A picnic at the top of the world

A picnic at the top of the world

There’s a million and one things I should be doing and probably will have to say sorry to Chris later, but I thought I would start with writing today! There is a book lying on our bedroom floor called “My favourite place”, which is a collection of writing pulled together by the Scottish Book Trust about the said mention in Scotland and I started thinking about one of my favourite places in the world; South Africa; Cape Town to be more precise.

Cape Town was the final destination for a trip I have taken part on to raise funds for SCOPE and our last challenge was to climb Table Mountain. Now the story of the climb is another chapter in itself, but it led me to one of the most iconic moments of my life, having a picnic on top of world. If I shut my eyes in the darkness of the Scottish winter, I can feel the dry heat of Cape Town and relief of having some shelter under some trees. Now I know what you are thinking; it is not that impressive and did you cheat by using the Cable Car  I can assure you we had walked through the Kirstenbosch National Botantic Garden, fought with an angry dassie and been separated from the rest of the group. Michael, one of the guides supporting the group, and I were on our own at the back of the mountain and we were each other’s support according to him. The truth was he was my rock that day, and demonstrated the kindness of strangers. It was down to him we had lunch as in my wisdom I had given my pack together with my water and food to Mark. 

The stupid thing when writing it is that I don’t remember what we ate, only that we drank Redbush tea under the trees and an overwhelming sense of peaceful awesomeness floated through me; it had been a long journey from the parallel bars to eating sandwiches on top of Table Mountain. The law of averages and even my own mind now sometimes rejects this story as nothing but a fairy tale, because it was incredible, scary and wonderful all at the same time and it changed me. I think I looked at myself and realised that yes I could do anything. No matter how many times things don’t work out how you would want them, that if you want something in life bad another, there is no reason why you shouldn’t go out there and seize everything you have. I think I learnt to love myself for everything I am and in doing that I found an inner peace and beauty that allowed me to no longer punish myself for things out with my control. I honestly believe that the experienced opened me up as a person and because of that I found Chris, because I could believe that someone could love me.

Now, back in Scotland, whenever I need inspiration or a reminder of what drives the inner madness of Jules, I close my eyes and go back to the mountain of dreams and allow myself to rejoin the picnic on top of the world.