About Janet

I'm a 41 year old mother of triplet girls, who are the centre of my universe. I'm an active, busy person: I commute, work full time, regularly run & am learning the piano. Life has been good. I've recently been devastated by my husband's diagnosis of an astrocytoma glioma - an invasive brain tumour that there is no cure for. This blog is Fergus's story, told from my viewpoint.

Mount Everest

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Janet

Today we saw Mount Everest for the first time in all of our lives. It was a really amazing feeling as it’s basically the only thing I had on any kind of ‘tick list’ for the trip. We were really lucky with the weather, we got up early and walked to the viewpoint and there it was! Sadly, I cannot post all the pictures we took of it right now (you know, me and Mt Everest, the kids and Mt Everest, Ferg and Mt Everest…all very predictable) as the camera ran out of battery – luckily just after we’d taken the pictures…that could have been very upsetting.

The kids loved it…for about 2 mins then lost interest and wondered off into a military zone to the alarm of our porter-guide, and had to be fetched back and reprimanded. Ah well, I hope one day they’ll realise they were luck to be there.

It made me happy anyway.

Lukla, the World’s Most Dangerous Airport

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Janet

OK everyone, we are on the 8.30am flight Tuesday morning Nepal time (which is 3.45am UK time) with Tara Airways.

If you’re awake, wish us luck!

Also, please don’t be alarmed if you don’t hear from us for some time, although there are a couple of villages with internet cafes in the mountains, the electricity supply and internet connections are far from reliable, so we may not be in contact for a while.

Remember, no news is good news! Nana – a plane crash would be reported on the world news on the internet within a couple of hours, so if there’s no news about Lukla when you wake up on Tuesday morning, we’re safe.

We’re Here!

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Janet

Well, we made it! All here, all safe and all just about sane.

The plane to Mumbai was amazing, I’ve never been on a flight with so few passengers, we had 3 seats each so managed to get some sleep. However, the in flight entertainment package was so exciting that the kids didn’t sleep much at all, apart from Evie, who’s always needed more sleep than the other 2.

The challenge was always going to be the 12 hour wait in Mumbai. On the plus side, we packed travel sleep mats in the hand luggage and managed to find a couple of lounger-chair things in the ‘sleep zone’. On the downside, the neon lighting and the lift style ‘musak’ were enough to make me wonder if the 12 hours would have a long term impact on my mental health. We did all get some sleep…but no where near enough. Never have I seen my children look so pale, they all in turn felt sick with tiredness, as did I. But we saved £1000 v’s the direct flight so it had to be done.

Final stretch was fine, the kids slept bolt upright in their seats and have no memory of the flight. I think my personal highlight has to be the admin clerk in Nepal airport trying to match up the passport photos of the girls (for their visas) with the passports and just giving up and handing it all over to me to do! I love going through passport control with identical triplets, it really stresses them out.

So what do the kids think of Kathmandu? After our first 24 hours (bearing in mind we’ve slept for 16 of them) Evie seems contented and says she is enjoying everything being weird, Scarlett is a bit unsure and worried (mainly about being run over or electrocuted) but managing to remember to be optimistic and enjoying the treats, and Jemima seems no different to her usual jovial self, enjoying the food and window shopping.

I’ve had a few moments of wondering if we’re crazy to bring our kids here, there’s certainly not many western kids around, but I think we’re going to be just fine. Reassuringly, some Scouts from Torquey have turned up to do a Himalayan trek, so we’re not completely alone in thinking it’ll be good for the kids! Can’t wait to get into the mountains, it’s what we came here for and we’re moving to a new guest house tomorrow (we’re in a lovely but too expensive place right now) that has a roof terrace with mountain views on all sides. Mission for tomorrow is to find an agency and book flights to Lukla and start shopping around for a porter. And maps. And a compass (how did I forget that?). The adventure is just beginning.

Left Luggage

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Janet

Considering that one of the ambitions I had for the trip is to learn to live with less ‘stuff’, it’s been a challenging couple of weeks.

Having to move out of our house and into a friend’s for 2 weeks (thank you Kate) with enough luggage to ensure we could send the children to school in clean uniforms, plus clothe ourselves and remember everything we needed for ‘the wedding’ (more on this later), plus of course everything we want to take travelling, and having to manage all the overlaps (things that we need for the wedding but not for travelling, things we need for the wedding and travelling, things we need for travelling but only after trekking, things we need for travelling but can’t pack till they’ve been washed and dried, and all possible combinations of the above), has required a level of organisation that is beyond even my spreadsheet skills.

The upshot is that I write this on a train heading from London to Preston, where I will meet my long suffering parents for 20 minutes who will hand me a small box, then I’ll get back on a train to London, get the tube back across town and get a lift back to Ferg’s folks’ place by about 7pm tonight.

The reason for this rather expensive and time consuming journey less than 24 hours before we fly? The guilt that I have packed Jemima’s thumb guard brace in the wrong bag so it has ended up in Preston instead of in a rucksack, and she is beside herself about it. The dentist has warned she may need surgery to correct her bite if she can’t stop sucking her thumb, and the fact is that this thumb guard brace seems to be doing the trick.

Fergus thinks I’m crazy to be spending our last day in the UK on a train all day, perhaps he’s right. And I know we should be preparing the girls for the fact that things will sometimes get left behind on this trip and we have to say ‘never mind’ and live without them. But I just can’t quite bear to spend the day relaxing knowing that I could have gone back for it if I tried. So back I go, this time…!

Travel preparations if you’re 7 years old

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Janet

I can’t wait. We have been practising for Nepal. We have bought:-

Rucksacks

Royal shoes (expensive walking shoes that must be looked after – Dad)

Royal socks (expensive walking socks that must also not be thrown down a Himalayan mountainside – Dad)

Sleeping bags

Mattresses

The other countries are going to be good too!

The Beginning

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Janet

I guess you could call this the beginning.

Although, it really began when we got back from Thailand in April 2000. I remember going to see my Auntie Betty (not a real auntie, but I loved her like one, bless her) and chatting for hours and hours about my adventures in SE Asia. She was a great traveller too, but very much believed in overland and sea travel, not aeroplanes. The fun of crossing time zones and the sense of scale it gave you about the world were her keenest memories. Anyway, she gave me the the first £20 towards this trip, which is what you could call the beginning.

Or perhaps it began even before then, when Ferg’s parents set off with him in a camper van to Iran, circa 1981. Without that, Fergus may never have caught the ‘travel bug’ and passed it on to me.

Or perhaps it began when I lost my rag with the kids for not putting the lids back on their felt tip pens and letting them dry out. “You don’t appreciate the things you’ve got, some children in the world would treasure a set of felt tip pens,” I found myself saying, knowing deep down how hollow that must sound to a 6 year old, and that the only way to truly understand this is to see the world for yourself.

Fergus and I finally decided that the savings we’d been carefully squirrelling away would be best spent on travel rather than an extension when I asked myself, “What do I want to think about my life when I look back on it when I’m old?” and I couldn’t imagine how building that lovely kitchen would feature on the list, nice as it may seem when next door have one.

But the biggest hurdle for me was probably securing a career break. As the main breadwinner in a family of 5, the irresponsibility of giving up a secure, well paid job in a recession would probably have been a step too far. So the real beginning came when I go the go ahead on this last week, and with a huge amount of support from the people at work too, which makes this feeling of excitement and anticipation feel even better, knowing that other people can see the benefit of what we’re trying to do and are prepared to help us. I immediately booked 5 flights to Kathmandu. No going back now. This really is the beginning.