By: Blonde Two
My name is Blonde Two and yesterday I visited a shopping mall!
Shopping malls surely have to be the antithesis of all that is Dartmoor. Too many quadrilateral buildings, connected by too many quadrilateral corridors, lit by too many over bright lights, heated (always to the wrong temperature) by too many oddly placed air vents and populated by too many quadrilateral people.
The shopping people, of course, aren’t really quadrilateral but just the act of being in a mall (I hate even the word) seems to knock all of the interesting lumps and bumps off them. Their faces become pale, their teeth and buttocks become clenched and none of them look like they are enjoying themselves.
By contrast, on Dartmoor, the buildings fail to conform to quadrilateral shaping. Roofs sink in the middle, windows are unevenly spaced and most things man-made sit at odd angles to the road. In a mall, you find yourself longing for the feel of rain on your face; on Dartmoor you will struggle to avoid it. Coffee stops on Dartmoor find you crouching behind rocks gazing at long, people-uninterrupted views. Coffee stops at the mall find you standing in a corner gazing at overfull tables and wondering whether or not it would be acceptable to crouch.
I could go on for a very long time here but I think you get the message. I use Cribbs Causeway for one reason and one reason only; as a halfway meeting point for myself and a very dear friend (yes, the Two Blondes do have other friends).
My friend “H” and I did a very good job of counteracting the indoorsiness of the shopping mall. We spent a lot of time discussing and looking at outdoor gear, we swapped stories of daring-do (she solo up mountains in Scotland, me with loads of soggy kids on Dartmoor), we made a cuppa on a stove in the car park, we looked at maps and we planned walks together for some mysterious time in the future when we are both less busy.
It was lovely seeing her and it has just occurred to me that there must be some countryside halfway between Dartmoor and the Malvern Hills. Maybe we should have gone for a walk!
I rock climbed with Tony for seven years until he died quite suddenly from cancer in 2003. He was large in body and large in character, a PROPER person, and a very great friend.
In a shoe shop in Preston they didn’t have his size. The assistant suggested he should try their outlet in The Trafford Centre in Manchester (one of the biggest shopping malls in the country). Tony replied, “I would rather go to the top of this building and jump off”.
Here is a picture of Tony;
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hgz4x9r38uiwxo2/RobTonyFSnapea.jpg
There are not enough “proper people” in the world and your friend Tony certainly looks like one. I agree with his sentiments but for friendship – I would visit a mall again!
I went to Cribb’s Causeway in my showing-off days but you wouldn’t have known. I arrived in a Yaris a teeny-tiny Toyota tincan which did nothing for my dignity. Getting out was more akin to disgorgement. I am 6 ft 1½ in. tall; perhaps I should say was since age has shrunk me. Nevertheless I have a fine head of grey hair and a receding paunch because of the 2/5 diet. As I say, all this went for nought as I de-Yaris-ed myself. The car-park was huge. I looked around for people cooking but saw nothing. Perhaps because my visit occurred ten years ago.
Do you find the above paragraph stylistically odd; eccentric in its choice of facts and their sequence? I am trying to imitate your way of writing but it is harder than I thought.
So what were my showing-off days? They had to do with the make of car I owned. Three of them, in fact, one after the other. My present car is a Skoda, huge, with an automatic gearbox. An old man’s car. Safe to say I am no longer showing off.
I’d taken my showing-off car in to have some work done on it: garlanding its brow with laurel, perhaps. Or making its wheels rounder. The dealer (who had given me a bottle of champagne when I bought the showing-off car) loaned me the Yaris while this work was done. Cribbs Causeway was a logical destination since I’d been told there were Rhine-maidens there and a shop which sold Pierre Allain stuff.
Since I am no longer showing off there seems little point in telling you the make of that car. But here’s a clue. In present-day American crime stories the villains always drive one.
Rhine Maidens sound like fun but who on earth is Pierre Allen?
It’s the hair colour Roderick. Sie haben Deutsch zu sein, um zu schreiben wahre Deustche. You have to be German to write true German. You have to be Blonde to write true Blonde.
The world of rock-climbing was divided into three eras: the Iron Age (heavy leather boots, their soles decorated with tricounis nails at the edges, hob nails within), the Rubber Age (slightly lighter but still leather superstructures; soles made of moulded rubber soles initially called Vibram later identified as Itshide but never – for obvious mispronunciatory reasons – identified as such orally), the Slipper Age (lightweight uppers made of (I think) fabric, soles made of thin flexible rubber with much deeper edges which extended upwards into the uppers; the complete boot flexible in every which way).
These evolutionary developments occurred for two reasons: had climbers continued to climb in Iron Age boots the footholds on famous routes would have been worn away (eg, Napes Needle would have become “slape”). Then as climbing became more and more demanding it was realised that stiff-soled boots could not cope with progressively tinier footholds and lighter, flexible more adhesive footwear was needed. Pierre Allain, a French brand (I believe) was one of the slipper pioneers.
Oh dear. Oh deary me. How dreadfully boring, but my own fault for raising the subject. I was far better employed trying to imitate your featherwight style of writing even though it was as plain as a pikestaff (a cliché, and a bad one at that; when did you last use a pikestaff?) that I was always going to lag several furlongs, perhaps roods, behind.
I prefer a mace to a pikestaff to be honest although I prefer to call a mace a bommey-knocker! I really have no idea why.