Accents.... the seductive power of pretty

Accents have been a mystery to me. I've looked on bemused at people rambling on about accents and wondered what the feck it's all about. Bonsai is where get the goosebumps. Why are people so obsessed with sticking flowers in pots?

Well...this is how I felt until just a couple of weeks ago, until the first time I went climbing. Climbing in a place where Junipers grow like weeds....

I don't know if you've ever climbed a mountain, but for the first time in my life, 3 weeks ago I did. Not the Cliffhanger, Sly Stallone style climbing you'd associate with Bear Grylls, but tough ascents with 65lb backpacks nonetheless. I walked above cloud level, climbed through snow on the hottest day of the year so far, and I grunted, sweated, and swore like a bingo hall loser. I felt the battering punch of 80mph gusts while holding my room, bed and restaurant for the next two nights, in a tortuous coffin-sized pack on my back.

And it changed something in me.

My son, a 20 year old, smart and wildly enthusiastic young man that I met for the first time just two years ago, took me, on only our second meeting ever, to a location in hilly Great Britain to climb a mountain and camp wild for a long weekend. We had a blast and learned about one another, while learning a very serious lesson about what it feels like to be stranded in horrific conditions at over 2700ft without the faintest hope of anyone knowing we were even there.

I may one day recount all of it but suffice to say that it wasn't all Hollywood. but it was also one of the best weekends of my life.

During our climb he mentioned that he'd seen a place with loads of trees that "looked like bonsais" and wanted to show me, which would only be a few hours detour....

Oh my did he just..

We walked for about 2 hours, climbed around 1600ft and he took me into a hidden gorge...and as far as the eye could see, there were needle junipers of all shapes and sizes. (Juniperus Communis I have since learned...)

View above the gorge of hundreds, if not thousands of needle junipers littering the hillside. VERY steep though..

beautiful, huge examples of cascade and semi cascade

 my son standing underneath the same juniper shown above

Found this one about 150m down one hill after a very sketchy climb down. Check the deadwood and bulging live vein. Extraordinary

 
 Deadwood close up - see the bottom twists & check the live vein at the top

These things grow like weeds in this secluded spot here and many/most are cascade or windswept. They've quite probably been here for well over a hundred years, and probably much longer. Some of the larger ones are absolutely huge and the detail in them is just mind blowing....

So why title this post 'Accents' and then bang on about Junipers?
 

 

Well, that's the cynical nature of blogs nowadays. Tune in to my next post to find out..... 

 

DJ