is a lert

I just spoke to Simon who sounded on very good form and, most importantly, as alert as a yurt. Good! He had Giles Rowe with him who was probably distracting him when he said goodbye calling me Jim, just a slip I thought. Bionic Sime.

Bellies out and Bellies in

Ever had trouble with concave and convex? No? Read no further.

I overheard our Suffolk kitchen maker instructing his fitter pointing out an interior wall in our kitchen. "Bellies out?" I said, "You're talking about the wall?", treading politely as the fitter was clearly a beer drinker. He smiled and said that I was right. A few seconds ticked by. "You have bellies in too?", yes, he said. Our wall was bowing slightly (towards us, nitpickers).

Briefly I hoped this was another cute Suffolk phrase, but apparently not, just a phrase that had gained currency in his joinery shop.

POST PARTY

After Simon's 50th party, anyone and everyone is invited to dinner (dutch style) at a secret location near to the Gov HQ Simon has appropriated. More details to follow. Simon says there won't be a "super abundance" of food at the underground bunker, but if he's just being modest, the secret post party feast will be abandoned and alternatives sought.

In short: please join me for a meal after the party.  xx David

Go home

Go home. I hope this works. A good friend showed it to me. You may have seen it, in which case forgive my surplus blogging. Love.

Book Recommendations

Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions, by John Gray

This is a non-fiction book, a compilation of articles commissioned by the New Statesman. You may remember that a couple of years ago I gave everyone a book called Straw Dogs for Christmas. "Heresies", by the same author, is a lot more digestible. You can get it on Amazon "used and new" for about £2 plus postage.

State of Fear, by Michael Crichton

This is fiction, but ... polemical fiction, fiction with a non-fiction message. Michael Crichton is an airport best seller chappie with Jurassic Park to his name. The message is, well I won't spoil it, but it's all about global warming, climate change etc. And it's not the usual message that comes from this type of book. You can get it on Amazon "used and new" for next to nothing plus postage.

I can recommend "Heresies" wholeheartedly - I'd be most interested to hear what you think of it. "State of Fear" I'm more nervous about recommending, because, well, don't think I agree with its views ... I just don't know.

Happy reading anyone who goes for either of these.