Mostly Green Things

Monsters?

A few weekends ago I visited some dear friends in Dumfries and Galloway. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so a walk through one of the many forests was called for. I had a "Ooh all the plants are so lovely" day and went a bit snap happy with my camera. There were some weird plants though! A copse of monkey puzzles and millions of skunk cabbages. Who would of thought you could find those in D & G.

Monkey puzzles on a telly tubby hill

Jaggy!

Almost tropical!

Very straight trees

A skunk cabbage. Smelly!

Cabbage as far as the nose can smell

 

Rhododendron

Dead tree

Foggy

All photos by Caroline Harvey

Hepburn

Fantastic view and blue skies

With the memories of soggy Spain well and truly behind us, we have had much more successful and cheaper trips down the A1 to Northumberland recently.

 I love my bouldering. I am not super strong, I often fail on problems because I have the flexibility of a plank of wood and will never achieve fame or recognition for my performances, but it is great fun! Especially on sunny days with good friends.

Hepburn was our choice of venue on both occasions. It is a very peaceful place on the moors with great views and some excellent and tricky problems. Many of the problems have obviously not seen much traffic, so be prepared to go with a brush or two, and I highly recommend you invite Emma too as she is ever so slightly obsessive about cleaning, so you can be guaranteed good clean holds.

A pretty wall and tree

Pretty flowers

Dandilion, before I blew it and made a wish

Emma on a warm up traverse

Me getting pumped on the warm up

A slightly more flattering angle of photo than the previous one

Clean me, clean me now!

Emma. OCD. Never.

What a lovely clean hold.

Trough traverse 6c

All photos by Caroline Harvey with the obvious exception of the ones of me which were taken by Emma.

All Gone

The Spring blossom, it never stays for long, but this year I feel it was out longer than usual as the winds did not blow immediately after the buds opened.

 I love the delicate cherry and apple blossom trees that grow all over this city if you care to look for them.

Till next Spring, goodbye blossom.

All photos by Caroline Harvey

They will rise!

I have had this theory for a while, that may seem like madness to some of you out there, but once you start to think about it I am sure you will become a believer too.

Have you ever noticed the increasing number of cones that seem to be hanging around these days? Now don't get me wrong, I know they have been around for years, but I swear their numbers are increasing. This worries me slightly as I believe there may be more to their population explosion than meets the eye.

I reckon at some point in the future, maybe not soon, and hopefully not within my lifetime, they will rise up and take over this world and make it their own. It will be similar to that episode in Dr Who when the shop dummies come to life. Nobody really notices the increasing numbers until it is too late, but sadly I am not sure the lovely Dr will be around to save us.

These "cones" hang around in large groups often lining the streets blocking our way forcing us to go in a direction "they" want.  Sometimes they are even in large enough numbers to make cars and trucks drive the opposite way down the motorway, or squeeze them into one lane in order to slow them, down often for hours.

It is not just the "Gangs" that you should be worried about though, the single ones are all still part of the same army, they are just lone assassins keeping watch often in suburban and deserted areas. 

How are they going to take over this world I hear you cry, they are just cones! Well I reckon that they are slowly gathering information about the infrastructure of cities, which is why they are always around building sites and road works. They take over the minds of construction workers and get driven and placed where ever they like. They take over the fragile minds of students and those influenced by alcohol and get taken indoors where they can link up with TV's, radios and computers. They force people to place them on top of statues so they can Lord over us. As I said previously I do not know when this will happen or quite how, but I will monitor their progress.

Obviously like any war there are casualties, and many can be found in rivers, squashed by trucks etc, but they are always replaced, the numbers never go down. Think about it and keep your eyes open!

All photographs by Caroline Harvey