“I think it’s my heart”, I say at the desk.

The receptionist picks up the phone and speaks into it, unhurried but certainly not dawdling. I’m led to a waiting nurse. They’re all watching me. Waiting for me to do anything…dramatic.

Oh god. Not like this. Please.

I’m led to a crisply-sheeted bed.

“Just hop on, we’ll change the sheets afterwards”, the nurse says as I look down at my muddy boots. I clamber on, leaving thick chocolate smears everywhere. Someone will end up washing this bedding. What will they think of me?

Then I remember why I’m here, and the terror drives all else away.

Once my shirt is off, gel stickers are stuck all over my torso. Then wires are attached to each one. I’m told to lie still. So naturally I tense up.

A button is pressed.

This is my first ECG - and I’m almost disappointed. There’s no lightning, no whining of a generator spinning faster and faster. No red lights or klaxons. They don’t even have those double electrodes with the spark running up between them, like any real machine involved in life & death situations. I don’t feel anything except the ever-present band of tightness across the left of my chest, and the numbness in my left arm.

The nurse (she could be a doctor, I’m a little distracted right now) goes away for a while. I think about things. About the irony of it all. How I’m just 3 months away from changing everything in my professional life, from taking the career risk I’ve spent 3 years slowly, erratically working towards. Just a few more months…

Well, maybe sometimes dreams are meant to stay dreams. C’est la vie, eh?

I fight down bitterness, anger, self-disgust, fear. How could I have done things any different? Easily, the answer comes, along with a list of regrets as long as my frighteningly numb arm. Easily, Mike. Wrong decisions, opportunities you failed to grab as they went past on the way towards someone braver, time you didn’t spend with people, places you never went. It could be that you simply blew it.

So, I’m suffering from…go on, say it…..

Heart failure.

Maybe heart disease. Maybe cholesterol, the way my Dad went. Something really bad. All I have is guesses. I’m not a doctor. I just know I’m in the right place for what is happening to me.

What now? Medication. No more walking through rainstorms. Nothing that will push my heart too badly – so that’s flying ruled out, then. And therefore most of my travel plans. Maybe it’ll require surgery. What did they call it on E.R? “Angioplasty”. Sounds like a type of Play-Doh. Ah, I remember now, it’s when they widen…

The nurse has returned. She’s holding some kind of print-out.

**********

I sit in the reception area.

I look at the ground.

I look at the clock.

I look at the ground again.

Just 5 minutes have passed. I’ve got almost an hour to go. I should pull out my book, carry on reading The Cambridge Introduction To Narrative, because I’ve got a lot of reading to do before I fly out to TBU Umbria. I’ve got a lot of planning for what’s happening just before TBU. I’ve got so much to do.

I look at the clock again. Another couple of minutes gone. But I can’t focus on anything but the ground. All my thoughts have stopped.

It’ll be another 48 minutes before the bearded doctor (or he could be a nurse – I’m currently a little distracted) comes out at 2.17am and tells me that my blood test, like my ECG, says there is absolutely nothing wrong with my heart, suggests it’s virus-related muscle cramps, and tells me I’m good to go home, back to my travel plans and work-related plans, back to everything I’ve been working towards and momentarily thought I’d lost – and then I’ll take almost an hour to walk the couple of miles home through the cold, because I’m so wobbly-legged, so knocked senseless by the events of the evening.

But for now, I stare at the ground.

Time passes.

But that’s okay. It seems I have a little more than I thought.

Image: rosmary

Clicked all the links in the first half of my 2011 roundup?

Wired sums of money to me, tears of gratitude coursing down your cheeks?

If not, I’ll wait for you to do that.

(Note: I accept all major credit cards, all minor credit cards and pretty much anything I can turn into money – ie. no GoDaddy accounts, official Rick Perry merchandise and so on. Thanks).

Now for the difficult sequel.

July

• Being caked to within an inch of my life in Austria, as the guest of this ukelele-playing maniac)…
• …(although I nearly didn’t make it)…
• …where I tried to forget we had history (that’s me and Austria, not me and Pam)…
• …and sat in Frankfurt airport, marvelling at how much fun it wasn’t.
• Then I attended the start of the Mongol Rally, at the kind invitation of the Adventurists…
• …and remembered being lost in the fog in Orkney.

August

• Horrible, horrible male nudity…
• ..the thrill of travelling the world carrying useless crap…
• …how I nearly drowned in Cyprus…
• …why I’m not ashamed to be utterly disaster-prone…
• …the ancient breath of London…
• …and the midnight call of the Trans Pennine Trail.

September

• A very personal audio piece on the importance of not waiting….
• …and then I go quiet – because I’ve started working here.

October

• The worst cooking I’ve ever inflicted on anyone (and frankly, that’s saying something)…
• …an Orkney meteorological mystery, explained at last…
• …and a confession to a friend called Meg.

November

• A first-ever trip to Glasgow (to see this bloke), where surprisingly I didn’t get murdered…
• …a parting of the ways with Travelllll (and something of a leap of faith)…
• …drunken Italians hogging the tannoy…
• …and hungover folk musicians hogging my living-room.

December

• Thoughts on sensible, practical world domination techniques…
• …currying people in a good cause (namely, Passports With Purpose)…
• …7 books that made me think differently…
• …being told off by an evil sweet old Latvian bat lady….
• …and embarking on a trek to the end of the Roman Empire.

Well, that lot should keep you busy. (It certainly kept me busy).

But not as busy as 2012 will be keeping me. It’s barely the beginning of January, and I already have more travel planned and more exciting projects I’m busily kicking off than the last 3 years combined. No, really. (If I was waxing hyperbolical, I’d be the first to laugh at myself – you know what I’m like).

And more than that…I think I finally know what this blog is for. And I’m damn excited about that.

Yes, this is going to be a whirly year.

Coming along for the ride?

Images: aspearing, Cristophe Becker, flickrPrince and Mike Sowden.

I’d love to tell you about all the amazing stuff I saw up on Hadrian’s Wall this week, or the things I have lined up for this blog in 2012, or the places I’ll soon be visiting and writing about, or start telling you about the other major thing I’ll be writing about for the next few months…

But frankly, I’m still recovering from New Year’s Eve.

So, posted a week late (because I’ve been up in Northumberland, getting rained on), here’s what went on in these parts in 2011:

January

• Despairing of Twitter yet again…
• …and telling the story behind my favourite photo.

February

• Busting 5 myths about England…
• …telling you why I love your travel writing (yes, you)…
• …and enjoying a medical emergency.

March

• Remembering a romantic-dalliance-turned-frenzied-sprint-for-the-ferry in Belgium…
• Deciding that virtual friendship is actual friendship…
• …suggesting ways travel tech is really messing us up…
• …on the lookout for Greek harpoons…
• …and mulling over the lessons of the first TBU (Travel Bloggers Unite) conference in Manchester.

April

• Curling my lip at the ending of “Lost“…
• …applauding Gary Vaynerchuk…
• …furtling in hedges, better known as geocaching…
• …suggesting ways to fill your Kindle for free (my most popular post, currently at around half a million pageviews)…
• …the things I’ve managed to get right as a freelance writer…
• …and watching the bikers at Thirsk.

May

• Reaffirming my love of black & white photography with “Trains Lend A Sense Of Perspective“…
• …ranting about the nonsense of “good” or “bad” places, via audio…
• …raising an eyebrow at the concept of ‘authenticity‘…
• …and being led up Austrian mountains by really, really English people.

June

• Coming clean about the many things I’ve got wrong as a freelance writer…
• …taking a look at York Minster‘s eccentric history (including an Archbishop with a taste for piracy)…
• …and flying the flag for Megabus, the cheapest way to get around England.

Part 2 coming as soon as I’ve recovered from yesterday. Just…just give me a while. Thanks.

Images: Tris Linnell, Generationbass.com and Mike Sowden.

You know about Passports with Purpose, right?

Because I was a little preoccupied over the last month with this and that, I didn’t register as one of the contributing bloggers, and therefore didn’t enter a prize.

You know about the incredible amount of amazing (no, really - amazing) prizes to be won, right? All you have to do is donate a little spare change and pick the prize you’d want to win. It’s that simple.

As I write they’re a quarter of the way to their goal of $80,000.

And since it’s a fundraiser on behalf of a cause that’s very dear to my heart – building libraries for those who need them, via the international non-profit organization Room To Read – I figured I’d be involved in some way.

So I’m offering curry.

This is Rafi’s Spicebox. Voted one of the top 50 gourmet shops in Britain (and most beloved by food experts) by the Independent newspaper, it’s a shop in York that builds curry from the ground up. Are you bewitched by the colours, textures and aromas of spices? Then stepping into this shop may unhinge your mind. Oh, you’d love it there. Next time you’re in York (or Sudbury, in Suffolk, where the original store is located), you should pop in.

A lot of you haven’t been to York, and aren’t planning to, so you won’t be able to try out Rafi’s tastebud-seducing curry mixes.

But that’s okay.

Because I’m going to send you some.

HERE’S THE DEAL

• If you contribute $20 or over to Passports with Purpose between now and 11:59 PST on Friday 16th December, a little over a week away, I will send you one of the Main Dish dry curry mixes (consisting of just the spices – you have to add the meat or veg) in either a specific variety of your choice, or just pot luck.

• I wish you could see these mixes being put together – because they’re not prepacked, they’re built, in front of you. A little of this, a pinch of that, a whole heap of these, chop-chop-chop-chop some of these into it, and a nice gloopy spoonful of this. It’s a magic trick with food. (One of these days I’m going to YouTube it).

• How do you get me to send you a curry mix? By forwarding me confirmation of your donation (with your private info edited out, of course) to hunter.sowden AT gmail.com. Seems to me your options here are a JPEG screenshot, or a forwarded copy of the PayPal confirmation e-mail you received once your donation has gone through. Do that, and I will curry you with wild abandon.

• Once you’ve convinced me that you’ve made a donation of $20 or over – let me know your curry-pack preference (type? heat?) and I will put it into a parcel and send it to you – wherever you are. Short of McMurdo Station in Antarctica and the International Space Station, I will try sending you curry, no matter how far-flung you happen to be. I will do my very best, and postage be damned. (Curry spices are, thankfully, quite light).

DISCLAIMER AND SUGGESTIONS

1. This is being done completely off my own back. This is not being done in association with Rafi’s Spicebox or anyone else. It’s all me.

2. These packs often do contain some semi-liquid contents – but they’re sealed. I’ve successfully sent packets of Rafi’s mix to San Francisco and Beijing. They travel. I can’t fully guarantee they’ll get through customs at your end, but I’ve never had any trouble. (And if they can get into China, hell, that’s saying something).

3. Pro Tip: when your curry mix arrives, do not eat your curry on the same day of cooking. Unpack your spices, add your ingredients (meat or vegetables, coconut milk etc), cook your curry up, let it cool, refrigerate – and reheat it the next day. Really, truly do this. Your curry will be good on day 1 – but it will be orgasmic on day 2. This is what Rafi’s Spicebox recommends to its customers, and it’s absolute truth: good curry is a day late.

4. If this becomes enormously popular – say, someone puts up a page on Facebook saying “donating to PwP already? Tell this sap [link] and you’ll get free curry LOL!” – I will burn through my allotted budget, at which point, I will stop mailing curry spices. I’m not bankrupting myself just to fill your stomachs. (Sorry).

5. I reserve the right to put strange, random things in your parcel on a whim, such as Yorkshire teabags, Thornton’s chocolates and oddly-shaped biscuits, depending on my mood. Sometimes you’ll get nothing. It’s nothing personal – it’ll just reflect the kind of mood I’m in that day.

So – do you want me to curry you?

DONATE HERE

Image: meaduva and Joi.