Bloody Maps!!!

Well bollix to you Fraternali editore map makers. Can’t you get ANYTHING right, even on new maps? What is so difficult?  There’s me wandering about up steep narrow paths in search of rock shelters and the usual rock carvings following, unusually,  the bloody map in lieu of  my regular guide Baldrick who is still faffing about making bagpipes and stuff and then I find that the bloody map is so out that, were it not for the snow and cold and steepness of the paths, it would be comical. It wasn’t comical and if the mapmakers suddenly find their testicles flapping about their knees yes it was me and well you deserve it you incompetent dicks. Up and down like a whore’s drawers I was just to end up at the same place I started out from.

In fact the day didn’t start out that well. I slept in late, couldn’t get the dog in the car and on the way up, just at the start of the path I was rounded on by a quite a large and savage dog which calmly whipped through a hole in the gate to bark menacingly a few feet away and it was only by waving the trekking pole about that it kept its distance. A stupid old hag came out of the house to call the dog whilst waving a bloody great stick at it. Most efficacious lady. In fact the dog more or less ignored her. Still I did get past and on the way back down armed myself with a  stout hazel rod which I sharpened to a seriously wicked point and unsheathed knife ready to slice bits off the dog after I had impaled it. I’m beginning to hate dogs.

Not too happy with cats either. Coming down my dog, which lives with cats so is quite unafraid of them suddenly bolted like it had seen a ghost. It’s always doing that the damn thing. It far puts the willies up me I can tell you.  I didn’t know what it was at first so went, cautiously, for I am not a courageous fellow,  to investigate and blow me if it wasn’t the biggest cat I’ve seen for a while lying on a rock hissing and spitting and waving its paw at me. Sensibly I thought, I followed the dog and gave it a wide berth. Skirting a cat is definitely a first for me; definitely not the sort of moggy you go up to and stroke.

Anyway after getting back to the starting point for the second time I ditched the map and followed my nose and of course found the places I wanted without a hitch.

And, naturally, I just got to the furthest point on my travels when it starts to snow.  Still I had a late lunch sitting in a rock shelter watching it which was nice, before the slippery decent which wasn’t. I actually think I have found a use for the cup markings.  Tangerine holders. It’s notoriously difficult to hold two tangerines and peel one and a cup mark makes a perfect holder. Sitting in a rock shelter gazing out into the falling snow with no human sounds was fantastic and actually a lot warmer than I had supposed so I just sat there munching tangerines and doing nothing. Loverly. Something deeply relaxing about falling snow. It’s a sort of lighter version of fog and cuts out all noise without totally cutting out visibility.

I came across a wonderful cheese drainer buried under bracken and a few other bits and bobs which I’ll be writing up on the carving compendium blog but worth mentioning here for its oddity and for the time it’s going to require of me to find out what it could conceivably be was a stone disk 40 odd centimeters in diameter. It had two depressions on each side but not central and not deep enough to serve as a fulcrum and it wasn’t worn either so nothing like a grinding stone. I do love a good think.
Sorry  about the page layout. Friggin' bloody blog bloody spot. It's rubbish. I hate it. Once it gets an idea like white text in it's stupid brain, that's it. Nothing to do but accept it. An trying to do a simpel thing like arrange the photos is impossibly time consuming. I hate blogspot and if anyone knows a good alternative, please let me know.