Rambling...the verbal and the striding

This blog is about my recent adventures to the north of England, more specifically, the Lake District, even more specifically, Keswick, and down to the square meter, a little bed and breakfast called The Lake-mere Inn. I had the left side of the bed, all was as it should be.

Our holiday began at a slightly unorthadox hour, normal hour if you are perhaps a farmer, but a considerably abnormal hour if you are a student. This is the way it should be because of differences in morning agendas. Anyhow, the unusual agenda of hour day dictated that we must begin it at 4.00am. Now I have laboured my hardship (getting up early), I may continue.

The car journey up was spent comatose and dribbling on a pillow. It happens now that whenever we embark on a long journey a pillow (dribble absorber...drabsorber) is thrust unceremoniously 'neith my head to catch any wayfaring drips. But from what I gathered during my brief waking moments, the journey went fairly smoothly for us. But it seemed that everybody else on the motorway was being over zealous speedwise. This meant that we passed one morbid warning against speeding after another.

We arrived safely in Keswick and found the small B+B that was to be home for three nights. We were greeted acrimoniously by a sour faced woman who, on opening the door and on clocking that we were walkers who intended to walk that weekend, informed us that the weather was set to be terrible and she didn't know why we bothered. She was right, but it is still not the best of greetings for weary travellers. Following these tidings she thrust breakfast menus in our sleepy faces and told us to cross of the items on the breakfast menu that we did not want and informed us briskly that breakfast was from 8.30-9.00am. Maybe she should also have told us to cross off what we didn't think we could wolf down in the short half hour gap she had allocated for us to nourish ourselves.

That evening we took a wander over Castle Rigg, this is an old stone circle and these are a couple of things the leaflet informed us about the spot: It was a circle of stones, It was old (they don't know how old), It was used for something (they don't know what it was used for) and by someone (they don't know who) and they found an "unpolished stone axe" there which may, of course, just have been a stone. So slightly baffeled as to why they bothered writing the "information" leaflet and feeling notably uninformed, we made our way back to the B+B for the night.

Day two of our trip was Skiddaw day. We managed most of the walk up over bleak ridges with beautiful backdrops of lakes and peaks. But as we got closer to the apex we realised that we may have gone unprepared for the conditions. It turns out that my mothers crampon dreams should not have gone unfulfilled. It was when a grapple with a jutting rock prevented a perilous and all-too-fast descent over ice and snow, that I realised we were ill equipped and had we wanted to climb further we could not have done. It seemed the mountain was trying to shake us off indignantly as we were unworthy ramblers. We got back to the the bottom (the long way round) unharmed and with only a tear in Ellies waterproof trousers to show for it. Said trousers had to be replaced as the tear was in a rather inconveniant buttock proximity which would have made the regular hiker's activity of sitting down on things that are wet (moss, grass etc) impossible. This, had it gone unattended to, may well have caused piles. No, a replacement pair were a must...to avoid health implications.

The third day was easier as we tackled "Catbells", a smaller mountain with veiws over Derwent water. It is said that this is where squirrel nutkin lives, but Beatrix was mental, so we weren't sure if this was true, other evidence against this story is that squirral nutkin is fictional and also how does a squirrel, especially a sketched one, make its way across a river and build its home on the small island in the middle? I for one am suspicious of the whole affair. This mountain was also a little treacherous as we scrambled the icy rocks nearing the peak, but was managable in comparison to the struggle at Skiddaw.

That, is a short summary of my weekend. I will finish this blog by telling you two observations I made over this weekend. The first is that there are two types of rambler, the old school rambler with wax jackets, gaters and polished sticks for walking aids. Then there is the new school rambler with gortex and collapsable walking poles made of "extra light carbon fibres" and WALKMAX written in lightning up the side. These are the kind that walk extreme, eat extreme cereal bars (PROMAX) and extreme bird watch. The old school kind have a set of binoculars around there necks and munch home-made peanut butter sandwiches out of foil. Another discovery was the HOC. This is the Hikers Overfamiliarity Code. Observers of HOC will greet you as relatives and comment on things such as tea shops, the weather and how much they are sweating, they may even compliment your equipment, tell you they have spotted a red kite on the east side and on going seperate ways they will pat you on the back and agree to meet you in the tea shop. Non HOC observers will sneer at you for being on their side of the mountain.

On that note, bye!

Miso...Don't you mean Disgusting-o

This blog is a discussion on the benefits of "health food".

Today I took a turn about my local health food shop and bought the following items: gogi berries (delicious), Sea vegetable (fishy), miso soup (extremely vile), and odd rice cheese (yet to try).

Now, the miso soup is said to be a good breakfast, but I don't know how many people are a fan of tasteless and briny fluids which have a mild hint of fish first thing in the morning, or in fact, any time of day. I for one will not be starting, continuing or ending my day with any such delicacy. To make matters worse, there was mashed kelp at the bottom of my cup...I might have wretched.

I feel that health food shops have a lot to offer, but I don't know how anybody else feels about "thistle tea", said to have health benefits which were not specified...I think the health benefits might be that it tastes so vile you are dissuaded from eating actual thistles?

Also, the staff are a poor advertisment for the products, as I perused the aisles I took note of items which might aid the health of the cashier...slightly unkind but also fun. I picked out this shopping basket for her: 1. Apple Cider slimming aid 2. Evening primrose oil (I am assuming menopause) 3. Seed mix for good hair and nail growth and 4. Iron suppliments...she looked anaemic.

If I learnt one thing from the trip, it is that the people who work in health food shops look like they prefer burger kings, lank hair and bloodless veins. Infact, that concoction sounds more appetising than Miso soup...gag

B-line Blog

This blog is a blog with purpose.
In this sense it is like a man with a ticket, in every other sense it is totally dissimilar.

This is a blog about balderdash, the actual game not general piffle.

This weekend I made the long journey back to Brighton to see my family as it is the weekend of both my father's and brother's birthdays. I bought my father some sheepskin slippers, not at all unlike the slippers I bestowed upon Benjamin R. Waterhouse by way of celebration. For my brother I got weight lifting gloves because he seems bent on getting buff.

Anyhow, I digress. After dinner is coffee and board games in the Byrne household and the game of choice was "Balderdash". I love this game as it is a glorious opportunity for both lying and creative writing. Not only this, it is hugely informative, who knew a grunk was somebody who is grumpy and disgruntled!? Certainly I didn't until tonight. My fake definition for "grunk" was "a tool used in taxidermy", my fathers was "another name for earwax"! "Ugh, did you see his grunk!?". Similarly, I did not know a "prunella" was a fabric used in religious clothing, I put forward that it was a special cake tin and my brother tried to get us to think it was one of the moons of jupiter through tricks.
Other words included sacromancy (fortune telling using ripe figs), buldering (I can't remember the actual defenition, but mine was "to hunch and cower from the cold") and tchick, which is the noise you make when you click your tongue using the vacuum between it and the roof of your mouth!

Anyhow, to round up, Jane lost. Mother had superior lie detecting, as she always does, and father has special tricks: 1. Pretend to be writing more than he is, 2. pretend his is funny, 3. comment on the genre of the word i.e. "this word sounds italian". I fell for all of these and so lost.

Now for my valediction: *tips hat*
Bye bye now, bye bye

A maunder in Jane's brain box

Evening!

(Is how I would greet you right now, but in actual fact this may be read at any time of day).

I am going to start my blog writing career by writing about my favorite things and places so that maybe an opinion of my character may be formed.

Of course, like any self respecting youth, I love music. Probably a little bit more than my cat and a little bit less than my sister. I am not very genre specific though, that is to say, I havn't become hooked on Evenescence and as a result use shipments of eyeliner on a daily basis. In fact, I like an eclectic variety, some popular, some discredited and some because I feel obliged. I will give you a taster of what I like by giving you my top...say...five: 1. Emiliana Torrini 2. Morrissey 3. Joanna Newsome 4. Acoustic Ladyland, and 5, IAMX. That is in no particular order, I like them all similarly, just at different times.

Now onto another thing which I like, more, probably, than music (but again, less than my sister), books. I like books that have been read before, moth eaten and preferably hardbacked but that have lost the crappy paper cover and maybe has gathered a few coffee stains on the inside front page. Even better than this is a book which has got a note in the front from a friend telling you why they thought you would like it and which bits they think you will enjoy most. Many such books have been distributed, not many received. I am genre specific about books, I like cult fiction, classic novels and epic poems. Very willing to read other types but it will not take a lot for me to become disengaged from it and loose interest in the plight of the characters.

The third thing I like the most is exercise, the kind where you don't have to think about a lot because you are trying to hard to not fall off the machine.

I also become attached to letters. Ones which have clippings and extracts from books in. I get weekly ones from my father containing unsettling animal pictures and tips on exercise along with bits of poems he has read and thinks I would like. He is an interesting man, keeps his loose change in a sock.

So, places I like. The place I love the most I have only been to once, It is the tairn at the top of the Old Man of Conisten. The water was completely clear and there was a sea of tiny white flowers carpeting the bottom, I had nor have since, seen anything quite so lovely. Other than that, I like most of the famous mountains in Britain, Pennygent has a panoramic veiw of the lake district, the Cairngorms have looming ruggedness and the Beacons have soft and dewy peaks. I like them all.

Art also is one of my favorite things. But I have been forced to become an appreciator rather than a practicer. This is due to my incapacity to produce anything that doesn't make critics sick down their fronts. I don't like any specific kind, but do dislike paintings of fruit, why paint fruit? Unless of course, you are passionate about fruit, maybe Degas had an unnatural relationship with his fruit basket, we can only speculate.

Anyhow, I think that this is where I shall end my wander through my thoughts.
Probably will write again when something interesting happens to me, not much interesting happens to me, so....until my wedding, bye! x