Saturday, February 2, 2013

Walk Up the Hill

Every window in the cottage had a spectacular view.  At the top of the stairs were two windows that opened like hatches out of the roof, which was good because when it was raining, the window then shielded your head.  I liked to just stand and listen to the absolute silence enhanced only by the often constant breeze.  It was so quiet on this hill that at night my ears would ring very very loudly.  Coming from a place where noise--the roar of traffic, the blowing of the air conditioner, the vocal stylings of the bird--is relentess, this level of ringing silence was heavenly.

So one morning I was standing at the top of the stairs with the window open, listening to the breeze when I witnessed this act of courageous and inspirational accomplishment:


And I figured, if Gilgamesh can climb a hill, then why can't we?

Thanks to the eldest boychild, I had waterproof walking boots.  Especially since one of my two pairs of shoes and two of my three pairs of pants were caked in mud and the washing machine did not work.  So the younger two, Your Correspondent, and I gathered ourselves up and set out to conquer the moors.

One of the cool things about heather is that when it dies, it forms a ground cover of a sort of mesh on top of the sogginess.  So if you step on red clumps of heather, your feet don't sink into the mud. As we left, I wondered which of the smaller two would be the one to either tumble down the hill or fall into the mud...

 So up the hill we went.  Judging from the bottom, the climb to the top looked rather treacherous, especially for us flatlanders. In fact, that fence over to the left was a big help at certain points, to keep my footing or balance.

Growing up around Texas ranches also helped me make sure that I grabbed the fence in between the nice sharp barbs rather than right on top of them.

The kids scrambled up the hill just like kids are expected to do, while the two elders plodded along.  We've been walking some around the compound loop this fall, and I was so proud that we made it to the top here, that as I took the last few steps, I exclaimed loudly, "Well, that was a lot quicker and frankly a lot easier than I expected!"  At which point, Your Correspondent pointed out that, indeed, we had only just scaled the first of about six big hills we had to climb.

That's called a "limited perspective."





As we climbed higher, we came upon several sheep carcases.  Some poor Gilgameshes had not been successful in their epic battles, and I found myself really wondering what was lurking up here in the dark.  [Aunt Julia!  We really contemplated trying to bring you back this sheep skull for your art projects, but then we couldn't really fathom how we might explain that at airport security...leftovers from dinner?]



The top left photo above is of Finchairn Castle ruins.
And you know I cannot resist posting one two more panoramas from this walk:

View from the top of the walk.  Lots more moors to explore.

View from part way up.  The mists!

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