This week's excitement was my hill validation day on Monday. This has to be done annually in order to be qualified to take pupils out on hill walking expeditions. Right up until Monday morning I wasn't sure if I would be able to go, because it depended on certain arrangements being put in place at work. Lezlee encouraged me to go if I possibly could and that gave me the motivation to come into work optimistically dressed for walking. Everything fell into place and I rushed over to meet the walking group at Hamilton Outdoor Resource Base.
I was just in time because everyone was about to climb onto the bus. All four of my Dukie colleagues from school were there (John met us at the hill). There were also some pleasant folks from other schools and the expedition was led by Derek and my good friend Alasdair O. So it was a convivial group that arrived at Dumyat near Bridge of Allan.
We each had to take a turn at navigating as if leading a group of 15 year old pupils. Everyone was very good at pretending to be the pupils, entering into the spirit of the occasion with some hilarious "pupil chat". Therefore the walk demonstrated our navigating skills and hill fitness at the same time. We didn't have to role play a medical scenario because we had a real first aid situation when one of the group fell down on some rocks and we had to clean and bandage her finger! I foolishly made a joke about not having used a compass for a while so I was made to demonstrate compass skills to the group of pretend pupils which luckily I still remembered. We made our way up and around the slopes of Dumyat (although disappointingly not quite to the summit because after our first aid emergency we ran out of time). The views were a bit hazy but still beautiful, and the weather was warm and dry all day. I was extremely gratified to find that my current fitness level was similar to the rest of the group so I didn't feel as if I was lagging behind at all. In fact Carolyn described me as "a gazelle" which was very kind but a huge exaggeration! We walked and chatted and it was all great fun. I was so glad that I went and we all passed our validation! So we now have five fully qualified leaders for this season!
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