Blow the Cobwebs Away - Into 2025 With a Blast

Of course, you’ve heard all about New Year resolutions and that kind of optimistic stuff, that just doesn’t quite pan out as intended. And then there`s that old proverb about `the road to hell is paved with good intentions`. Quite a challenge, then!

So how do we make them stick?

Put it all in print, share it widely in advance, and then public face and credibility become the incentive to actually make it all happen. The added incentive here is that the prime objective is to do something big for the benefit of others – those who really need what the money (hopefully) raised, provides. And now that it's in a blog, which hundreds may read, the prospect of failure would be humiliating.

So here goes!

What I`m planning, going to do in fact,  is a serious physical challenge every single month of 2025. The added dimension is that I`ll be in my 79th year along the way. No pressure then? These ventures, or capers as I like to call them will last anything from a single day, right up to some five weeks or so. They`ll involve cycling, walking, climbing, paddle boarding, rock climbing, bike camping and a wee bit of wild swimming too. Some of it will be solo, but several incredibly generous-hearted folk are going to buddy me on a few of the difficult bits.

Hopefully, this has whetted your appetite to stir up your curiosity, or more?

But hang on till I tell you what I`m determined to raise the money for. I`m the founding secretary of a charity here in Scotland, called the Joseph Thomson Maasai Trust that raises funds each year to enable some girls and young women of The Maasai people in a rural part of Kenya, to receive a full secondary and higher education. Why is this so important, I hear you think?

Through our contact with a social enterprise over there, we know that the age of 14 is a bit of a cliffhanger for these girls. They may have received some primary education, but aged about 14, Maasai culture deems that they are ready for FGM (female genital mutilation), arranged marriage to some old guy who already has sundry wives, and then a life of poverty thereafter. Now we may be critical of this, but it would, at the very least, be bad form to condemn it. That’s their culture, not ours. But we can do the humanitarian thing and seek to change it, over time, to give girls and young women a much better deal, quite simply by enabling our partner organisation, Across Maasai Land Initiative, to invest in secondary and higher education for a few of them each year. So what we are doing is very ethical, as it's their idea, not ours; nothing imposed.

Having done this for some eight years now, and received an annual testimonial from each girl, we know that it is truly life-transforming. In time, as they get qualified, they will take on positive and influential roles within their village communities. They all tell us that they already want to be good role models, to influence other girls and to move education for girls much higher up their cultural agenda. The Joseph Thomson Maasai Trust`s Maasai Girls Education Project has a compelling appeal for me; we make it happen, for them.

It's because of this, that throughout 2025, I`m challenging myself, putting myself out a bit, to encourage lots and lots of good people just like you, to support my humongous efforts and sponsor the appeal as we go along on, by the wheel or boot.

Just to get me in the mood for all this, I've been walking around Linlithgow Loch every morning at 7.00 a.m. in all weathers and I`ll be into my first challenge on Boxing Day by climbing along and up Tomtain in the Kilsyth Hills. The name means Hill of Fire, and believe me, I`m all fired up for this year of capers.

In January, I`ll tackle a loop of hills in The Pentlands, just south of Edinburgh. A nice day walk from Flotterstone, and I might even go into the Inn for a coffee afterwards. Well earned, surely?

Come February I`ll do the whole of the Water of Leith Walkway, almost from source to summit, the direction of travel will depend upon what takes my fancy on the day.

In March, I`ll venture out a wee bit more by tackling Tinto in South Lanarkshire. The last time I was up that lovely hill was with a large group of friends, to celebrate my sixty-fifth birthday. Now at this point, perhaps I should tell you, that not too many years back I had my right ankle fused at a ninety-degree angle, as the joint had disintegrated. Oh, the wonders of modern surgery. Then to add to this, I had a quintuple heart bypass courtesy of our magnificent NHS a few years before that. Both procedures were one hundred per cent successful, so I`ve never looked back. Hence all this capering.

My 78th birthday is near the end of April, so I`m planning another 24-hour cycle to celebrate. How far do you suppose I can cycle in twenty-four hours virtually non-stop? Watch this space, and you`ll find out.

During May it will be what I`d call the Loch Ossian Loop that I`ll tackle. Not just a wee pedal round the Loch of that name, but a three-day and night venture: Dalwhinnie, Loch Pattack, Ardverickie, Loch Ossian, Loch Rannoch, Dalnaspiddal, and back to Dalwhinnie. With tent of course.

Mid-June will see the start of my epic bike camping caper, the Six River Valleys of the East Coast of Scotland. So that’s all of the Rivers Tweed, Forth, Tay, Dee, Spey, and Affric, with all places in between. Has anyone done this before? Haven’t a clue, but who cares anyway?

So are you beginning to feel your wallet/card loosen up a bit I wonder. If not, then you are a bit tight, simple as that.

For August, I feel a wee pedal down and around some of the glens and hills of the Scottish Borders coming on, once again, with a tent and stove in my pack. Och, a mere four days for this one, methinks.

Then I`ll need a coast-to-coast bike-camping venture in September, just to keep me fit. Largs on the Clyde to Eyemouth on the North Sea coast would be nice.

In October, it's going to be cycling and walking up the Seven Hills of Edinburgh. A classic.

November and December capers have still to be decided, so you`ll just need to be patient. Any suggestions in a sealed envelope, please?

Then there will be rock climbing somewhere in Cairngorms National Park, wild swimming in each of the six rivers I mentioned, and paddle boarding in, or on, Loch Insch on the Spey, most likely. All are woven into these caperings fabric.

Is this sufficient, do you think?

Well, that’s enough about me and my capers for now, so let's get right back to what this is all about. Remember those Maasai girls, please believe me they are entirely dependent on the funding we must generate, or their educational journeys will end abruptly; simple as that. No education, no graduation. Fact. As for the 13-year-old waiting in a family hut back in the village: FGM, arranged marriage and a life of poverty await her unless we can raise the money to get her into secondary school next year. It's an awesome moral responsibility that we have, but we are up for it, I am most certainly up for it, and with your help at some time during 2025, together we`ll raise all of the £10,000 we need to meet our commitments for one more year.

Here`s to lots of active capers in the New Year!