The Shugyo Project

Since my last update, I’ve finally finished de‑Chapati‑fying the house. After serving over 50 portions of curry, mountains of pickles, starters, and enough fresh bread to feed a small village, the kitchen looked like it had been hit by a mild culinary earthquake. But everything is now back to normal — or at least as normal as life gets when you run The Cheeky Chapati.

The feedback from both the evening and lunch events has been brilliant. People absolutely loved the food, and apparently watching me sprint around the kitchen like a panicked meerkat is part of the entertainment. The best part? I’ve somehow raised £7.5k for Aspire so far. Not bad for a bloke who spends half his life in the gym and the other half pretending he’s not tired.

Because I’m doing something a bit different from Aspire’s usual swim events — instead of swimming across the Channel again, I’ve decided to climb a massive Toblerone-shaped mountain called the Matterhorn — they asked me for an interview for their website and social media. That was fun. I tried to look serious and inspirational, but I suspect I came across more like enthusiastic dad who accidentally signed up for the wrong challenge.

Everyone following this blog already knows the saga:

• Hours in the gym lifting everything except the actual Matterhorn • Hours of running, with the heat making training feel like running through soup • Diet changes, swapping naan bread for sad little protein snacks • Climbing weekends, where gravity continues to be rude • Equipment collecting and testing, with all the kit sorted and exactly where it should be

It’s all part of the countdown now — last week of August into the first week of September — a week of pre‑climbing, altitude adjustment, and then the big day where I attempt not to fall off Switzerland.

I’m feeling good. I just need to lose a couple more kilos to make the climb easier, and I can definitely feel the nerves starting to build now. It’s that strange mix of excitement and “oh wow, I’m actually doing this” that hits you when the countdown gets real.

Aspire is a charity supporting people with spinal injury. I’m doing something hard for a day or a week, but many people they help face challenges far tougher than mine every single day. That’s why this climb matters.

If you’d like to support me and help Aspire continue their incredible work, please visit my JustGiving page and donate if you can. Every bit genuinely makes a difference.