Situated as I am in Fabulous Flintshire, we don't just get birders around " our" table at The Grumbling Stumps tea-room ... we get climbers. And, in true Venn Diagram fashion, we get people who do both. But we are very tolerant of each other .... and we have a lot in common. For a start, we carry a fair bit of stuff around with us. Much of it round our necks. And on our backs And ... we "do it" outdoors. And read about it indoors. And we travel long distances to get "there" ...wherever "there" is that day. Then there's the clothes. Of necessity, we tend to wear a lot of them. With loads of pockets. And stringy things to tighten them up. And badges. The jackets often have foreign names on them. As do binoculars and telescopes..... ...although the truth is ... they are the names of the Gods who brought them to our planet many thousands of years ago .. Kowa, Swarovski, Leica ..... oh yes. And "naming things" is a big deal for both parties. Except they name routes and tackle .... and we name birds and bits of birds. Those "climb" names are amazingly diverse and weird too. As are remiges and tertials and allopreening etc. Every climbing route, even every section of a climb, has a name. You must have driven past miles of "little cliffs" at some time . Well, like as not, every little section will be a climb/scramble with a name. Biggish detached boulders have names too. Bouldering is big with climbers. They carry a mattress for when they fall off said boulders. And I bet they each climber has a name for his bloody mattress too. We both go around in crammed cars ... ... and bulging with stuff as well ... .... and we both worry about the weather ..... and the time ...... and we take the piss out of each other ...... and we slag off all the people that aren't in the car. ....... and we're much quieter on the way back. And both climbers and birders don't tend to die of climbing or birding. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that birding was "deadlier" than climbing. And in different ways, we're all on a ladder of some sort .... ticking birds, going up things, being "better" than "somebody else" .... at least this ladder is "ours" ... And ... here's the "words video" .... try not to disturb the neighbours .... Here's the link to that stuff about aliens and their gods who brought telescopes to our Earth ...
( I can't find it .... bah ...... do any of you lot out there know where it is? )
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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