Making a mountain......

2009-04-07, 7:32 a.m.
When I posted pictures of our trip to Canada Common, someone expressed surprise in my comments that the countryside round these parts doesn�t have any hills in it.

Umm. No. No, it doesn�t, really. Not many, anyway.

Oh, hang on! There's this one!

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That's St Catherine's Hill. Regular readers might recall that, last time I went there I had such a massive strop on that Treacle had to do a Guest Entry for me. Hmm. Let's try and do better this time, shall we?

Before you can climb the (frankly a bit pathetic) hill you get to go alongside this Victorian viaduct which is all picturesque and lovely and, if you ignore the sound of the M3 right behind you, quite tranquil really.

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So, up we climbed. L had been in charge of purchasing the picnic which meant that he had spend the whole time we were in Lidl picking things up and putting them back down again and picking things up and saying "well, I suppose this would do�?" in a forlorn way. In the end I said "L, you twat, why don�t you buy something you actually LIKE?!" which was silly of me as he bought some kind of weird processed cheese with bits in and some astonishingly expensive ham and fuck-all else. I had to run back and get some bread and some tomatoes and some mayonnaise and some butter as he'd said that he wanted all of those but hadn�t actually located them or put them in the trolley. He looked at the bread I'd gone back for and said "Oh, I didn't get those baguettes cos they were part baked." I did explain that it would probably not be too much of a technological trauma for me to do the other part of the baking process and he did seem relieved.

Too late I also realised that he had got nothing for us to drink and no 'picnic goodies' of ANY SORT � not even a bar of chocolate. I realised this when he was packing the baguettes that I had stuffed with the freaky cheese and the posh ham and the tomatoes and the mayonnaise (plus the one Id made for myself which was just pastrami and cucumber) and was cramming all the remaining space in the rucksack with cans of beer. I had to make do with a plastic bottle with a drop of warm apple juice in it. *scowl*

Once at the top of the hill you can look over a fair swathe of the county � the funny-looking buttressy building you can see in the distance in this pic is the famous Winchester College � I would say that it is one of the poshest schools in England had I not gone around with quite a few boys from there when I was in my teens and they were all scumbags. Rich as Croesus, most of 'em, but scumbags nevertheless.

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Looking a bit further north you can see the roof of Winchester Cathedral (Just to the left of those people and up a bit � sort of at ten o clock). It�s a crap photo so Im not expecting you to be impressed.

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We sat on the grass amongst the piles of rabbit poo and ate our picnic. I was quite smugly chuffed to see that L didn�t manage to scoff all of his freaky cheese/ham thingy. My pastrami was yummy.

We lay on the grass for a while. I was watching the clouds, L was dozing after drinking all the beer. It was chilly when the sun went in so I whined and moaned for a bit until we could set off walking again. Right at the top of the hill is a very strange little maze. Ive tried, but I really cannot see the fucking point of it. Even toddlers soon tire of it but its been there for a really really long time so I guess some poor sod must have the job of clambering all the way up there and maintaining the bloody thing. If that was my job, I'd keep quiet about it. Imagine being on a date and saying "Actually, I maintain mazes". That would be fascinating until you stupidly got ahead of yourself and invited your date to go see it with you. Then Im pretty sure they'd be distinctly underwhelmed. Look:

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See! It�s a bit rubbish, isn�t it. Im pretty sure some ancient historian will counter with a tale of the important part it has plated in shaping the landscape of Hampshire or some such bollocks. I say, G'wan then, impress me.

If you look south from the top of the hill, you can see a bit of the motorway, a distant view of ChavVille and a hairy musician who is pretending to be having a good time.

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I fell over just after this picture was taken and Im pretty sure that was the highlight of the afternoon as far as L was concerned. He loves countryside and walking and nature and all that but he wasn�t having fun AT ALL. *tssk* (He blamed me later. The git)

I dunno what it is about this picture but it really reminds me of the sort of scenery you get in cowboy films. Feel free to laugh.

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Once you're back down to the bottom of the hill again you can walk along the old road into Winchester and look at the hill from a difference angle

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Or you can look along the river back towards the viaduct.

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When we got home we had a big fight about nothing and I went to bed in a sulk. By the time I got up L had gone out, leaving me a note saying that my mobile phone had been going off and smashthegas had phoned.

One of the texts I'd got was from Anne Marie so I went to phone her whilst texting Smashie as he's also left me a message saying that he'd phoned and that L had told him he 'didn�t know where I was'.

I texted Smash back saying; "He just couldn�t be fucking well bothered to look for me. I was asleep. Now he's gone out. Left me a note. The twat."

It wasn�t til I'd finished talking to Anne Marie and had got a weird text from L which didn�t make any sense, that I realised I hadn�t sent my text to Smashie.

I'd sent it to L.

Just at the horrible moment of realisation, Smash phoned again. I quickly explained and then pretty much just hung up so I could scamper down the pub and eat a big slice of humble pie.

When in Big Shit, apologise immediately. I did. It worked. I was forgiven pretty much straight away and L even had the good grace to laugh while he was asking me "You meant to send that text to Smash, didn�t you?".

Sometimes I am a completely rubbish wife.

Later
S
x





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