RedSzéll.com

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

Shared Vision continues its world tour!

Despite lockdown, Shared Vision has continued to reach an ever-growing global audience. After its warmly-received premiere at the 2019 Banff Mountain Film Festival, the film has been a finalist at the Wasatch, Bilbao, Trento, New Zealand, London, Dutch, Korean, and Slovenian Mountain Film Festivals.

And a special 30-minute director’s cut version was screened by BBC Scotland on 14th August 2020. It can still be viewed on BBC iPlayer here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000lrtw/shared-vision

As a teenager in the mid-1980s Red Szell watched a BBC documentary featuring Chris Bonington and Tom Patey climbing the Old Man of Hoy and knew ‘life wouldn’t feel complete until I’d at least tried to follow in their footholds’.

He began to climb and had Hoy firmly in his sights until an eye examination shortly before his 20^th birthday revealed that he was going blind. For several years his life went into free-fall and his dreams were obscured by his struggle to adapt to his darkening world. The road to recovery began in 2009 when his daughter chose to hold her birthday party at a local climbing wall and Red saw a way back to the sport he loved.

In 2013 he realised his dream and climbed The Old Man of Hoy, becoming the first blind person to do so. His achievement was televised by BBC Scotland in an episode of The Adventure Show.

The following year Red reassembled the same team of climbing partner Matthew Wootliff, mountain guides Martin Moran and Nick Carter for a successful attempt on The Old Man of Stoer. But the third of ‘The Tom Patey Three’ big Scottish sea stacks, Am Buachaille, eluded him – until last summer.

‘It’s basically an extreme obstacle course’ he says in Shared Vision, the captivating documentary of the expedition by award-winning filmmaker Keith Partridge (who was the specialist cinematographer on the BAFTA winning filmTouching The Void).

The film offers us a glimpse into the restrictions of Red’s everyday life in London and the freedom he finds on barely accessible rock pinnacles.

Keith Partridge has produced an enthralling film with some stunning cinematography. The soundtrack reflects the importance of communication between Red and his companions Matthew and Nick, and with each hard-won metre of progress we learn that this is indeed a shared vision of adventure, camaraderie and challenging the perception of disability. As Red puts it: ‘it’s about seeing what you can do rather than focussing on what you’ve lost.’

The film is dedicated to Martin Moran ‘…who guided so many to new heights’ but was tragically killed on Nanda Devi in 2019.

Watch the trailer here:

I am immensely grateful to my sponsors for sharing my vision and helping to show that blindness should be no barrier to adventure. In particular, I am proud to be an Arc’teryx Ambassador, and enjoy honing my climbing skills at VauxWall, HarroWall and The Castle Climbing Centres. Also thanks to San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind, who gave me the wherewithal to follow the example of James Holman ‘The Blind Traveller’.

“In Your Pocket” Blog – Written and Audio

And just in case you worried that I might have been idle while the climbing walls have been closed due to the pandemic, I am delighted to say that I have been asked to write and record a series of freelance articles detailing my experiences with “In Your Pocket”, a smartphone device developed by RealSAM that enables BVI people to access the services and entertainments that we most want and need. Check out what I have to say here: https://www.inyourpocket.net/news/

Radio News – Latest

Read On is The Audiobook Show on RNIB Connect Radio. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews, and author interviews.

Recorded at The RNIB Talking Books Studio in London, recent highlights include interviews with all the authors short-listed for the 2019 Booker Prize, a show recorded live at The Wigtown Book Festival featuring Natalie Haynes, Alan Johnson, Lord Bird and Prof. Steve Jones, exclusive interviews with Lee Child, Joanne Ramos and Dame Stella Rimington and so much more!

Download the podcast free from your favourite provider – simply search for “Read On – The Audiobook Show” or follow the link: https://audioboom.com/channel/readonair

I am also a regular contributor to Radio 4, most recently for Annalisa is Awkward, as well as frequent appearances on In Touch both as a talking head on round table discussions and with my ‘Seeing Red’ point of view pieces on life as a blind person.

To access all the features I have recorded for In Touch, including why Aussie cricketer Shane Warne made me see red and my feature about giving back a guide dog that was included in Radio 4’s Pick of the Year 2017, click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?filter=programmes&q=red+szell

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

Help Support Your Local Climbing Wall During Lockdown

If like me you are climbing the walls at home and itching to get back to your favourite climbing centre, here’s a great way you can show your support and help them prepare to reopen.

The Association of British Climbing Walls (ABC) has launched a fundraising campaign, through T-shirt sales and crowd funding, to ensure that when lockdown restrictions allow we can all make a safe and swift return to indoor climbing and bouldering. All the money raised will go towards providing walls with a marketing campaign designed to encourage customers back into walls and help guide them safely around the centres, maintaining good hygiene practices and social distancing.

To browse and buy the great items on offer, or to make a fundraising donation, visit the ABC Shop by clicking the link below. And let’s hope we can get back to climbing the right kind of walls again soon!

ABC Shop: https://www.abcwalls.co.uk/association-of-british-climbing-walls/shop/

***Shared Vision continues on its world tour***

Following its world premiere at The Banff Mountain Film Festival last November and screenings at the inaugural London Mountain Film Festival and The Wasatch Film Festival in Salt Lake City, Shared Vision has been selected as a finalist at both The Trento International and New Zealand Mountain Film Festivals.

The 22-minute film was made by award-winning adventure cameraman Keith Partridge and documents my 2019 expedition to climb Am Buachaille, one of Britain’s most remote pinnacles, and so complete my quest to become the first blind climber to summit all of ‘The Tom Patey Three’ big Scottish sea-stacks.

Watch the trailer here:

Radio News – Latest

Read On is The Audiobook Show on RNIB Connect Radio. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews, and author interviews.

Download the podcast free from your favourite provider – simply search for “Read On – The Audiobook Show” or follow the link: https://audioboom.com/channel/readonair

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

***Shared Vision coming to London and Salt Lake City***

Following a sold-out world premiere screening at The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in Canada last November, Shared Vision is heading to London and Salt Lake City!

Wednesday 1^st April
Wasatch Film Festival
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

3pm – 5pm: matinee screening for festival finalists. Click here for more details: https://wasatchfilmfestival.org

Saturday 2^nd – Sunday 3^rd May
London Mountain Film Festival

I’m delighted to announce that Shared Vision has been selected as a finalist at the first London Mountain Film Festival. Although the physical event has had to be postponed, you can still journey into some of the most remote and beautiful adventures by going online: https://www.londonmountainfestival.com/finalists

Watch the Shared Vision trailer here:

I am immensely grateful to my sponsors for sharing my vision and helping to show that blindness should be no barrier to adventure. In particular, I am proud to be an Arc’teryx Ambassador and I enjoy honing my climbing skills at VauxWall, HarroWall and The Castle Climbing Centres. Also thanks to San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind, who gave me the wherewithal to follow the example of James Holman ‘The Blind Traveller’.

Arc’teryx – I am proud to be an Arc’teryx Ambassador and to wear the best climbing clothing and harness on the market.
VauxWall and The Castle Climbing Centres – for giving me amazing facilities to train at.
Above and Below, The Castle Climbing Centre, and VauxWall – who all made sure we had the best equipment and training for a successful expedition.
Isokinetic Sports Injury Clinic – who ensured my full recovery when I got injured.

Radio News – Latest

Read On is The Audiobook Show on RNIB Connect Radio. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews and author interviews.

Download the podcast free from your favourite provider – simply search for ‘Read On: The Audiobook Show’ or follow this link: https://audioboom.com/channel/readonair

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

***Shared Vision coming to London and Salt Lake City***

Following a sold-out world premiere screening at The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in Canada last November, Shared Vision is heading to London and Salt Lake City!

Saturday 7^th March
The London Climbing Festival
HarroWall
Units 2a / 3a Neptune Trading Estate
Neptune Rd, Harrow HA1 4HX

The UK’s Largest bouldering climbing centre is hosting the first ever London Climbing Festival, where I’m delighted to be presenting a screening of Shared Vision followed by a Q&A hosted by top climbing instructor Louis Parkinson of Catalyst Climbing who has played a key role in improving my technique.

Doors open 10am
Film screening 3pm – 4pm
For more information, click here: https://www.harrowall.co.uk/2020/01/09/1060/

Thursday 12^th March
Arc’teryx
212 Piccadilly, London W1J 9HJ
7,30pm – 9pm

Arc’teryx’s flagship UK store will host a special screening of Shared Vision, followed by a Q&A with top British climbing instructor Louis Parkinson, after which there will be a raffle in aid of RNIB to win an Arc’teryx Nuclei FL jacket.

Admission is free but please RSVP to: https://community-events.arcteryx.com/sharedvision-filmscreening

Wednesday 1^st April
Wasatch Film Festival
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

3pm – 5pm: matinee screening for festival finalists. Click here for more details: https://wasatchfilmfestival.org

Watch the Shared Vision trailer here:

I am very grateful to my sponsors for sharing my vision and helping to show that blindness should be no barrier to adventure:

San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind who gave me the wherewithal to follow the example of James Holman ‘The Blind Traveller’.
Arc’teryx, Above|Below, The Castle Climbing Centre, and VauxWall, who all made sure we had the best equipment and training for a successful expedition.
Isokinetic Sports Injury Clinic, who ensured my full recovery when I got injured.

Radio News – Latest

Read On is The Audiobook Show on RNIB Connect Radio. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews and author interviews.

Recorded at The RNIB Talking Books Studio in London, recent highlights include interviews with all the authors short-listed for the 2019 Booker Prize, a show recorded live at The Wigtown Book Festival featuring Natalie Haynes, Alan Johnson, Lord Bird, and Prof. Steve Jones, exclusive interviews with Lee Child, Joanne Ramos and Dame Stella Rimington, and so much more!

Download the podcast free from your favourite provider – simply search for ‘Read On: The Audiobook Show’ or follow the link: https://audioboom.com/channel/readonair

E-Bike Anarchy (Hampstead Village Voice – Issue 40)

In 1967, British psychedelic rock band Tomorrow released their debut single My White Bicycle – a song I really must ask Hampstead rock legends Mad Dog Bites to perform at the next Gayton Road street party.

The song was inspired by a bike-share scheme organised in Amsterdam by the Dutch anarchist group Provo. In the summer of 1965 they painted 50 bicycles white and left them in various places round the town for anyone to borrow, use, and then leave wherever their journey finished.

The scheme was less successful than the single it spawned – within a month all the bicycles had disappeared – most of them to the bottom of Amsterdam’s many canals. Others were impounded by the police, for causing an obstruction.

Fifty-four years on there is a range of colours to choose from when signing up for a bike share scheme. And GPS tracking systems discourage punters from slinging their 2-wheeled steed into the nearest body of water when they’ve completed their journey. But while the technology may have got smarter, people haven’t.

Consequently, as if pedestrians weren’t facing enough obstacles already what with wheelie bins, sandwich boards, pavement cafes, free newspaper bins, parking signposts and dog shit, we now have the additional hazard of abandoned bikes to negotiate.

They may be painted in jolly candy colours but these lumps of pig iron are anything but soft centred. They are angular ankle biters with unyielding heft when you trip over them.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m all in favour of pedal power. I am the proud owner of a mountain bike tandem (affectionately known as The Beast) that transported me and my climbing partner through The Highlands on my latest sea-stack adventure this summer. And I am all for any scheme that encourages people out of their cars and helps drive cars out of London. But…do it thoughtfully and responsibly.

It beggars belief that people who claim to espouse environmentally friendly policies and responsible living are so happy to dump the eco-bike they’ve just used, so carelessly. It’s like dropping litter in the street.

I’ve tripped over bikes left in the middle of the pavement (including one abandoned outside RNIB headquarters in Judd Street), propped up by trees, and resting against lamp-posts. I’ve even nearly been decapitated by a pedal dangling down from a bike wedged on top of a CA-H parking post!

The instructions to users of the bike-share apps are clear:

‘Park your bike responsibly and out of the way of pedestrians, cars and accessibility ramps. This means leaving your bike to the side of a wide pavement, where it won’t be in the way. Always park upright.

However these are listed as ‘guidelines’ and, in the case of the scheme run by those paragons of social responsibility Uber, couched in words like ‘should’. They are not legally enforceable and so, people being solipsistic, selfish or too busy, just ignore them.

And lest you think that this is merely an issue for blind people, then ponder how you would negotiate a bike lying across a narrow Hampstead pavement if you were in a wheelchair – as witnessed a couple of weeks ago in Well Walk. Only the prompt intervention of a builder and a dog-walker prevented the middle-aged lady concerned toppling sideways from the kerb and into the road as she attempted to manoeuvre around its heavy frame having tried unsuccessfully to budge it by hand and footplate. I wonder how Jump would have dealt with that personal injury claim?!

Other cities require bike-share firms to operate a docking system whereby you have to return the bike to a rack. These of course are invariably on pavements – if the aim is to get cars off the road why not co-opt a parking space? After all bikes, like motorbikes are vehicles and so belong on the road. But at least a docking bay corrals bikes at the kerb-side and stops them creeping into the path of pedestrians.

In July Hackney Council suspended dock-less bike parking throughout the borough while it seeks a deal with a provider who can stop bikes being dumped on pavements. It’s time Camden did the same…it could start a chain reaction.

Al Alvarez: A Tribute (Hampstead Village Voice – Issue 40)

Al Alvarez, writer, poet, critic and self-confessed adrenaline junkie: born 5^th August 1929; died 23^rd September 2019.

Only one book has moved me to tears on its first page – The Savage God by Al Alvarez, who has died aged 90.

A frank, insightful study of suicide it was typical of Al’s approach to life and literature in its uncompromising determination to explore the aspects that genteel folk shy away from. With his boxer’s nose and his high brow Al was a pugnacious intellectual who felt and thought about his existence deeply, particularly when the stakes were at their highest.

Born in Hampstead in 1929 into a well-established Jewish family, he attended school at The Hall and then Oundle. However he never felt part of the establishment: “I am a Londoner, heart and soul, not an Englishman.”

As a child he underwent a series of operations and had to wear a lead boot to correct a deformed ankle. His response to this set the pattern for his life: “I was a fragile child,” he recalled, “so I made a point of ceasing to be one. I took up mountain-climbing, rugby and boxing.” He broke his nose boxing and, in a cruel twist of fate, would eventually shatter his other ankle climbing.

At Oundle he excelled both on the sports-field and academically, but narrowly escaped expulsion for breaking all the rules, and in 1949 went up to Oxford as a scholar, to read English. There the “not quite English” Al Alvarez rebelled even harder. He founded the Critical Society, whose manifesto opened: “In Oxford current literary criticism is both vague and ineffective.”

He disdained its lack of intellectual rigour and “high-table chat” so, despite gaining a First, rejected life as an academic to pursue life in the raw.

As a literary critic he did more to shake-up and re-mould the study of English than anyone of his generation. A fine poet himself, he was the poetry editor of The Observer for a decade between 1956 – 66. There he lambasted the cosy “gentility principle” of leading British poets like John Betjeman and Philip Larkin, championing instead the emotional authenticity of confessional poets including Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath. He distilled his attack in his polemic introduction to 1962’s anthology The New Poetry. It was a self-confessed “fuck them” to the “London old boy’s circuit” and earned him a lot of enemies. But The New Poetry was also a hugely influential bestseller and went on to become a standard text at schools and universities.

Al expanded on his doctrine, that critical intelligence is forged in the white heat of extreme personal experience, in a series of books of what he called “fully existential criticism” that began with the publication of “The Savage God: A Study of Suicide” in 1971. The book ends with a meditation on his own aborted and Sylvia Plath’s successful attempts at taking their lives. They were close friends, both struggling to cope with marriage breakdowns, and Al not only did much to establish her reputation as a poet but was one of the last people to see Plath alive.

Other books in the “fully existential” genre followed, including Life After Marriage (1982) about divorce – which includes the memorable line “divorce transforms habit into drama”; The Biggest Game in Town (1983), about poker, a lifelong passion of his -“I don’t gamble, I play cards (and) I never bet on anything I can’t shuffle”: and Feeding The Rat (1988), quite possibly the greatest book ever written about climbing and the gnawing compulsion at the heart of it.

Al was a legend at Harrison’s Rocks, the crag in Kent where many of Britain’s best climbers cut their teeth, not least for relishing the falls he took. To me and other young climbers there, this seemed counter-intuitive, until you understood his rationale, at which point it all made sense and spurred us on to new heights:

“To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.” After all “when there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph.”

Although he could no longer climb after shattering his ankle aged 63, he found some of the same frisson and much the same camaraderie in swimming year-round in the ponds on Hampstead Heath. It also provided relief from the pain in his ankles and his final book Pondlife: A Swimmer’s Journal (2013), is a poignant meditation on the rigours of ageing.

Al and his beloved second wife Anne married in 1966 and made their home in Flask Walk where they spent many happy years raising their family and entertaining their many friends, including Mike King, Alfred Brendel and John Le Carre – who described Al as “an impassioned husband and a family man.”

At Al’s funeral, at Christchurch on October 5^th, he and other friends, neighbours and his two surviving children, Luke and Kate, celebrated time spent sharing Al’s passion for living. They described epic climbing adventures, poker nights, Al’s lifelong love of poetry and music, unforgettable dinner parties and Al’s incorrigibly inventive use of the F word. I doubt I was the only one who left, to the strains of Ella and Louis singing They Can’t Take That Away From Me, imagining I could hear Al’s throaty chuckle.

His 1999 autobiography is titled Where Did It All Go Right? I would answer that it was in the insights he shared through his writing after he got back from the edge.

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

***STOP PRESS***
Shared Vision will receive its world premiere at The Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival on Saturday 2^nd November.

The 22-minute film was shot on location, edited and produced by award-winning adventure cameraman Keith Partridge, and documents my Holman Prize expedition to climb Am Buachaille, one of Britain’s most remote pinnacles.

My companions on my quest to become the first blind person to summit ‘The Tom Patey Three’ iconic Scottish sea-stacks were my climbing, wild-swimming and tandem partner Matthew Wootliff, and Nick Carter, the calmest Mountaineering Instructor in the business…

Watch the trailer here:

Click here for more info on Banff.

I am very grateful to my sponsors for sharing my vision and helping to show that blindness should be no barrier to adventure:

San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind who gave me the wherewithal to follow the example of James Holman ‘The Blind Traveller’.
Arc’teryx, Above|Below, The Castle Climbing Centre, and VauxWall, who all made sure we had the best equipment and training for a successful expedition.
Isokinetic Sports Injury Clinic, who ensured my full recovery when I got injured – and improved my balance!

Along with my family and friends, you have all helped me focus on what I can achieve rather than what I’ve lost – thank you!

For more information about The Holman Prize visit: http://holman.lighthouse-sf.org

Radio News – Latest

Read On is The Audiobook Show on RNIB Connect Radio. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews, and author interviews.

Download the podcast free from your favourite provider – simply search for “Read On – The Audiobook Show” or follow the link: https://audioboom.com/channel/readonair

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

The Holman Prize – Latest

My training is almost complete and the date of my Holman Prize adventure is nearly upon us…

Project Extreme Blind Triathlon will begin on 18th June, when my climbing partner Matthew and I will board a plane to Inverness. With us, and also travelling courtesy of the generous support of easyJet, will be ‘The Beast’ (our customized mountain bike tandem).

At Inverness, we’ll be met by Nick Carter of Alpha Mountaineering who will act as our guide in The Highlands.

I’m also delighted to announce that award-winning adventure cameraman Keith Partridge will be joining us again to document our attempt on Am Buachaille – as he did with my successful ascent of The Old Man of Hoy in 2013. Let’s hope the weather and the fulmars are as benign this time as they were back then!

You can follow our progress via Twitter @redszell – meanwhile, here are some photos from our recent training climb in Sardinia:

Onwards and upwards!

For more information about The Holman Prize visit: http://holman.lighthouse-sf.org

Radio News – Latest

Read On is RNIB Connect Radio’s weekly show for book lovers everywhere. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews and author interviews.

Recent highlights include interviews with the 2018 Costa Award category winners, including Stuart Turton (‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’); our Christmas Special with Nigella Lawson; an exclusive chat with Sir Derek Jacobi on his 80^th birthday; and conversations with Mark Billingham, Anthony Horowitz, Alexander McCall Smith, Dame Judy Dench, Dame Penelope Lively, Philip Pullman, Samuel West, Cara Hunter, The Guilty Feminist Deborah Francis White, YA author Candy Gourlay and many, many others.

And, hot off the press… don’t miss exclusive forthcoming interviews with Lee Child, Joanne Ramos and Dame Stella Rimington!

The show is broadcast every Friday at 1pm.

Simply tune into RNIB Connect Radio online, on Freeview Channel 730, or by downloading the podcast from your favourite provide including iTunes, Spotify, or AudioBoom.

Latest News

For all my latest news follow me on Twitter @redszell

The Holman Prize – Latest

My Holman Prize adventure is underway! You can keep up to date on how my training for Project Extreme Blind Triathlon is going by following me on Twitter.

And applications for the 2019 Holman Prize for Blind Ambition are now open. Click on the video below to meet the 2018 winners and discover how to apply.

‘No one should feel imprisoned by blindness’ – Red, Conchita and Stacy exploring Alcatraz

Apply for the 2019 Holman Prize and help to change the way blindness is perceived by focussing on what we can achieve rather than seeing only what we’ve lost.

My project – ‘Extreme Blind Triathlon’ – should culminate with a film of my summiting Am Buachaille in summer 2019. However, it got off to a rather rocky start in Sardinia, as you can read in ‘Epic Fail’ below.

Onwards and upwards!

For more information on The Holman Prize, and how you could apply for the 2019 competition, visit: http://holman.lighthouse-sf.org

Radio News – Latest

Read On is RNIB Connect Radio’s weekly show for book lovers everywhere. Hosted by me, it’s a blend of book news, reviews and author interviews.

Recent highlights include interviews with the 2018 Costa Award category winners, including Stuart Turton (‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’); our Christmas Special with Nigella Lawson; an exclusive chat with Sir Derek Jacobi on his 80th birthday; and conversations with Mark Billingham, Anthony Horowitz, Alexander McCall Smith, Dame Judy Dench, Dame Penelope Lively, Philip Pullman, Samuel West, Cara Hunter, The Guilty Feminist Deborah Francis White, YA author Candy Gourlay and many, many others.

The show is broadcast every Friday at 1pm.

Simply tune into RNIB Connect Radio online, on Freeview Channel 730, or by downloading the podcast from your favourite provider including iTunes, Spotify, and AudioBoom: https://audioboom.com/channel/readonair

I am also a regular contributor to Radio 4’s In Touch, both as a talking head on round table discussions and with my ‘Seeing Red’ point-of-view pieces on life as a blind person.

I am also a regular contributor to Radio 4, most recently for Annalisa is Awkward, as well frequent appearances on In Touch, both as a talking head on round table discussions and with my ‘Seeing Red’ point of view pieces on life as a blind person.

Mad Dogs and Parakeets (Hampstead Village Voice Issue 33)

An Arctic wind rakes my face with sleet and threatens to perforate my Parka. It’s so dark that I scuttled back into the house to check it really was 8 a.m.

Unfortunately it was, so now I’m picking my way along pavements strewn with the stripped corpses of outcast Christmas trees; their erstwhile owners displaying a thoughtlessness that only confirms that the season of goodwill to all men is over.

Even the robins are silent.

Tom ambles down Flask Walk to meet me. He’s perpetually three minutes late as if in sympathy with the buses he campaigns about. By now the last vestiges of my warm bed have deserted me and I’m beginning to question my sanity.

We set off down Well Walk and I can sense Tom is limbering up to give me an update on TfL’s failings on bus safety. Beneath my woolly hat my woolly brain is still struggling with pavement safety, and last night’s last pint.

Hampstead’s renaissance as a venue for great live music has significantly moistened my plans for a dry January. Not only has my local boozer been transformed into The Hampstead Lounge & Jazz Club – acquiring a level of sophistication that makes it a magnet for visiting friends and parent get-togethers; but my favourite covers band of all time, Hampstead’s very own Mad Dog Bites, continues to have a Friday night residency at The King Willy. Attendance is practically compulsory for all decent Hampstonians.

The wind feels like it’s trying to push us back along Lime Avenue and there’s melt-water trickling down my neck. My head has begun to drum out the rhythm of Mad Dog’s closing number last night: Half The World Away: ‘I should like to leave this city / this old town don’t smell too pretty…’ Bloody miserable January!

Something I half-hear Tom say about bus bosses sweeping incident reports under the carpet chimes in my sore head. It’s over a year since my daughter spent a few hours at The Royal Free after the 46 she was on swerved violently, the driver distracted by his controller repeatedly radioing him. We’ve heard nothing since, except for emails from ambulance chasers. Tom’s got a point…

But before I can be drawn into bus-talk a raucous cacophony of screeches erupts from the treeline. The parakeets are in a flap about something. I wince at the noise. Tom stops mid-sentence.

They always remind me of a gaggle of leery geezer-birds in a Mayfair pub during Euro ’96, screeching over who had the nicest eyes – David Beckham or Teddy Sherringham – and oblivious that they were standing in front of the big screen.

I wonder that the parakeets don’t bugger off somewhere warmer for winter, which puts Tom on diversion. He tells me that when he first arrived in Hampstead he made the same mistake.

One winter morning he’d come back from a walk and told his young sons he’d seen wild parrots on The Heath. They didn’t believe him, so next day he’d taken a photo to prove it. Then spotting a pair of gents emerging from the bushes clutching binoculars, and hoping they were birders rather than doggers, he’d shown them his photo and asked for an explanation.

This being Hampstead one of the men turned out to be renowned ornithologist Bill Oddie. He informed Tom that the noisy green birds were in fact ring-necked parakeets which, as natives of The Himalayas, find English winters quite balmy.

He went on to tell Tom the two tales of how this invasive species came to colonize The Heath. The first is that they escaped from Shepperton Studios during the filming of John Hustons’ 1951 film The African Queen.

The other is that they are descended from a pair that Jimi Hendrix set free as a gesture of peace and love to his adopted city. Their electric-green plumage and rose-coloured neck ruff certainly match his groovy colour scheme and this urban myth might explain their fondness for high-volume feedback.

Squawks give way to quacks, telling me that Tom and I have reached the Men’s Pond. We strip down to our trunks. The concrete floor in the changing area is so cold it threatens to flay the flesh from our feet. As we trot down the jetty, the bitter wind blasts our skin with shards of rain; Or maybe it’s trying to snow.

The board says the water temperature is 5 degrees C, so it will be warmer in than out. Others may prefer to lower themselves gently into the chill but I like to meet it head-on. For me a swan-dive off the board is the only way to go.

It’s the open water equivalent to an espresso martini – a turbo charged wake-up call to put your worries to one side and enjoy living in the moment. Afterwards conversation is of what we’re going to do, rather than what life is doing to us.

As Tom and I stroll back, I feel equal to the world again. Balance has been restored and this town don’t smell so bad after all. It’s home not just to Christmas tree tossers but to plenty of others who do look out for the safety and well-being of those around them – some even acting as my guide-bus to the Pond.

And loud and gaudy as they are, the parakeets bring a touch of vibrancy to the trees at this time of year; and they make me think of Bogart and Hendrix, which puts a smile on my face. As does diving off the board into living water.

Maybe I should request that Conrad and the other Mad Dogs play out with Reasons to be Cheerful next Friday night…