In July of this year I will be walking the 84 mile long Hadrian’s Wall footpath. I am doing this in aid of The Joseph Salmon Trust, a charity that provides financial support to parents who have lost a child. This might be help with things like funeral costs for those struggling to afford them, or to allow the self employed to take time off in order to grieve.

Over the next nine days I will be showcasing the bloggers that will be hiking the trail with me.

Arjan from Dutchnid

On my trip to Wisconsin last year I was talking to my friend Greg about the people who comment on the blog.

“That Arjan” he observed “comes across like a really nice guy”.

Never a truer word was said.

Arjan is our sole Dutch walker (unless you count Martin, who’s Irish really), and at 25 is the youngest member of Team Ocelot. He’s unfailingly warm, pleasant, enthusiastic, and supportive. And his English is a hell of a lot better than my Dutch.

Arjan blogs rather sporadically over at Dutchnid. He writes about a variety of stuff, Warhammer 40k, Dutch culture, photography, films, and his every day life. I’m always pleased when I see that he’s posted in my feedreader, and only wish he’d do so more often. His posts highlighting models he has painted always fascinate me. No mater what your opinion on the merits of wargaming, you can’t deny that painting this level of detail on a figure only a couple of inches high is anything but amazing:

Arjan’s blog is a window into another world, similar – but also very different to my own (Sinterklaas? what on earth is all that about then!?).

I’m pretty sure I first encountered Arjan over at Lee’s blog, although it was so long ago now I can’t really say for sure. Our friendship is a good example of how blogging can bring together disparate people who never would have met otherwise. I’m glad we did meet though, and I’m very much looking forward to doing so in person this July.

Cathrine from Some Vague Utopia

Cathrine wasn’t a blogger before signing up to Hadrian’s Walk – but she thought she may as well start one up seeing as though half the other walkers have one. You can now find her over at her wonderful blog Some Vague Utopia

If I remember rightly we first “met” in my comments section when she responded to one of my rant’s about misery memoirs.

There is another connection however. Both she and her fiance Richard are friends of Oli Walker, one of the original Dales Walkers. Still there is no reason to hold that against them, and I’m extremely pleased that both of them are coming on the walk. Especially as they have decided to arrange their own accommodation and food, thereby not acting as contributory factors to my impending nervous breakdown.

Considering she’s only just started, Catherine has managed to avoid all the pit traps of the novice blogger. She’s forgone all the tales of what she had for lunch at Debinhams cafe and painfuly dreary accounts of the dream she had last night, and gone straight in with interesting posts, wonderful prose, and beautiful photos.

The swine.