{insert suitable expletives}

I am feeling like a total looser because of my continued inability to write. Writer's block--is it always like this? Perhaps this is the first time I've actually been afflicted by it. Maybe the other occasions were just minor glitches. This, though ... this is a deeper problem, more vital. Have I failed as a writer? Am I no longer physically capable of constructing my stories?

I try to think positive thoughts about writing. It works, but only to the extent that it makes me want to write. It doesn't solve my problem and actually give me the ability to do so.

Writing aside, things are going badly on all fronts. I picked up a cold yesterday, and a combination of sore throat, cough and constant sneezing has left me in a foul and rather fragile mood. Work today was a prolonged slog, and the news that I'm going to be working nine hours of overtime on Friday (they didn't ask me; they told me) has not been received well. Three days off per week aren't much to ask for a part-time worker, are they? I need those days off. The time-and-a-half overtime pay might be welcome, but too much till work is very stressful and wrecks what little of my writing ability apparently remains.

The silver lining

For the time being, I am distracting myself from the miseries of the world (insert plaintive violin overture) by planning out my next backpacking trip, to be conducted in May 2005. It may be a little early yet to start planning, but five months are bound to go by in no time at all ... and besides, I've been looking forward to this particular trip for nearly two years now. I'll be taking the train to Windermere in the Lake District, and then it's just me and the wilderness for two weeks. This will push my navigation and backpacking skills to the limit. Here is the list of the 21 mountains I intend to climb:

+ Brown Pike
+ Buck Pike
+ Dow Crag, arguably the second most impressive rock formation in England
+ Coniston Old Man, highest peak in the Coniston massif
+ Brim Fell
+ Swirl How
+ Harrison Stickle
+ Pike o' Stickle
+ Pike o' Blisco
+ Bowfell
+ Crinkle Crags, including Gunson Knott, Mickle Door and Great Knott
+ Cold Pike
+ Rosset Pike, situated above one of the most gruelling foot passes in Lakeland (Rosset Gill)
+ Allen Crags
+ Glaramara
+ Great Gable
+ Kirk Fell
+ Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England
+ Broad Crag, the second highest of the Scafell Pikes
+ Great End
+ Esk Pike

These peaks may be moderate by international standards (even Scafell Pike ranks at only 3210 feet), but they are rugged, bleak and inhospitable--some of the finest mountains in the land, a role-call of Lakeland royalty. Great Gable is the birthplace of modern rock climbing, and some of the mountains (eg. Bowfell, Scafell Pike, Great End) are proud horns of rock and crag thrust high above the valleys. I will have the priviledge of camping in some of the remotest places in England: Sty Head, Sprinkling Tarn and Esk Hause, high in the Scafell-Bowfell massif and miles away from any inhabited place.

England is an ancient country, but that also means that it is overcrowded. I'll be visiting some of the only places left that mankind has never settled. That's true freedom for you.