Stephen Venables lecture

I managed to behave all day - rested leg, did frozen shoulder exercises, made beetroot bread and broccoli pepper bake with a nut topping, then caught up on “A good read” podcasts while getting on with the boring cardigan sleeve.

The treat tonight was a trip to Gosforth to a lecture by Stephen Venables. Many years ago I read his book about the 1992 Panch Chuli expedition, which he spent a fair bit of time telling us about. Since his bad accident there he’s concentrated on guiding and climbing mainly on South Georgia which we found fascinating, having visited there 10 years ago. His slides of his climbs were stunning, and his talk most entertaining and interesting.

The theatre was full and about a dozen of us wore masks. Mr C had a nasty cough but continues to test negative and oddly the cough hardly happened in the talk. We had seats on the end of a row by the door just in case he had to leave.