My summer of love: ‘I made my move on a coach trip to Kathmandu’
A meet-cute on the Annapurna trail might sound like the premise for a romcom, but, at 19, I was thin-skinned, surly and hadn’t developed the knack of talking to girls my age. Besides, I wasn’t there for a holiday romance; I was in Nepal with my best friend, Sam, and his mother, in whose home I was living at the time.
It says a lot about my state of mind back then that I deemed a bumper quiz book essential for a walking holiday in Nepal. After two solid performances, my Cambridge college was through to the quarter-finals of University Challenge, and bringing the book was a sign that I was finally taking it seriously.
The trek began with a briefing at the rooftop bar of our hotel in Kathmandu. As I half-listened to our guide explain that the four-day trek would be “harder than you might think”, I surveyed the eclectic group with whom I’d be sharing the journey. To my relief, among the ripped octogenarians and sunburnt Australians was an English girl my age.
“Great. There will be someone else to talk to when Sam and I need a break from each other,” I thought.
We set off the next day and the girl and I soon found ourselves alone together on the roadside. First impressions were good: she was in the same year as me at university (we even had a couple of mutual friends) and I took the opportunity to impress her with news of my upcoming University Challenge appearance.
The more time I spent with her, the more I was surprised by how well we got on. She was shy but insightful, and happy to tease Sam and me about our relentless politics chat.
