I met a friend of mine in a coffee shop some weeks ago and told him that I was planning a trek up Kilimanjaro in October. Being a playwright and an actor his creative talent and flair is what puts the bread and butter on his table so I listened and took note when he told me I should really start writing a daily blog. That way, he said, it would be so much easier to remember it all when, having completed the challenge in mid-October, I decided I wanted to write all about it. I told him what a great idea that was as of course I'd love to have a record of such a once-in-a-lifetime expedition. I met him again last week (4 weeks on) and of course his first words were "how's the blog going?" These are the first words of the blog so I'd better try to put the whole thing into perspective from the start....albeit 4 weeks and more further on!!

In fact the whole idea started over a year ago when I agreed to do a trek for charity. When my boss heard about this he asked me if I could do one for the company's own charity as it is one of his personal dreams to climb the Big Hill. There was no way I would commit to 2 treks in a year for family reasons, and the fact that at 46 I'm not getting any younger and having not done a walk longer than a few hours around the shops as rarely as possible it would require enough training to do it once!! So far I have managed to persuade about 20 people to join me, pay deposits etc and all was going well until we hit a snag. The company's charity is based in Austria and so raising money through the normal channels was going to be difficult. The enthusiasm sadly waned from HQ and that gave me an easy decision to make...I could now do the trek for the charity of my own choice which, as I work for them already, was an easy enough choice to make.

That's the background and much of it is irrelevant and won't need to be revisited. Suffice to say Talking2Minds will benefit (massively I hope) from the funds that I intend to raise over the next 6 months or so. Training got underway with a day in January on The Pyg Track on Snowdon and another on March in the beautiful Grasmere. Both were amazing days out and I soon understood why people do this kind of thing for fun! Having said that I recognise completely that Kilimanjaro will be something altogether different. A friend of mine who has recently returned described the experience as "Hell on Earth" and has vowed "never to climb anything - ever again"!!

The reason that I'm now more excited than ever about doing this is twofold. The first is the very fact that I will be raising funds for and awareness of Talking2Minds. We are a military charity helping those who suffer from the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We are funded by ourselves and donations from the public and we need to spread the word far and wide as PTSD is now becoming more recognised and features in the news almost daily yet, even with the amazing results we continue to get, we are largely unknown at the moment. This, I am confident, will change with Neville Thurlbeck as our PR director and Bob Paxman, ex-22 SAS and founder of the charity as our CEO and driving force. We also have various other fundraising efforts going on which I will promote using this blog as I go along!!

The second reason I'm so excited about this particular challenge is that I will be joined by my all-time best mate of about 39 years Paul Witherick. He has been a constant rock to me over the years and the saying that "you know who your true friends are" is absolutely accurate here!! To be at the top of the Big Hill with Paul will be an amazing way to celebrate our friendship.

www.talking2minds.co.uk

You can donate at www.virginmoneygiving.com/BruceMartin66

Thank you.

Bruce.