6 July 2024 – 11 August 2024

June had been largely dominated by work and last minute training – trying to make up for time lost to injuries courtesy of the Paris Marathon and the cricket season. 

Before we knew it, July was here, and it was time to head to Chamonix with Chad, Steve and Jake to try and summit Mont Blanc on our 3rd attempt (to be fair, we’ve only actually got onto the mountain once, the other time the conditions did not even allow us to get that far). This was logistically the most challenging by far – Chad and Jake were coming from Australia and Steve from Abu Dhabi. The fact that we’d been able to coordinate to be in Chamonix at the same time was in itself a miracle. 

Despite the disrupted preparation, we were excited – both by the prospect of testing ourselves against the mountain, and also just for the opportunity to hang out for a week with great friends in one of the most spectacular places in Europe. 

The weather forecast looked promising and spirits were high. 

Our first day in Chamonix was spent up the Aiguille du Midi, starting our acclimatisation under beautiful clear skies, marvelling at the sheer scale of the Aiguille and catching the stunning gondola across the Hebronner glacier to the top of Courmayeur. From there, it was a short hike with crampons down to the local refuge for an Italian cup of coffee – the perfect day 1. 

Unfortunately, by the time we came back up to the gondola, the wind had picked up and shut the gondola down, so we were stuck heading down into Courmayeur in their futuristic cable car before returning to Chamonix in one of the world’s most overpriced taxi rides, which fortunately we were able to share with another group of climbers stuck in the same boat. 

That night we met our guide for the week, Corontin (‘Call me Coco’. Really? Are you sure? Yes. OK then). He would help ensure that we didn’t fall into any crevases, or at least that we got out if we did. Tomorrow we would head to Italy for the start of our first ascent up Gran Paraidiso. 

Monday dawned clear and still, but as we stalked the forward forecast we saw that the end of the week – our summit window – was starting to look dicey. 

We piled into Coco’s car and made the spectacular drive into the Aosta Valley in Italy and the launching point for Gran Paraidiso. We spent the middle of the day walking through pine forests, past glacial streams and waterfalls before we rose about the tree line into the rocky outcrops at the base of the glacier. Here was perched the Refugio Emmanel Vittoria at around 2700m which was to be our home for the night. 

Hanging out in the refuge is an important part of the mountaineering experience. Refuges offer shelter, food, and critically a place to hang out and chat each afternoon after the morning’s efforts. These couple of hours connecting with mates in the afternoon is at least as important and enjoyable as anything that goes on on the actual mountain! 

Despite the fact that it was supplied only be heliocopter, it still managed to serve up excellent 3 course lunches and dinners in packed together dining rooms – the Europeans really know how to mountaineer in style. Having conversations in these environments is easy, and one of the groups sitting next to us introduced us to the concept of ‘Type 2 Fun’ – which is to say that kind of fun that is often not fun at all at the time, but really fun in hindsight. It perfectly described so much of what we were doing this week. 

Dining room luxuries do not extend into the bedroom however, and sleeping arrangements in this hut were 6 beds in 2 triple stacked bunks. Steve’s snoring ensured that my downloaded ‘white noise’ on spotify got a good work out. 

We were up at 4am the next morning for a quick breakfast before heading out over the rocky scree and making our way up towards the snow fields and eventually the glacier. Head torches quickly made way to natural light as the sun rose and the size of the mountain revealed itself in front of us. It was stunning, but this was going to be no ‘easy warm up’. 

Jake succumbed to altitude symptoms just as we hit the glacier, so he and Chad made their way back down to the refuge. Steve and I continued up with Coco, up a number of different glacial fields, steadfastly putting one crampon wielding foot in front of the other, gradually emptying our bag of warm clothes as we made our way to the 4100m summit. It was stunning, and exhausting. 

The top of Gran Paraidiso is a rocky summit perched on top of steep glacier fields. You pass several memorials on the way up to people who must have slipped in the wrong places. There are a range of ladders and fixed anchor points to provide some level of support, but it still felt pretty hairy in parts, and this time we were old enough to acknowledge that it’s at least 50% terrifying as well as 50% exhilarating. In any case, by mid morning, Steve and I were standing on the summit, and Steve’s ‘summit surfer’ emerged for the first time in 20 years. 

The trip down off the summit was at least as hairy as the trip up, and then making our way down off the glacier through the increasingly soft snow and rocks was at least as challenging as going up… so by the time we made it back to the refuge around 1pm to rejoin with Chad and Jake we were pretty shattered.  Nothing that a 3 course lunch couldn’t fix however. 

That afternoon we made our way back down to the car. Over our celebratory beer, Coco informed us that the forecast had deteriorated to the extent that Mont Blanc would likely not be feasible. We were shattered and started working through a myriad of alternatives. Sadly, the reality was that the there would be a heap of snow on Thursday night and then high winds Friday and Saturday, meaning that the mountain would effectively be shut (or at least no guide would take us up). Eventually we came around to where Coco had started… that we were best served to find an alternative plan – in our case this would be the Monto Rosso massif in Italy which would miss most of the weather but would allow us to summit a number of different 4000m+ peaks. Not a bad second choice. 

Our spirits were raised somewhat by a great dinner that night, and plans to go ice climbing on the Mer de Glace the following day. 

The weather was still perfect on Wednesday as we made our way on the train up to the Mer de Glace and the stunning moonscape that reveals itself. We hiked up onto the glacier and transitioned to crampons spending the morning doing a combination of cramponing skills and then an amazing couple of hours rapelling down and ice climbinng up out of a crevase. Terrifying, really hard work and so much fun. 

Unfortunately Jake continued to feel sick through the day and so decided not to come up to Monte Rossa the next day. It was with a heavy heart that we were back to the original 3 from 20 years ago. 

The next day we met our 2nd guide, Didier, a 55 year old mountain goat who had been there, done that and didn’t even bother with the t-shirts anymore. From this point forward we would split into 2 climbing groups – Chad and Coco, and Steve, Didier and I. 

Monte Rosso is stunning. It’s about 3 hours drive from Chamonix. A complex range of gondolas takes skiiers and mountaineers up from the car park at 1000m to the massif at 3500m, past some incredible scenary and amazing looking ski areas. The massif comprises a number of 4000m+ peaks and is well serviced by a couple of large refuges – meaning that we could get accommodation at short notice. 

The forecast for the 3 days we would be in the area was dicey – it was going to get some of the storm that was battering Mont Blanc. As a result, we had all over packed, and were basically carrying 2 of everything – making everything harder work. This, plus the fact that we weren’t on Mont Blanc, weighed heavily on spirits on the first day as we trduged our way up to the summit of the Pyramid de Vincent, watching with an eye of concern as the storm rolled in beneath us. 

We made it to our refuge only an hour or so before the storm hit, creating an immediate white out with high winds and dumping a lot of fresh snow over the area. On the bright side, the Refugio Citta di Mantova had internet, meaning that I could spend an hour or so with the team who were back in London working on a big proposal that was due in the following week. Nothing like doing the juggle! 

The restaurant in the refuge was to the now expected high standard, but so were the sleeping arrangements. There was a single ‘main room’ for men and women (separately) to sleep in. Each bunk had 6 mattresses across 2 levels, and there were about 20 bunks in the room – so around 120 people sleeping and snoring (as one does at 3200m). I spent the night nestled between Chad and Steve (I got the short straw and was in the middle) blasting white noise into my ears to block out the sounds of humanity. 

The following day we were still dealing with the after effects of last night’s storm. There was plenty of fresh snow on the glacier, making it harder to see crevases etc, the winds were high and visibilty was limited at the top. Despite this, we enjoyed the walk up to Punta Giordana\i before heading down to the refuge for our last night in the mountains. 

Visbilty cleared overnight although the wind increased. Our last climb was our highest, up to Ludwighoner at some 4350m. I think we all felt the effects of the 6 + hours a day we’d been working at altitude over the last few days, and we all powered up the glacier to the summit like we were walking to the shops. The winds at the top were more than 80 km/h and it was absolutely freezing, but we left invigorated and feeling like we could have taken on the world. Type 2 fun.

We also left with a clear understanding of just how inhospitable Mont Blanc would have been had we tried to make the summit today. 

The trip closed out with a beautiful drive back to Chamonix, a fun night out in town and a great dinner and Bastille Day breakfast with all 4 of us. It was so great to have had such a lot of quality time with Chad, Steve and Jake. Such a privilege. 

Heading back to Geneva airport on Sunday I felt so lucky to have been able to spend such a great week with friends, and confident that we could have made the summit if we’d had the chance. 

The only question now is whether we’ll be back? It would be a brave person to say no, but let’s see how we go! 

As always, despite how good the trip away was, it is always great to get home, particularly as I hadn’t seen Liz and the girls for a week. And Gus. Who had double in size and attitude whilst I’d been away. They had a full week of summer holiday fun including a trip to the Tower of London with Krista and outdoor cinema to watch the tennis, catching up with some of Liz’s/Ellies mum group and general all round holiday fun.

After 2 quick days at work – just to remind them that I do in fact exist and submit the proposal we’d been working on – we were repacking again and getting ready to head to Ibiza for Alan’s 50th birthday. This was turning out to be a seriously fun July. 

We piled into Remo’s car (ours had gone to France with them for a holiday) and made our way to Heathrow for our flight to Ibiza, excited to be heading to / back to Ibiza and to catch up with everyone. I was more than a little ready for some ‘type 1’/ relaxing fun after the ‘type 2’ fun from last week. 

Our Easyjet flight delivered (we’ve noticed this time that Easyjet is now pretty consistent and ‘does what it says on the tin’ – the days of being horribly unreliable seem to be behind it.)

(Now that we’ve written that, we’ll no doubt be cursed to a life of cancellations and delays). We were soon standing on the tarmac of Ibiza Airport, with Ant getting flashbacks of many trips in the early/mid 2000s. We gathered our bags and made our way to a taxi for the ride to Invisa Hotel Cala Verde, which would be our base for the next couple of days. 

Being typically in the detail of the booking process, Ant thought we were staying at a villa. In fact, Cala Verde was an ‘all inclusive’ style resort, complete with Germans racing to get their towels out early, oddly inappropriate ‘entertainment’ – tempting the middle aged, pan European guests into mid morning shots, a constant supply of (excellent) food, and of course an undercurrent of day drinking. 

We dumped our bags in our lovely rooms – overlooking the pool, beach and Mediterranean – and made our way to meet Alan and Dave and uncover what was included in the ‘free drinks’ category. (The beer was OK, the wine was not. The coffee was excellent. The Aperol was not Aperol. Gordon’s Gin was quickly established as a mainstay for the girls. Why not?) 

We quickly fell into a rhythm. The couple of days we had there were spent playing classic catches with the kids in the pool (effectively dominating the deep end),

swimming and paddle boating at the beach

and of course playing afternoon table tennis competitions. We even got a game of Padel in. The girls tended to cluster in the ‘adults only’ pool, hiding from the kids and enjoying their Gordons. 

The first night we stayed in as Chad and Matty were still arriving from Geneva. We ate the excellent buffet and tried to drink the wine.

On the second night we decided to relive our youth and head to San Antonio for the sunset. Sadly Bar Kanya had closed years ago, but we enjoyed hanging our in Cafe Mambo, paying eye watering amounts for drinks, listening to the DJ and watching the sunset.

All the kids had decided to stay at home except for Ellie. Watching the look on her face as she sipped her Sprite, danced to the DJ and watched the sunset – and the other party goers – was really interesting. It was like someone had opened up a window into the future. Ouch. 

One the third night – and the last night before Ant disappeared to Australia – the adults went out for an amazing dinner in Santa Eularia. The wine, cava, conversation and laughter flowed and the food was amazing. It made us all remember just how lucky we were to get this group together.

From there we kicked on to Playa Soleil, where we bopped the night away until it closed at 2.30. From there, the boys all continued to Pascha, because, well, how often do you get such an amazing group of friends all together in one place. 

The next morning we were back playing classic catches by 9am. Fair to say there were a few more dropped catches than normal. 

Sadly for Ant, the wonderful couple of days with such great friends was then over before it began, and he was heading back to the airport for the 30 hour journey from Ibiza > London > Singapore > Sydney.

Liz and the kids had one more day … 

Ant’s trip to Australia 

I arrived in Sydney at 5am, fresh as a daisy after sleeping most of the way back from Ibiza. Fair to say that I was in a ‘grateful’ mood as we made our approach. It might have been the 16 hours of sleep, it might have been the white wine. Either way I was conscious that the last few weeks had been a long way from ‘normal’. Life in London – particularly during summer – was super fun. I’d had the opportunity to spend a week with great friends mountaineering in the French Alps; quickly followed by such an awesome few days in Ibiza with Liz and the girls and other great mates. The good fortune was not lost on me.

I made my way to the hotel and even managed to get an early check in, shower and Sydney quality latte on my way to the Partner Conference at 830am. 

The next 2 days were a whirlwind of catch ups with colleagues and friends from work, lots of strategy sessions and big dinners. On Tuesday night I was lucky enough to see Steve Tattersall, Ben, Abby and Max, and play my first game of tennis in months with the guys at the Hunters Hill Club. 

Wednesday was Melbourne for the day, followed by drinks with Adam, Michele and the girls. 

Thursday was more meetings in Sydney, then out to see Marcus, Amanda and the kids at Hunters Hill for dinner, drinks and then a Friday early morning surf. Sydney doesn’t get much better than that. 

There was no time to be jet lagged; almost no time to be tired. 

By lunchtime on Friday I was back at the airport and heading back to London. It had been a whirlwind but super worthwhile – both professionally and personally. 

It was lovely to be back, even for such a short time. Being there made me realise that Sydney will always be awesome, but it would also wait for us to come back. There was no massive rush.

I landed back in London early Saturday morning, and got a great lesson in why not to catch Black Cabs from the airport (40 GBP before I left the airport complex, 125 GBP to get home) but was still home before the kids got up, in plenty of time to get Ellie to her Kent cricket match in Box Hill. It was good to be home. 

School Holidays in London 

A couple of days after Ant came back from London, Ellie was off to Faro, Portugal with a school friend and her family. 

Meanwhile the rest of the family headed off to Center Parcs for a long weekend with the cousins. We arrived on the Friday, after they had already been there for 4 days. I think it’s fair to say that there’s only so many times you can go around the rapids before it starts to get old. Jeff looked tired. 

Our arrival spiced things up a bit, and we spent the Friday afternoon and the weekend hitting the water parks, riding our bikes around the park, playing tennis,  badminton and the odd arcade game. 

The weekend had its moments, but its always nice to be able to spend time with the kids – particularly in a holiday environment. 

First thing Monday morning we were off, rushing to get back to London and for Ant to get back to work. 

London summer holidays are fun and there’s heaps to do, but the pace of work didn’t really slow down this year and so all the fun stuff was being juggled with early morning and late nights just to stay on top of everything! 

On Monday night we got Ellie back in one piece, returned safely from her trip to Portugal, only marginally sunburned but overall pretty happy. 

The rest of the week was taken up with Ellie’s Kent cricket matches, Ant playing taxi service and working from the sidelines – in actual fact taking advantage of the excellent Wi-Fi and working facilities at the majority of the grounds she played at. 

The next weekend was a highlight. On Friday afternoon we headed north to Norfolk (a first for both Liz and I) to meet up with Krista and David at East Rudham Crown Inn for a great pub dinner.

The following day was the main event … we went to Batesmoor Farm to meet, wash and blow dry 2 Highland Cows, and then go meet the herd. The farmer Izzy (include instagram handle) was delightful, and the cows (Ian and Katriona) even more so. We had such a fun time grooming them, and then even more so heading to the paddock and meeting some of the really young calves who were almost ‘dog like’ in the friendliness. We strongly debated smuggling one out of there and seeing if we could convince the landlord that putting a highland cow in the backyard was completely within the conditions of our lease. 

Highland cow vibes satisfied, we went for a great fish and chip lunch at Wells on Sea (apparently the 3rd best in the UK; probably top of our list) before heading back to London. 

At this stage the kids were starting to ‘sweat the clock’ a bit that there previously endless summer holidays were starting to run down. They were in the last full week of London time holidays, and they were starting to get anxious. 

Play dates and sleepovers were frantically booked and executed. 

We had one last Saturday in London and then were heading back to the airport again for our ‘main summer holiday’ – this time to see the Guillot’s on Lake Geneva and then to Turkey.