Posted by PartlyCloudy on September 14, 2010, at 16:31:43
In reply to Re: How was mountain climbing? » Dinah, posted by vwoolf on September 14, 2010, at 10:22:15
> Sorry, I should have written sooner, just been overwhelmed with other things since.
>
> Anyway, it was a bit of an adventure. A small group of us decided to climb up the mountain, have a picnic lunch on top and then take the cable car down in the afternoon. We set off at about 10 am. I'm not sure how it happened, but we missed the path and had to walk miles to find the next one, which was very steep and nearly killed me. I'm not sure why I found it so tiring - I am quite fit and walk on the mountain every weekend, but I really struggled this time. Dr Bob was like a mountain goat skipping up the path and taking millions of photographs. We only got to the top at about 2 pm. We had our picnic looking out over the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, and then set off to get all the way back to the cable station across the top of the mountain. However I had forgotten that the mountain looks flat on top but really isn't - it climbs up and down, and up and down. We walked and talked and it was beautiful and we stopped often to admire the spring flowers etc. and the afternoon wore on and we got tireder and tireder.
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> At about 5.45 we started to hear a siren sounding from the cable station and realised that this was going to be the last car down for the night. We raced on but there were still several steep slopes to climb with chains and things to make them more complicated, and I had started to panic thinking we would have to spend the night on the mountain. Luckily they must have seen us arriving because they held it up for us and we staggered on board at about 6.30. The other passengers did not look amused, but we giggled all the way down.
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> It was a lovely day but quite exhausting - for me at least. Then, as we were driving back to his hotel, the sun dipped below the horizon over the Atlantic and we saw an an amazing green flash in the sky just above where the sun had been. I have never seen one before although I have read about them often. We all felt quite breathless at the beauty and wonder of it.
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> Since then Dr Bob has been busy with the congress. We may meet again to go to a centre for mothers and children affected by HIV/AIDS that I am involved with but it is not certain whether he will have time.
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> I have been having a lot of thoughts about these kinds of meetings since the weekend. I think they are very precious, a gift to us Babblers, a way of taking the stigma out of mental illness, a way of connecting across the globe. I think Dr Bob is quite amazing and generous in this way. However I found that I was very weepy after the dinner with him, and I can't explain my utter exhaustion on the walk. I suspect that there may be some troubling unconscious things that get thrown up in meetings like this which perhaps need to be made conscious and thought about. I am trying to clarify them with myself, and intend to try and write about them and send them to Dr Bob. Perhaps I will post them here as well for comment. I'd be interested to hear whether you experienced anything of the sort when you met with him.
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> You've all been much in my thoughts over the last few days. Wouldn't it be great to one day have a big Babble reunion and all meet at last
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>I know what you are saying. I have met so many incredibly wonderful Babblers face to face through the years. Impossible without this forum or Dr Bob's support. That in itself is precious to me.
PartlyCloudy
poster:PartlyCloudy
thread:962045
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20100907/msgs/962359.html