Welcome to my blog!  Having never had a blog before, I have taken full advantage of being able to talk without anyone telling me to shut up so here is a collection of meandering thoughts detailing my general disorganisation, ineptitude and daily panics about what I have signed up for.

Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly excited about what I am going to be spending my summer holiday doing but I am under no illusions. This is going to be a gruelling, tough and ultimately life changing experience. And I can't wait.

Please read on and apologies if I bore you senseless...

Annelie xxx

The End... *sob*

It's 3.30am and I'm going to have to go to bed but I will finish this tomorrow and upload some photos, I promise...

The Latter Part of the Middle Bit

Having set off in the rain that morning, for me this proved to be a tough day. I had saddle sores on the back of my legs and for some reason, crippling stomach pains. I'm also not very good at being cold, or wet. It tends to promote a sense of humour failure and today was of little exception. My second mount of the day proved to be an absolute nutter and seemed to only have one gear - very fast. Katy was on a similar horse (Bob, not sure which one though) and not long after setting off my crippling stomach pains manifested themselves as an urgent need to go to the loo. Going to the loo was always tricky, there was very little cover/bushes/trees to hide behind so you either had to instruct everyone to face the other way and not look whilst trying to use your horse's legs to preserve your modesty (tricky even when they stand still, potentially disastrous if they don't - being pulled over by a horse when your pants are round your ankles is a humiliating experience) or run a considerable distance to get behind a dip or over a hill. I realised that I needed to go to the loo RIGHT NOW and upon attempting to dismount, I discovered to my horror that my psycho horse was, under no circumstances, going to stop and let me get off. Katy and I tried, and failed, three times to get him to stop and I could only see this ending badly. Luckily, as we came over the top of the hill, we came across Juan who was adjusting his kit. I begged him to help and upon seeing the look on my face (pain and terror in equal measure) came to hold my horse. With help at hand, I felt nothing but relief until a whole new problem presented itself - Juan was wearing a poncho and my horse wouldn't let him get anywhere near. Eventually he managed to grab my reins and I was off in a shot, running back over the hill and probably breaking the land speed record in the process. My next problem to deal with was a groin strain when my horse tripped so every jolt and jar hurt like hell, and the whole day was jolty and jarry. Simmons was not in a happy place.

The rain continued to lash down and we got progressively colder and wetter. By this point, Team Tool had merged with Team Polo (Jeremy, Will, Juan and Emily) with Saskia who had lost her partner Holly so we rode as a bedraggled but still merry bunch, very much looking forward to the town we were going to ride into that evening. There was even a plan put in place as to how we were going to secure rooms and what we would do that night and the delicious food we would eat. Imaginations ran WILD and Bayan became this oasis in our Derby befuddled brains.

Unsurprisingly, Bayan was a shit hole. Like some sort of weird, deserted ghost town, the only 'hotel' had a drunk passed out face down in the doorway. There were no roads. No restaurants. No amazing oasis. Each and every one of us could have cried, except Dave who remained resolutely upbeat and utterly convinced that a 5 star hotel would be just around the corner. We limped to the horse station, sodden, dejected and in a rather dark place. However, there was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel - there was ONE shower in the entire town and we could use it, although we would have to wait for the water to heat up. Suddenly the world wasn't such a bad place after all and we all piled into an old soviet mini bus thingy to be transported back to Bayan, the dump we had just ridden through. There were nine riders at this point (we'd found Holly) so the Mongolians thought the best place to leave us to wait for our turn in the shower was... a bar. Well, technically it was just a room with seating but there was a shop next door with plenty of booze so we really did find ourselves in heaven. We drank and laughed and sang with the Mongolians and Dave did the Haka in his tights and little else and we all had a great time. After the girls had showered, we were informed that the water was running out so the boys would have to shower in pairs. Listening to Juan and Will negotiating 'how we are going to do this' was hilarious and a strict time limit was established between them 'you go in and get wet for thirty seconds and then you get out and soap while I go in and get wet...' The merriment and drinking continued with Will singing his song about wanking again and Katy provided a rousing rendition of Jerusalem. By now we had established ourselves amongst the Mongolians and they not only welcomed us to their fold but were actually bloody impressed that we were still alive and still going, although Jeremy did remark that breaking your leg while drunk in the shower was not an injury he had anticipated being a risk on the Derby. 

Riding long distances now felt like normality and we were all settled into the familiar routine of getting up early, horse changeovers, camping and decamping and eating mutton at any point during the day. The next morning, I had one of my best horses ever. A little bay with two blue eyes that went like shit off a shovel and had the stamina of... something that has lots of stamina (it's late, my vocab has gone to pot). I was still plagued with stomach pains and had to stop for a tactical puke behind a rock with Team Tool looking on sympathetically. That afternoon, we deviated slightly from the route and rode into a really small town to get something to drink. A rotting cattle carcass at the entrance kind of set the tone and we made ended up making a swift exit when some drunks started chucking rocks and corrugated iron at us. Nothing like being made to feel welcome!

Later on we rode through an abandoned military testing ground, liberally scattered with unexploded Russian bombs. Only slightly unnerving but Dave going for a closer inspection had Katy and I holding our breath. We'd all survived being drunk in the shower, were we about to see Dave blown into a million pieces? Thankfully with his curiosity satisfied, he remounted his horse before he accidentally detonated anything. 

The Earlier Part of the Middle Bit

The next morning, still held at the horse station, we were due to be let off in staggered stages to reflect the time we had ridden in the night before. As Team Tool were not going to be allowed to leave before 2pm, Katy, Dave and I bribed a Mongolian to drive us to a small town 10km away to stock up on chocolate and other essentials, other essentials being more chocolate. We duly took orders for everyone else and reassured that we would not be departing before 2pm, we set off. Clearing the store of snickers bars, we returned 40 minutes later and finding everyone mounted, we were informed that everyone was to leave together right now. With our tents still pitched and our kit strewn everywhere (we were not renowned for our savvy unpacking) we had a flat out panic to get decamped and mounted in 5 seconds flat, which somehow we just about managed. The field set off and not forgetting the previous day when riding over the mountains lost us hours, we stuck low and went round the hills in front of us when everyone else went over the top. This proved to be a bit of navigational gold and we found ourselves way out in front whilst everyone else laboured behind. Our lead was short lived as we got distracted by swimming in the river a few hours later, some Mongolian children were happily splashing around with their pony tethered on the bank. They tied up our ponies for us and tried on our hats and sunglasses while we welcomed the first opportunity to immerse ourselves in cool water, completely ignoring the warning at Boot Camp that, under no circumstances, were we to swim in the River Tol as it was heavily contaminated and we were likely to grow another head or something if we went near it. We emerged significantly cleaner so figured an extra head would be worth an hour of feeling washed.

That evening we found ourselves between horse stations and, unwilling to push on and incur a 6 hour time penalty for riding after dark, we set up camp by a well. Access to water was critical during the race and riding dehydrated horses was not only inhumane but also against the rules so it seemed like an ideal place to stop. After watering the horses (and every cow and goat in a 5km radius that heard the splashing water) we tethered them to the post, put the hobbles on them to stop them wandering off and put up our tents. At this point, some children from a nearby ger were collecting water at the well so I suggested that if Dave helped them carry the water, the family might offer us some food in return. Dave disappeared off for a considerable length of time but returned with a dinner invitation so we joined the family for the evening. It was a pretty memorable evening for several reasons, not only did it feel like we were getting to know the Mongolian culture first hand but Katy was propositioned by all the Mongolian men in the ger, after declining one (or rather Dave did on her behalf, they felt they should negotiate through him) she was instead offered a Mongolian menage a trois. The teenage daughter knew one English phrase when we arrived 'See you next week' but after several hours of thumbing through my Mongolian phrase book, she was almost fluent in small talk, greetings, how to ask where the bakery is and counting to fifty. As Team Tool were still struggling with 'Hello' and 'Thank you' (and 'no, Katy does not want to sleep with you'), it really put us to shame. I left her with the phrasebook, considering it was going to a very worthwhile home.

The next morning we unzipped our tents to check on our horses, only to discover we were one horse down. Dave's mount Stu had broken his tether and wriggled out of his hobbles. 'Bloody fuck shit' was the general consensus but luckily our Mongolian host was on the ball and disappeared off in search of Stu, returning him 10 minutes later to our relief. We saddled up and set off, the day's riding passing without event other than Dave nearly passing out on the mountain top because he took some painkillers he'd picked up in Asia on the way over. The writing was in chinese (or similar) so he had no idea what he was taking or the correct dosage but it did stop his back hurting so he wasn't unduly worried. It was quickly becoming apparent that Dave was the most painfully positive person you would ever meet, no matter how wet, cold, tired, hungry or sore you were, he would pipe up with 'it could be worse, you could be stuck in the office!'. At the time we wanted to smack him but secretly we appreciated his perpetually sunny outlook. 

That night, we again found ourselves short of the horse station so set up camp, making extra carefully sure the horses were properly secured. We had a feast of supernoodles and chocolate (the only time in the world you will ever get me to eat supernoodles) cooked on the fire we'd made on the mountainside and went to bed.

We awoke the next morning to pissing rain and no bloody horses, all three of the little shits had got loose and buggered off. Luckily two of the Mongolians (Unen Buren, the western horse station manager, and Ganbold, the photographer) so Ganbold disappeared over the brow of the hill and returned riding one bare back and leading the other two. Professing our thanks and providing Ganbold with a packet of Camel lights as a token of our gratitude, we set off. Horse Station 11, the halfway point, was in our sights that night, plus the camp was close to a 'big' town and there were rumours of a hotel and some decent food. 'Decent' qualified as anything that wasn't mutton and noodles. Morale was high, if a little soggy, and the promise of a hot shower was pant-wettingly exciting. After 5 days on the Steppe, it's the little things.

The Beginning

The morning of the start was one of high anxiety, amongst horses and humans alike. Everyone was jumpy and a couple of horses decided they weren't so up for this stupid race idea so unleashed an impressive rodeo display, unceremoniously dumping kit and riders on the floor in a dusty heap. Tom, the Adventurists head honcho and race organiser, looked progressively more nervous, the expression on his face probably best translated as 'the next time I have a stupid idea like putting 25 morons on horseback and sending them across Mongolia, I think I'll keep my mouth shut'. The Mongolians were sceptical, dubious and amused in equal measure, they had absolutely zero faith in us all and thought there was no hope in hell that we would even survive this, never mind complete the course.

Katy and I had named our little outfit as Team Tool in reference to our general ineptitude and had undertaken a vow to ride together and not leave each other in the shit. This vow was ratified by one of us taking a tiny bottle of conditioner and the other a tiny bottle of shampoo in the event that washing our hair might be an option during the race, we were bound by clean hair. We also adopted kiwi Dave on the basis that he could tie knots and navigate, was a bit of a hardcore adventurer (Katy could navigate but neither of us could tie knots) and was carrying lots of food. He was probably more qualified to be part of Team Kiwi, who were as brilliant as they were kiwi, but we quietly congratulated ourselves on nabbing a team member that would probably save our lives on more than one occasion over the next 1000km.

However, somehow we all made it to the start line after a last minute medical briefing 'remember, we have enough sedatives on us to keep you under all the way to Seoul' and at the countdown, we all shot off. In varying directions and with varying degrees of success. Within a very short distance, all of Will's kit had fallen off. Juan announced 'I have just realised that 1000km is a fuck of a long way'. Katy and I took a very western line to water our horses at the first well 5km away so lost the rest of the field very early on but we happily trundled along for 10km before meeting up with Dave and reuniting Team Tool.

The terrain on the first day was hot, dry and barren and we crossed a fair section of desert, riding a total of approximately 80kms, with the aches and pains to verify this. Expecting to awake the next morning crippled, I was pleasantly surprised to discover I could still walk so an early start saw us setting off and deciding to travel as the crow flies rather than the longer course route. We quickly discovered that the course went the long way round for a reason and found ourselves battling over a mountain and down through a forest, losing several hours and a bit of humour in the process. We were all on fat, slow horses (we had yet to learn that picking the nice, cuddly ones was a bad idea) and it was an arduous leg. There were constant reminders of the harsh rural life in Mongolia - a dead horse left to rot on the mountainside, it's teeth bared in a morbid grin. 

Later that day, in the early evening, clouds gathering on the mountains started to look rather menacing so Katy and I insisted on being sensible and stopped to get our waterproofs on. We dismounted but Dave started to rummage around whilst still on his horse. Bearing in mind these horses would lose the plot if you so much as fumbled in your pocket, we both yelled at him 'Get off your horse NOW Murray!'. He duly obliged and pulled out his waterproofs. I don't know whose reaction summed it up most appropriately - the look on his horse's face which can only be described as one of abject terror or mine and Katy's whereby we laughed so hard we nearly wet ourselves. His waterproof was a poncho that was little more than a voluminous white plastic bin bag with a hood. Through her tears of laughter, Katy just about managed to stutter 'Mate, NO CHANCE'. It still took a good few minutes of persuading and his horse nearly bolting before Dave conceded defeat and abandoned his bin bag in favour of Poncho Nr 2, a racy little green number and altogether more horse-friendly. All this proved futile as the storm failed to materialise and we arrived at the horse station sweating buckets in our wet weather gear.

It was on this leg that Katy came a bit of a cropper and we were faced with our first potentially disastrous situation of a loose horse. At all times, we were riding the horses away from what they called home so they would head straight back the way they just came if the opportunity ever arose. Luckily, Bob V (all of Katy's horses were named Bob for ease of reference) was more interested in eating so between us in a stealth manouvere (which, despite several attempts I can't seem to spell), Dave and I managed to pincer him - Dave grabbing him from the back of his horse and hanging on doggedly despite nearly being pulled over the head of his own horse and me securing him from the ground while hiding behind my horse. Sneaky. With Katy reinstated and confirming that her and Bob V were unharmed we carried on. We were flagging at this point so I dished out an energy supplement that Maximuscle had provided me with - energy bars in capsule form. They had the effect of downing your own bodyweight in Red Bull so we buzzed our way to the horse station on a caffeine high, happily singing the praises of Maximuscle. With enough of those tablets, we could complete the race in about 2 hours. Carrying our horses.

That night we learned that the race had been called to a halt - an accident had seen Tomo the Spaniard being rushed back to Ulaanbaatar with a back injury so with no medics on the course we had to stay put. We set up camp for the night and looked forward to the lie in, falling asleep to the hillsides flashing with lightning and the distant roll of thunder. 

Boot what?

After a loooooong bus ride out to what only can be described as the absolute middle of nowhere, we arrived at Boot Camp. It took less time to fly to Mongolia than it did to drive to Boot Camp but this wasn't helped by the fact the tarmac road ran out about halfway there. Offroad in a coach, they should try that one on Top Gear.

The next two days were spent going on test rides, packing, unpacking and repacking our race kit, consuming vast quantities of tiger beer and having the living daylights scared out of us by the medical talk. The medical team consisted of Jeremy (not the Jeremy that was buying vodka because that would be marginally alarming) and Christian. Jeremy was a man of few words but those he came out with were absolute gold and Christian was the subject of the odd crush here and there. However, they were faced with 24 grim faces when they opened the briefing with:

'The most serious medical risk you are going to face on this race is a head injury as a result of a fall. Many of you will have heard of the golden hour when it comes to head injuries - the hour in which you have to get to intensive care in order to save your life. You can forget about the golden hour. It will probably take us, at best, at least two hours to get to you. It will then take a couple of hours to mobilise the helicopter as the crew won't be sititng around waiting for you to fall off. We then have to get you to the nearest intensive care unit which is six hours away in Seoul. In short, you're toast'

We all promptly shat ourselves.

I honestly cannot remember anything else from that briefing, other than Harry the Vet passing out, which was a slightly sobering experience. Note to self, don't fall off and if that can't be avoided, really try not to hit your head.

The evenings were spent sitting round a camp fire, talking, laughing and drinking and pretty much forgetting why we were here, it felt a bit like a riding holiday. The night before we set off, the camera crew had arrived and joined in the merriment - Will and Juan had drunk large amounts of vodka and Will entertained everyone with a song about wanking. We were all sleeping in gers, the traditional cloth tents, with six of us in each ger. Having weaved his way to bed, Juan hurriedly got up and went outside, making his way to the back of the ger where he puked rather loudly and rather copiously. Forgetting that the walls of the ger were really rather thin and not at all soundproof, he returned to bed and announced 'I think I drank too much water'.

The next morning, at 6am, the camp was woken by the sound of... bagpipes. On the wilderness of the Mongolian Steppe, we were treated to the strangulated sound of Jock tuning his bagpipes. Whilst a yak was walking past. Possibly the most bizarre combination imaginable so, convinced I was hallucinating, I returned to bed to enjoy the last morning when 6am was a time to snuggle down in your sleeping bag rather than jump on a horse. 

At breakfast, Will came across the cameraman Simon with whom he had spent a good 20 minutes talking to the previous evening (either before or after the song about wanking, I'm not entirely sure). Utterly oblivious to this fact thanks to the amount of Chinggis vodka that had found its way down his throat, he put out his hand and said 'Good morning, lovely to meet you. I'm Will'. Will proved to have an innate awareness of where the camera was trained, at one point walking towards the camera in the background whilst someone was being interviewed. His walk had a certain strut about it and, initially, we all thought he was putting the it on but in time we realised that is how Will actually walks. Hannah watched this performance and commented in her dry, sarcastic way 'He is going to come across like a complete cock on camera'.

This was our last day of pretending the Derby wasn't happening. Our last chance to have a shower and to fiddle with kit. Our last chance to say 'I'm not so sure this is such a good idea'. 

The Mongol Derby v Strictly Come Dancing

Ulaanbaatar isn't the most attractive place. By the time I came to leave, I had fallen in love with Mongolia and everything about it but initial first impressions of the capital were that I wasn't entirely sure whether it was half falling down or half being built, possibly a bit of both. Electricity was intermittent, hot water non existent and traffic was a guaranteed way to come to a sticky end. Crossing the road required your wits about you, nerves of steel and the acceleration of Ussain Bolt.

I was sharing a room with Katy Willings (read her blog, it's much more entertaining) and we spent the day trying to purchase last-minute items before getting bored and deciding to have a beer instead. However, this was not before we had spent 20 minutes playing in a child's tent that resembles a hamster's assault course in the State Department Store, bruising elbows and knees while timing each other to get from one tent to the next via the connecting tunnel. Not that it was a competition or anything but I won. By a comfortable margin. Just so you know. Well, Katy was proving to be better than me in every other respect so I am going to take any glory I can.  

We bumped into various other Derbyists that day - Jeremy purchasing booze and Emily cigarettes, Dave obsessing about food and Jock wandering around a bit lost which proved to be an early precedent. Dave, as one of the tallest guys, had to drop a hefty 12kgs in order to come within the weight limit so spent his entire time thinking about food, eating, weighing himself, what he had eaten, what he was going to eat next and whether he needed to go for a run in the morning. Everyone was particularly concerned about the 10kg kit limit but Dave was only interested in how many packets of freeze-dried expedition food would weigh 10kgs.

We had the team dinner that even at the best Indian restaurant in Mongolia and everyone consumed vast quantities of curry (except Dave obviously) and Charlotte regaled us with stories of smut, farmyard animals and an unconvincing argument as to what exactly New Zealand had done for the world. Richard Dunwoody joined us and aside from pointing out that we were pretty privileged to be in a room with someone as renowned as him, went on to point out that the record he held was for the most falls ever in a racing career. He gave us a run through of the race and when opening the floor to questions was faced with the Holly we would come to know and love: 'Mate. You said you were aiming to finish the race in 5 days. Are you having a fucking laugh or what?'

As it happened, Dunwoody was to fly home the next day to take part in Strictly Come Dancing and would no longer be racing against us. Despite everyone being disappointed that they would no longer be able to have claim to have raced against Richard Dunwoody, we were secretly relieved that the competition was starting to thin. How many more competitors could we get rid of before the start?!

Too Late to Turn Back

My final day in the UK prior to departing for Mongolia was spent in a hungover fuzz, fuelled by a good dose of terror and attempting to pack, which I am never very good at anyway. Packing requires far too much focus and my usual modus operandi is hurriedly stuffing things in a bag about an hour after I should have left for the airport. I have always believed that as long as you have got your passport, your bikini and a pair of tweezers then you can't go far wrong. Had I stuck to this, I probably wouldn't have ended up paying over £100 in excess baggage but hey, you live, you learn. 

My planned day was as follows:

8am Awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed, excited about the day ahead

9am A light breakfast before a trip to the yard for a ride and a tearful goodbye with Orla (being a horse, she hides her emotion well but I was going to find it a bit tough)

2pm Commence packing, carefully following the detailed kitlist I (read: my brother) had written up to ensure I did not miss any crucial bits of kit.

6pm A leisurely bath and pre-holiday maintenance session involving fake tan, toenail painting, defuzzing, etc. Ok, I admit it, the presence of a camera crew was making me nervous.

10pm An early night to prepare myself for the long and exciting journey ahead.  

What actually happened:

8am Awake, groaning. Might be hungover, might still be a bit drunk. Not entirely sure but feel pretty mediocre. Daylight is painful, should probably avoid small children and loud noises.

9am Faff

10am Panic a bit/a lot

2pm Still faffing

3pm Try to start packing, give it up as a bad job 

6pm Decide a curry might solve all my problems

7pm It doesn't

8pm Make a lot of mess. None of it is constructive. Stuff just won't stay in piles

9pm Realise that nobody is going to pack for me

10pm Wander around a bit, moving stuff from place to place. None of it makes its way into bags

1am Pack a bit. Any progress is good progress at this point

3am Decide a nap might be a good idea

4am Realise if I don't start packing right this second now, I'm up the proverbial creek

5am Throw everything in bags, attempt to gauge weight on kitchen scales. Hope they're really wrong

6am Leave for airport, wondering at what point in my life was I going to do anything without leaving it all the last possible moment.

To make me feel loved, The Mothership, Saint Sneady and his daughter Flo met me at the airport, along with my best friends Aimee (and her son Oliver) and Steph (and her son Max). We all sat around having a civilised coffee until Oliver thought his world had come to an end because The Mothership bought Max a red bus (cue epic tantrum) and I realised my flight was boarding and I still had to clear security (cue epic panic).

Flying Aeroflot proved to be as 'exciting' as predicted. I arrived in Moscow without any problems but having had no sleep the night before (packing more than a bikini, a passport and a pair of tweezers takes a long time, especially when you don't really get round to starting until 1am) so I went to the boarding gate for my connecting flight and fell asleep. I figured if I was in the right place, I wouldn't miss my flight boarding.

I was in the wrong place. I had missed my connecting flight.

I had a big fat tizz, ran around trying to find the right queue to join in order to get on the next flight, failed to find the right queue and was in no way surprised at my own ineptitude. My brother was right, I had the Midas touch for disaster. It actually transpired that my flight was delayed by four hours but rather than show the flight as delayed, they displayed it as a whole new flight. Handy. I can honestly say I have never been so deliriously happy to learn I was facing another four hours sitting in an airport, even if it was Moscow airport and I had no money, nothing to read and nothing to eat. The flight was interesting to say the least, the in-flight entertainment consisted of a rip-off version of Winnie the Pooh (in Russian), a documentary on fishing and Mongolian men shouting at each other. 

I eventually made it to Ulaanbaatar and promptly ignored all expert advice at combatting jetlag by spending the entire day asleep. This being disorganised malarkey is really quite exhausting.

The Mongol Derby (the short version)

For those of you that can't really face reading my long drivelly version of the Derby, I thought I would provide you with a quick summary to bring you bang up to date and prevent you wasting an hour of your life that you're not going to get back. That is my kindness, right there.

I went to Mongolia. I rode quite a long way. I didn't die, I didn't fall off and I didn't get dramatically lost. I ate a lot of questionable meat (could have been mutton, could have been goat and if it wasn't either of those, I didn't want to know) and I didn't win but also didn't come last, I came 13th. Which seems pretty appropriate. I had the time of my life and I would do the whole thing all over again without a moment's hesitation.

The End.

That wasn't too long and drivelly was it? 

Current Mental State: Unhinged

Apologies for the radio silence of late, although I am pretty sure a lack of inane drivel from this quarter was probably something to be welcomed rather than lamented. It all came down to the basic fact that abject terror of the task in hand resulted in a complete lack of coherent thought and a substantial sense of humour failure. I had so much to sort out and no idea where to start so I kind of… just didn’t start. I was beyond even writing lists and I LOVE writing lists. Half started piles of packing lay abandoned, partially opened boxes were strewn everywhere, an excessive number of backpacks dumped in the corner (if in doubt, buy another backpack. You always need another backpack), my sitting room looked like the store room of Millets. That a very large bomb had gone off in.

Last Sunday, I finally got the chance to catch up with army brother Bags. In the previous month or so I had emailed him various kit lists in the off chance he could load me up with some spare military kit and prevent me from making Mr Millets any richer. He ignored this (justifiably really, he was kind of busy being on Countryfile and stuff) until the last possible moment when he was presented with his white-faced sister whose answer to have you got/do you know how to/what are you going to do about was ‘I don’t know’. Realising an apocalyptic breakdown was brewing, he shoved me in the car and took me off to Cambridge to attempt to kit me out for something he barely knew anything about, he’s a boy, he’d switched off at ‘horse’. He made me buy things that were useful and stopped me panic-buying a lot of crap that wasn’t. We both got the giggles in Boots when we found ourselves next to the feminine hygiene products (they were next to the dioralyte, which I purchased in large quantities) and altogether had a little bit of a sibling bonding session while indulging in a spot of retail therapy. The following day I received a message from him that said ‘now I have finally got some spare time, I have just been reading up on what you are going to be doing. It’s beginning to dawn on me that this is actually a mammoth trip AND you’re actually doing it. Thank you for choosing Help for Heroes, I am very proud of you, even if you are a bit naive and as mad as a box of frogs’. It’s taken him a while to catch on but he got there in the end.

The hairiest moment of the last week was thanks to good old Royal Mail. I was still awaiting the arrival of several key bits of kit, namely a steripen to zap river water rendering drinkable, my saddle bags in which to pack all my kit and the neoprene hobbles to secure the horse at night. There were several abortive trips to the sorting office, extensive rants about the ineptitude of Royal Mail and many, many hours on the phone in queues, getting cut off, occasionally speaking to the wrong person and trying to explain that without these items, I was good as dead and this was said without the slightest hint of exaggeration. I eventually tracked down two items to a sorting office that I had already spent an hour and a half at that morning (only to leave empty handed as they couldn’t find my items) and the last item to a Parcel Force depot in Mitcham (I have no idea where that is either) and that was only after phoning America to get the shipping number as there was no sign of it this end and no delivery card either.

I spent the majority of the week camping in the garden to road test my tent. It only cost 23 squids so I was slightly skeptical as to whether or not it would dissolve in the morning dew. However, apart from being quite small and resulting in a very static morning hairdo due to the close proximity of the inside walls to my head, it seemed to be up to the job. It made it through a full day of rain and I was really quite pleased with it. Now all I need to do is master not wriggling halfway out of my sleeping bag in my sleep and I would be in with a good chance of getting a comfortable night’s sleep. I did contemplate practising my fire-lighting skills in the garden but did not think the landlord would appreciate scorch marks on either his lawn or his patio so these remain an unknown quantity. I did buy a stormproof lighter though so I think the pyromaniac in me is just waiting to get out.

The countdown is nearly over and this Mongol Madness is about to become reality. All I have to do know is survive flying to Ulaanbaatar via Russia with Aeroflot. Whenever I have told anyone I was flying Aeroflot, the look on their faces can only be described as one of alarm. It can't be that bad, right?!

If it’s not One Thing, it’s your Sister

So, as you may or may not be aware, my article came out last week in Sport Magazine. I met with Simon (the editor) for lunch the day before and he handed me a hot-off-the-press (quite literally) copy. I opened it and the reality hit me: I wasn’t wearing very much and I looked like an idiot. Quite why it took me this long to work out these two glaringly obvious facts, I will never know but it really was too late, the horse had well and truly bolted, taking the stable door (and half the stable) with it. By tomorrow morning, half of London will have seen this.

I spent the afternoon in a vain, self-obsessed pit of despair and went home to do what I do best, I rode my horse and then got drunk. It is remarkable how much less I cared about how I looked after two bottles of wine.

I woke up on the Friday morning with a slightly fuzzy head and an impending sense of doom. Hit by that sick feeling that you get when you have a dream that you’ve gone to school without any clothes on. Except this wasn’t a dream, and it’s not school but all of London. Oh lordy. I got into work and crept to my desk, luckily I work in a small office but with ‘it’s the porn star!’ ringing in my ears, it wasn’t nearly a small enough office as I would have liked. I checked my emails, there were a couple of justgiving donations and I had raised the princely sum of £65. This was officially the worst idea I had EVER had and, believe me, I have had many, many bad ideas. Clemmie, my colleague and friend (although she has tested the latter this week) rushed off to the nearest tube station and came back with about 20 copies to distribute, I promptly confiscated the lot. She called me all sorts of names but from a safe distance, I think she quickly realised the look on my face was rather murderous.

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