Full of beans

I took a beautiful photo today of the Mer de Glace, literally translated from the French as 'sea of ice'. Anyway, I can't upload the thing using my iPhone so you can see a similar photo from the web by clicking on the link above! We spent half the day queueing for cable cars but it was worth it to get up really high above the Chamonix valley. We seemed to be in spitting distance of Mont Blanc much of the time. We got up to 3842m which meant that climbing up steps inside the cable car building was really hard work (lack of oxygen due to altitude). In fact, rushing for the next cable car I nearly threw up at one point and my head was pounding. Makes you realise how awful altitude sickness must be for people who climb much higher than this.

Anyway, with cable cars behind us we spent the second half of the day walking - a traverse round the side of a mountain that eventually brought us out at the bottom end of the Mer de Glace. The views were spectacular. The only thing that slightly spoiled it was the huge numbers of people we encountered. At times we were practically queueing to make progress along the path. It's funny because the last couple of days we have commented several times about the lack of people - we wondered where they all were - now we know!

The thing I really noticed today was just how much energy I seem to have these days. In the past, on a walk such as this, I would gave tried to do the minimum possible. Now, I dash off here just to look at something, then quickly scramble up a hill to take a photograph - I seem to be full of energy like I've never known before. I just wish I had done this band thing years ago - that's my only regret. I'm full of beans in more ways than one. I recall a guy at our support group saying that since he'd had a bypass, he passed wind almost immediately after eating anything. Of course we all thought this was hilarious and had great fun mickey-taking at his expense. The only thing is, in the past few weeks I seem to have fallen under the same spell. I nearly exploded a few times today because there were so many people about, I couldn't, if you know what I mean - I had to hold it in!!!

So in more ways than one I appear to be full of beans!