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I’ve been re-reading some of Jim Perrin’s old articles recently and was reminded of the following snippet as my daughter and I descended from Merrick on Sunday.
“... we take ourselves pretty seriously. We give our rock-routes and our literary productions these echoey, portentous titles. We inflate our deeds, philosophise into our beards, sports bras or whatever, elevate self-preservation and invited catastrophe to noblest status, perfect the faraway gaze and the lifted profile ...”
Jim Perrin, Batos and the American Dream (2003)So I considered, in keeping with his expectations of our sorts, a little light embellishment.
Maybe a dash of hair-raising drive through an arctic Glen Trool village (well it did briefly touch -3) could be laced with a shot of things left behind – barely left with a tee-shirt and flip-flops. Did I recall wandering fruitlessly for hours on end across mist shrouded moorland? No? Were we shaken to the core by a searing blistering wind that whipped the breath from our very nostrils? No? Did we struggle back to the car and sit for an age before warmth crept its way back into our bones? No?
No, better stick to the short and simples really.
- We saw a stone at the bottom
- Maybe some promise?
- We saw some frosty stuff near the top
- Then saw another stone at the top - "you mean I came all the way from Oxford for this?
Next?
Oh no, not another wet Glen Coe.