Real life | 12 February 2011

When you start writing to-do lists that need paginating you know you’re in trouble. Also, a good to-do list should only ever have one major item on it. A bad to-do list looks something like this: Remortgage house, negotiate lease extension, buy car, book skiing holiday, remodel spare room, get pregnant, climb Kilimanjaro.

I don’t know which of these fills me with more panic. The order troubles me, too. I spend a long time shuffling the items around, the last two in particular, for obvious reasons. I cannot work out why some of them are even on there.

I have simply no idea why I told a friend I would join an expedition to climb the highest mountain in Africa. But climb it I must, apparently. The apocalyptic-sounding objective is for 11 of us to arrive at the snow-capped summit at 11 a.m. on the 11th November 2011, which is a concept that scares the bejesus out of me just looking at it on paper.