WHAT MADE YOU START TRAVELLING TOGETHER?

HELEN

I have great memories of holidays and weekends when the children were growing up (I have a son as well). We spent weekends in the Lakes or Wales walking, skinny dipping (during those endless hot summers!!) often with other families. We went skiing and walking in the Alps every year. This is what we did: my husband was a BMC guide so we had him to look after us. When the children went to university this rather petered out and about the same time my husband moved to France. I decided to do my own thing and in 1995 went on the Everest trek with KE. I still longed for those nice family occasions so asked Anna occasionally if she wanted to do something (I don’t think my son would have thought it cool to go with his mum). So over the years we’ve gone on quite a few trips together.

ANNA

My mother had been travelling with KE for years. We both like hill walking. I finished my degree and we fancied a trip together to celebrate. I was a bit sceptical about a group holiday as I think many people are before they try one, but as soon as I had been on one I caught the bug.

WHAT MAKES YOUR DAUGHTER SUCH A GREAT PERSON TO GO ON HOLIDAY WITH?

HELEN

I like going with Anna because I know her so well and she’s the only person I’ll share with so I save the single supplement! I think we both get on better in company as we’re slightly diluted and behave better. We have all that shared past so can get on and get to know the others in the group. We also seem to have a lot of fun when we go together.

ANNA

We love many of the same things, such as walking, good food and plenty of alcohol, a mixture of each other’s company and other peoples’, and preferably some sun. Going away with my mother is easy and relaxing because we know each other so well. Going on group trips with other people means that we don’t tire of each other’s company. She gets to nag me to cover up in the sun as though I am still a teenager, and I get to make sure she doesn’t always pick the lightest lunch item to carry.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHICH TRIPS YOU GO ON?

HELEN

I suppose trips have been chosen mainly on timing. Anna is a medic and has had years of training with a limited choice of time off. We choose holidays which she would not do with her husband.

ANNA

When we started doing holidays together, more than fifteen years ago, we tended to choose point to point treks, with mixed accommodation. Prior to this my mother had been to the Himalayas and Asia on longer treks. In recent years, as she has turned seventy, she prefers a few creature comforts and a more gentle pace. She likes her own room (or to share with me), and feels she has done her time sleeping on camping mats and carrying a weeks’ worth of belongings.

I still like a point to point trek and something physically more challenging which has meant that occasionally we go on trips separately. I have done two trips with her which were a lower grade than I would ideally choose, but have actually been surprised in that I loved those trips as much as the harder ones for different reasons.

On the last trip we did together to Liguria I was 30 weeks pregnant so I was particularly happy to accompany her on a more moderate trip.

HAVE THE TRIPS YOU CHOOSE CHANGED OVER TIME?

HELEN

The trips have gradually changed because I’m getting older: I declined going on the Ecrins trip with her because I thought I might find it too hard. Last year we had a levelling off as she was very pregnant when we did the Liguria trip. She at 7 months pregnant was as fit as I was at 70. But really till now we’ve been quite well balanced.

ANNA

My retired mother does a lot of trips so she usually chooses, based on what she hasn’t been on before, plus reviews and word of mouth from people we have been on trips with in the past.  The trips that we do together are restricted by my annual leave so we tend to choose one week European or North African trips.  We usually try to seek sunshine, not always successfully, and good food is a factor as we both love it.

ARE THERE ANY DOWNSIDES TO TRAVELLING TOGETHER?

HELEN

The only downside to travelling together is that my dog has to go to kennels rather than be looked after by her! She also nags me about my travelling light philosophy. I agree I go too far and wish I’d brought this or that. She abhorred my throw away maternity knickers! They were better than trekking along drying your knickers by hanging them to your rucksack.

ANNA

We nag and embarrass each other in typical mother-daughter style!

WHAT’S BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE TRIP?

HELEN

My favourite trip was the Gran Paradiso when we climbed GP at the end of the trip. It was a sublime week of walking in gorgeous country gradually building up fitness, staying in wonderful huts eating great food and finally climbing Gran Paradiso at the end of the week.

ANNA

It is really hard to pick one...

The Gran Paradiso trip was fantastic. At the time the trip crossed the national park with the ascent of the Gran Paradiso on the penultimate day. The scenery was beautiful, and the weather was glorious. The huts were remote and yet the food and wine was excellent. The night before our ascent there was a spectacular lightning storm which thundered over the Vittorio Emanuele hut. Not a single person slept, and then the guide got us out of our bunks in the dark to set off for the top by torchlight.

Lanzarote was also a stand-out trip. It was only a moderate grade, with a single accommodation base for the week. The days were packed full by the guide who, after a fairly full days’ walking, always had a scenic or cultural point of interest for us to experience on our way home, and still managed to ensure we had time for a cold beer. He also sought out fantastic local cuisine. The group also made it; we laughed all week.

AND FAVOURITE MEMORY?

HELEN

Favourite memory has to be one which I’ve recounted on several occasions but never to a known Catholic. Blasphemous alert! The night before the climb up Gran Paradiso a lovely Italian guide came up to the hut from civilisation (and his mother’s care) to take half the group to the summit the next day. As we left the supper table he said “whoever gets to the glacier with me tomorrow morning climbs with me” Next morning we were like a pack of hounds. The Italian set off with his umbrella up (it must have been raining or snowing) and we stumbled over the boulders to get to the glacier with him and made it! We set off up to the summit where the weather had closed in and visibility was almost nil. There was a rock traverse with a fixed rope which as I remember we crossed with our crampons on having clipped ourselves in. The Italian told me to go across first and then as Anna was behind me she came next. She wasn’t happy about it and almost didn’t clip herself in properly. She made it across and the guide said “go on to the Madonna” The Madonna was a steel affair covered in ice and looking hideously uninviting in the swirling cloud – but she’s revered by the Italians. Anna still shaken from the traverse blip said words to the effect that the Madonna could go forth and multiply. This produced a roar from the no longer quite as lovely guide “Go!!” And she went. So we made it to the icy summit and then had a wonderful descent to another great hut thanks to the insulted guide who I hope forgave her.

ANNA

One day on the Tour de Mont Blanc in July there was a freak thunderstorm. We had to cross a col in heavy snow, with thunder and lightning and no visibility. We were soaked through and fairly cold. We came across a tiny mountain refuge in the next valley and discovered it was open, warm and serving hot soup. It was already full of other walkers sheltering from the weather. The room was thick with steam from all the wet gear. That was the most glorious bowl of soup.

TELL US YOUR FUNNIEST MOMENT

HELEN

On the Summits and Ridges of Bulgaria we had a lot of fun despite it being a wet week. We had walked up a long way one day and were taking some chair lifts down. There used to be an apocryphal tale that the Swiss sold their used chair lifts to the French who sold them to the Italians who sold them to the Bulgarians. Here we were on a very basic and worn chair lift – bare wood as I remember- obviously in the knacker’s yard of chair lifts. Anna and I were together on one speeding downhill – itself a strange experience as one usually goes up on them. We could see one of the stages where we had to get off coming up and suddenly realised that the chair wasn’t slowing down. How were we going to get off? Panic slightly creeping in and then two enormous burly men stepped out one on both side of the lift. They grabbed the chair with one hand and with the other yanked us off and to the side. We went off legs flying wildly. We then had the fun of watching the ones coming behind getting the treatment. There was a very funny American, who had had plenty of questions for Ivo all week, who couldn't resist commenting:

“Ivo!”

“Whaaat?”

“What’s wrong with your country? Why don’t your chairlifts have brakes?”

ANNA

On one trip we came across a mountain river on a very hot day and had the time for a dip. We stripped to our underwear and jumped into a beautifully cold plunge pool. My mother was the last one to climb out. She was trying, unsuccessfully, to call me over to the pool without attracting the attention of everyone else. It turned out that she had forgotten or failed to anticipate, that she was wearing a pair of hospital style paper knickers in the name of packing lightly, (something she prides herself very highly in), and they had dissolved in the river. I did help her to maintain her modesty but not as discretely as she might have liked.

WHAT’S NEXT?

HELEN

Anna now has a baby so our adventure holidays have unhappily finished for now. It’s now solos for me and going along as grandmother with them when invited. You lose one thing and gain another.

ANNA

I will have to wait a few years until my son is old enough for adventures, or to be left with his father while I take a trip! The Torres del Paine circuit is on my long-term bucket list.