More Big Picture Stuff

Edale in the Sunshiiiiine


Love this pic

Having survived the tumble on Saturday, I decided that what I needed was someone with a bit of experience to walk with. I also think that two consecutive days is certainly better preparation than the usual go out, drink heavily, party and collapse onto the hillside. Fun as that always is, it's not getting you up a 5km high mountain.

And so on to what must be Plan C, I went on a couple of walking websites and arranged to meet a chap who had posted he was walking in Edale. Not too far to drive, good reports from Andy and an ideal opportunity to learn some stuff and further check out the new kit. TBH the kit was a bit wiffy from the day before, but hey it was forecasting reasonably high winds so I'd be ok. The one downside was the 8am meeting, which meant out of bed for 6.20am!! on a Sunday...after a Saturday night out.

The Saturday night out turned out well too, as I discovered that Miles (top chap) was also up for walking, and I've got him down as fairly reliable if a bit busy. And no he's not a binman either.

Rant Warning

Talking of busy, what the heck do people behind the counter in a chemists find to do? Thankfully I haven't had to go to collect prescriptions too often, but FGS why oh why oh why do they take so long. They just don't have a system. All I wanted was some eardrops, (an attempt to cure the deafness probably brought on by Mogwai last year) and they were in a bottle already and I could see the bottle.

'it'll be about 15 minutes, is that ok?' What the Flip were they going to do to take 15 minutes? Start at the opposite wall and play slow racing across the floor, or maybe they were planning a stalk of the bottle and wanted to camalflage up first. Maybe it could only be lifted from the shelf by an Archimedes designed pulley system.

Domino's can manage 3 Pizza's, some chicken stuff, garlic bread and free chips to our house from the village in 15 minutes. Perhaps they should just swop staff and systems. Maybe speeding round the chemist shop on nifty 50's would be good fun anyway.

Back to Edale and it's 8am and Jonno arrives in the carpark ..bang on time and looking very much the part, with loads of kit oh and almost mountain goat in shape. Within half an hour I'd discovered that 18 months ago he was 16 stone (about 5ft 10") and he now had to be somewhere just over 12st and looking like Pan. yup Craig reread that bit , its quite mad. Well when someone says something like this you ask a few questions and the magic answers are........

'I walked up mountains a lot and ate a bit less'. 

Same stuff just less of it, thats just 3/4 Domino's from now on Craig. 

We went from Edale (£5 for parking!!!), and up the river valley to the top of Kinder Scout. Setting off in sunshine and reaching the top in a total snowstorm. The climb up was sooooooo much fun, we climbed up the stream, and up and over waterfalls and boulders and bigger bits. 

The fun of it took your mind off the climbing aspect and about an hour later we popped out of the top of the valley onto the plateau not even short of breath. Jonno really did know this area and despite having loads of clothing kit and a brilliant filter bottle so you don't need to carry water (you just fill it up as you go), his maps were just about on fag packets. 

I didn't dare say I had a full OS map of 30sq miles around us, the walking world route guides with pics of anywhere we could possibly end up and of course the handy GPS route plotted to within a gnats of its capacity. A happy hour was spent exploring stones and rock faces all over this end of Kinder Scout with not a person to be seen. I think the weather had put most people off. 

From here we took the horseshoe option back across moorland and over a couple of hills to the southside of Edale....thats right around. The bog hopping was bloody tiring and became perversley fun in the end, there were more bogs than moor in some places and natural mazes were formed. I really love mazes and happily covered twice the ground of Jon, just to avoid cheating. talking of which, this isn't right

Click on the pic to see real Levitation

Where do you find a bog walking course that teaches that!? and it would certainly result in banishment from any maze I'd built. Obviously I meant, that Pam had built. Clearly anything involving any sort of building, design, lifting or general manual stuff I would need help with.

Whilst living in Newcastle (and a darn site younger) I managed to take the wrong end off a radiator in our first house and had Kielder reservior pouring into the front room, you should try putting it back on when you don't have a clue where the stopcock is. Even that would have been forgiveable if I hadn't done the same thing about an hour later with the same radiator. Oh how we laughed (again) as I got absolutely soaked (again). Since that day, false roofs, plastering , plumbing , wall building and everything except shelves really have been admirably sorted by Pam. I'm a good builders mate though, I can fetch and carry with the best.

And so we made it over the moors and over and up more hills, Mam Tor again included, the weather just about held up, a bit cool and breezy in parts but not with the new fabric kit.

And the Bigger picture.....walk up more hills (nice one) eat a little bit less  and drink as much as you like. Not all strangers are strange although I may remain a stranger to another 30 mile weekend for a few weeks. I've been knackered since.

Echo and the Bunnymen

And a bit of other stuff,  the Killers new single. I blow hot and cold with the Killers

On the positive side

Mr Brightside - great tune and the best dance along with actions to every word ever, by two girls at Leeds Festival about 3 years ago. It was so good we even joined in.

First gig in the Hop and Grape bar supporting Stellastar! (they have an exclamation in the name)

First half of Hot Fuss

First half of Sams Town

and always had a good time at the live gigs

On the negative side

The Lyrics are crap, no really really crap , 'are we human or are we dancer'? at least thats what I think they say on the new single

I've got soul but I'm not a soldier.....mmmhhh and loads of other ones. Anyway Bill Bailey does a fair pisstake

Bill rattling on a bit

And the new single sounds like A-Ha if they had come from Scandinavia...oh...really. But they did some really good stuff.

The really good one

Which in a Stephen Fry very neat way brings me to this weeks competition. Top tunes by bands with no cred or one great song by a rubbish band. 

And more pictures of weird rocks