Popping Pills in the Peaks

Nothing wrong with a bit of alliteration as one of my pals once said 'a pig could sell Persil' in hindsight perhaps a Unilever sales conference wasn't the ideal place to be alliterating. And so after yet another wash out week in Blighty, even the miserable doom casters at Metcheck were forecasting an appearance of the big yellow shiny thing. We also had a free Sunday!

I love the internet for the immediate communication and the lack of planning required, a simple log on and check if anyone is planning a walk on Sunday, excellent Mr and Mrs Robbo and Mr and Mrs Pete about an hour away from home.

Sunday morning at the mildly sensible time of 9.45am me and Pam parked up in Earl Sterndale outside the Quiet Woman pub, ready to walk over Chrome and Parkhouse Hills. I'd done some of this walk previously when I raced my pal Shad up Chrome Hill so I knew it would be OK for the non climbers in my car.

The weather fairies had one last laugh by chucking a 2 minute heavy shower on us and then out with the rainbows.

Sometimes it's the views, other times the adversity, or the tricky climb and other times just watching your mates fall over or get soaked (or preferably both at the same time!) that make the day. Today it was the conversation, as someone said 'it's no wonder they are out of breath'

I ended up laughing most of the way, but I was particularly taken with the space age health discussion. As some of you may know, I understand Big Picture Health, sensible food, exercise, moderate drinking, no drugs and no fags even if I do admire it from afar with a kebab in my hands some days. Well good news everyone, there's a better way.....

Pills! and if that doesn't work more pills.

Now I'm guessing that everyone on this walk had probably recently sneaked passed their fortieth birthdays and were now experiencing some deterioration in their body temple. Well it started with knees......a normal walking complaint. No worries, a touch of cod liver oil pills and everything will be fixed. If you really do a lot of crawling you can supplement this with collagen tablets, which as far as I now understand enable you to spring about more than a spring chicken. In fact if you imagine Tricky Dicky watching a football match over a fence with two springs attached to his feet, Beano circa 1972 you've pretty much got it. 6 of these little beauties a day though.

They should sell them in quarters next to the midget gems.

Iron tablets seemed to be high on most peoples lists, and vitamin C which strangely is always in orange tablet form.

Then there were the multivits mix and match with Calcium and other stuff, by now I was getting the munchies for a tube of smarties, apparently they don't count. The overall winner by a mile though is the mighty

Statin pills,

these don't just lower cholesterol, but I'm assured they beat it to a pulp and demand kebab supplements. I don't have a cholesterol issue but just to be sure I'm going to be popping these with every Ginsters pasty I eat. Awesome. oh yeah we did some walking and some climbing too.

Over the soggy fields and round farmyards all the way to the northern tip of Chrome Hill. A few scowls from Pam who takes exception to using her hands to walk! 'if you need to use your hands, then it's not a walk'.

Thankfully it was a pretty short clamber before the wide ridge took over and happiness broke out. Up to the top without too much hassle and then off the far side to Parkhouse Hill.

Even though the limestone was a bit slippery Pete decided that a touch of climbing was in order so two of us made it to the top of the pinnacle adjacent to the main hill. Up to the top for a spot of lunch and a bit of geocaching

For the second week in a row Peter had left lunch in the car, you can get away with this if you are on your own with a flask of soup. I honestly thought Helen would have been quite within her rights to shove him off the ridge, aggressive action wasn't needed though, as Robbo simultaneously dropped part of the geocache off the ridge. Well about 8 yards down the really steep bit. Peter promptly volunteered to get it, I guess he figured he was safer on an 8 inch ledge over a 200ft drop than standing sandwich less on the flat bit.

Just as Peter arrived at the bit of paper Robbo announced 'sorry mate that's just a bit of paper I've just found the cache in my pocket'. 'I put it there so it didn't get blown off'. top effort chaps.

It was a bit of a steep drop down to the bottom and Pam took the 5 points of contact with the earth at all times option.

And so from here a hop, skip and a slide back to the cars and to the pub for cider. Just got to plan my raid on Holland and Barrets now. Cheers for the extra photographs chaps