Memoirs of a Mountaineer

Albert takes up a new hobby

Albert Barnaby Weber was 74 years old when he discovered geocaching. It was his Wife, Penny’s, idea. She had heard about it from her nurse and was filled with excitement reporting the details back to her husband as he wheeled her out of the hospital.

“It’s sort of like a treasure hunt and the whole country is your map!”

“So you’re telling me there’s hundreds of these little boxes hidden all over the UK?”

“Thousands even!”

“Hmm”

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing to be honest, but he would give it a go, for her.

The more he thought about it, the more he warmed to the idea. After all, he loved to walk and he could bring his camera with him. All sorts of things were in bloom this time of year, and he could show Penny the pictures when he got back. Penny. She was the real reason he was reluctant to go alone. Together they had travelled the world, spanned all 7 continents. The most Penny could manage now was a stroll down to the end of their street.

Much to her dismay, at the not quite (in her opinion) ripe age of 72, Penny’s body was failing her. She had always imagined she would be climbing mountains until she poetically and peacefully died at the summit of the most perfect climb. But, as most human beings live to discover, Penny had come to realise that life never quite happens as we imagine it to. 5 years had been enough time for her to accept her imminent death as the doctors predicted. In fact, she had so far exceeded their expectations in outliving the original prognosis by 4 years and 6 months. How about that.

Penny worried about Albert. She had come to terms with her mortality in a way that he had not yet managed. She handed him his phone- newly equipped with the geocaching app. No time was wasted in planning Albert’s first adventure. He would enjoy it, she knew he would. He just needed a nudge in the right direction. It would be good for him to have a new hobby, something he could do on his own when she was gone.

Albert bent down to tie the laces on his old walking boots.

“I’m not sure about this… what if I can’t find this blasted box?”

“Don’t be silly of course you will find it, it’s all here on your phone!”

“Well then what if I get lost?!”

“Oh stop your grumbling old man, you’re going to be just fine.”

Albert hummed to himself as he drove to the carpark Penny had given him directions for. It was less than a mile from their home in the sleepy village of Little Hambleton, apparently the best place to start his walk, it shouldn’t take him long. He was a good deal slower these days but he should make it back in time for lunch. Albert felt a bit lost walking on his own without Penny. It sort of felt like he was missing a limb.

The photographer and the mountaineer

It was in a crowded street in Kathmandu that Albert first met Penelope Creedence and approximately 5 minutes later fell in love with her.

At 31 years of age Albert hadn’t experienced much of a romantic life, preferring instead the freedom his job as a freelance photographer gave him. Most women seemed to want a little more stability than Albert could offer. At the drop of a hat he could be off to spend 5 weeks in a hideout in the northern swamplands waiting to get the perfect shot of a lesser-spotted morag tern performing it’s impressive mating ritual dance.

Penelope Creedence was not most women. A fierce mountaineer, warrior of the peaks, this woman had no desire to stay at home and settle down. Her passion was in adventure and discovery, constantly chasing that feeling of being on top of the world. Nothing could slow her down.

However, the British gentleman who asked to take her photo in the street caught her off guard. Well travelled and well spoken, this man’s photography had taken him all over the world. Penelope was intrigued, Albert seemed to share her love of exploration and the appreciation of a sunrise on a new horizon.

He had asked her out for a coffee the next day but she had politely declined- she was leaving with her climbing party on an expedition to the top of mount Everest that following morning.

Albert couldn’t let this marvellous woman slip through his fingers.

“Well… how about when you get back down?”

“Are you planning on staying in Nepal for the next 3 months?”

“I could be…”

“Well then, I would love to go for a coffee with you.”

“Well in that case I will be waiting for you in Lukla. Best of luck on your climb Penelope.”

“Thanks, call me Penny.”

3 months!!! Albert rang his fingers through is hair… he had no idea it took that long to climb Everest. Well, he wasn’t a man to go back on his word.

The little black book

With some help from Penny, Albert was planning his next geocaching adventure. He had arrived home from his first expedition in high spirits. He had found the box much easier than expected and after signing his name in the log book and depositing a packet of playing cards, he took a polished gemstone- amethyst by the looks of it. Penny would love it.

“Al… I’ve got something for you to put in the box you find today.”

Penny’s hands were clutching a little black book. Her husband recognised it immediately. It was her pocket-sized moleskine, the one she took with her everywhere when she travelled. Containing the details of all her climbs, each country she had visited. Her thoughts, feelings, and experiences all captured in her loopy handwriting in black ink ballpoint pen. It was a timeline of her life as a mountaineer.

“Why do you want to go giving that away?!” Albert exclaimed.

“I think it’s time dear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Time I passed my story on.”

Albert stared at her as she continued.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. We don’t have any children or family to pass these things on to, so why not throw it out to the world. Who knows who might find it and read it. Someone who enjoys an adventure I hope. What do you think Al?”

Albert sat still for a while, thinking with a deep furrow in his brow.

Suddenly he sat up straight and smiled.

“My darling, I think that’s the most wonderful idea. The most wonderful idea I’ve heard in a very long time indeed.”

Penny beamed back at him.

Ellie moves back home

Ellie Chambers was 21 when she found herself jobless, directionless, and moving back in with her parents. It was a move she had been dreading. Not because she didn’t love her parents, she was extremely fond of them and enjoyed their company hugely. They welcomed her back with opened arms, they had missed their only daughter being away at university all the way in Edinburgh for 3 years.

The issue was, that to her, moving back home was a sign that she had failed. A big fat failure. That’s what Ellie felt like. She had breezed through school, exams had been a doddle and everyone told her that getting a degree in English would be great- “keeps a lot of doors open”.

Having completed her degree the last year with a solid 2:1, Ellie was yet to find any open doors. She had moved to London bright-eyed and hopeful in the search of work. After months of working casual dead end jobs, she had been forced to accept that her irregular and meagre payslips could not support her living costs and her will to write diminished day by day.

Her spirits were crushed.

Sat in her bedroom staring at the walls plastered in posters from her teenage years, Ellie sighed and flopped down on her bed.

What now?

Mrs. Chambers intervenes

Ellie had been back at home for 3 weeks now and hadn’t done much besides mope around the house in pyjamas and look mournfully at the screen of her laptop as she applied for jobs.

Mrs Chambers hadn’t wanted to push her daughter, she knew she was struggling, but enough was enough.

“Ellie, you’re coming on a walk with me today!” She called up the stairs.

“I don’t want to go on a walk Mum!”

“Well you have to darling, Betty took me geocaching the other day, have you heard of it?"

“No…”

“Oh it’s fantastic darling but I need you to come with me because Betty is working this weekend and you know how hopeless I am at following directions. I might disappear into the woods never to be seen again if you’re not there to help me!”

And so it was decided and the pair set off. It was a pleasant day and the walk was enjoyable. Ellie felt truly relaxed for the first time in months, the sun was shining and the forest was alive in the gentle breeze. Her Mother deposited a tennis ball in the box they found and picked out something small and black hidden at the bottom.

“What about this Ellie? Ooh this looks like one of those moleskine notebooks. Maybe you can use it to write one of your stories in?”

“Sure Mum,” Ellie smiled as she put it in her pocket.

An unexpected visitor

Ellie’s heart was pounding when she left the house that morning. Was this the right thing to do? Was it weird to track down the owner of this mysterious notebook? Maybe they didn’t want to be found. But why would they write down their address? Maybe they didn’t even realise they had. She had so many questions.

Before she knew it she had arrived. Her hand shook as she took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

“Coming!” A muffled voice called from inside.

Ellie waited.

An old man opened the door.

He looked quizzically at Ellie.

“Can I help you dear?”

“Um, I was wondering if Penelope Creedence lives here? I’m so sorry for bothering you if she doesn’t. It’s just I found her notebook and I’ve read the whole thing and I was just hoping that maybe I could talk to her?”

The old man stared.

"Oh my"

“My name is Ellie by the way.”

“You’ve just missed her as it happens.”

“Should I come back another time?”

“No, no. Penny- Penelope- is my wife. I should say was, she passed 3 weeks ago now.”

His face crumpled.

Ellie looked distraught, she wanted to give this old man a hug.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I so wanted to meet her, I feel like I know her already.”

“Of course, the notebook…”

Albert looked thoughtful.

“There’s something I need to show you… please come in and have a cup of tea.”

The will

2 months after Ellie and Albert’s first meeting they stood side by side in the departures lounge at Heathrow airport.

Ellie was still in shock. It had been stated in Penny’s will that the person who found her notebook (if they should make themselves known) would receive exactly £52,000, on the proviso that they pass her story on.

Albert had shook his head and chuckled when he had explained the situation to Ellie.

“Penny always was one to make her own rules.”

With the help of Albert, Ellie had thrown herself into the writing of Penny’s memoirs. The two had spent hours pouring over old pictures, from the couple’s globetrotting days.

And now they were off to Nepal, to the foothills of the Himalayas to scatter Penny’s ashes. Her final wish.