As a rule, anything that is pretty you avoid when on an expedition in the polar extremes. Normally anything other than white means a hazard such as a crevasse.

No one will pay you for planning an expedition at first: you have to work in pubs at weekends so you can pay the gas bills. I joined the Territorial Army, which paid me when I turned up to drill nights, and so did my wife.

Will I spend my life in a wheelchair? Tottering around my lounge, instead of running up mountain passes or navigating glaciers?

After my heart attack I thought, is this it?

I go on expeditions for the same reason an estate agent sells houses - to pay the bills.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing