Brody Hooper
11-05-2013, 03:36 PM
I grew up feral on the river Medway, was always in the woods, on the river, scrumping apples and poaching game from early childhood. But once school finished and the dotcom bubble burst I moved to Birmingham in search of work. I get really nervous about my 4 year old son's future as I talk to my brummy mates about their childhoods, as it seems that hanging out in the park with a bottle of White Lightning or sitting outside an off license are the usual childhood exploits for city kids.
Any way, a few weeks back I was doing a bit of work out in the Shropshire hills (beautiful part of the Country that) and walking back to my mates car that evening I looked up and saw all these amazing lights in the sky, I remembered seeing them when I was a kid but in Birmingham the light in the sky moves about and is usually an omen that predicts a stolen car is about to come hurtling down the street. That view of the night sky, the amount of stars I'd forgotten about and the pale band of the Milky Way stirred up all sorts of memories of being camped out under a similar canape.
I decided I needed to get out into the country again and asked the misses if I could disappear for a weekend for a solo hike across Dartmoor. At first she was against it on account that I might die, I'm too old and the skills I had as a kid too rusty and were probably never good enough anyway (she might have put it better, I kind of switched off). I walked into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a Pepsi can meths stove which I sat on the coffee table and lit up grinning as I proved my skills were as sharp as ever. I can't blame her really, she watched "127 hours" the week before. So I promised I'd work out a route and leave her with a copy of it so she knows where I'm headed the whole time, I'd make regular text updates (although I pointed out signal may be a problem) and I'd take a really sharp knife so that if my arm gets stuck under a rock I can cut it off easily. This did the job, and I got my weekend pass.
So I set about hitting the interwebs for affordable kit, and yesterday my new knife arrived. It was sharp, but not quite what I'd promised. I went into the shed grabbed a sharpening stone and started work. 20 minutes later and it was sharp enough to replace my mallet. Cut paper? it struggled to cut water for f***s sake. How the hell do you forget how to sharpen a bloody knife? In fact I hadn't forgotten, I knew what to do, just couldn't do it. Now I was doubting my skills, would I forget how to set a compass bearing? would I forget how to boil water? OMG I can't remember my name. Obviously she couldn't know, I smiled a bit and pretended everything was fine slipped the knife in a draw under a pile of bills and left it alone. This morning I decided to have another go, this time I stuck a pound coin at the back of the stone and set the knife on it as a guide, this gave me consistent strokes and it's nice and sharp again.
I'm off to Dartmoor Friday 24th and will let you know how it goes, if however I die out there would someone mind telling her I was hit by a car or something, because I'm sick to death of her always being right :p
Any way, a few weeks back I was doing a bit of work out in the Shropshire hills (beautiful part of the Country that) and walking back to my mates car that evening I looked up and saw all these amazing lights in the sky, I remembered seeing them when I was a kid but in Birmingham the light in the sky moves about and is usually an omen that predicts a stolen car is about to come hurtling down the street. That view of the night sky, the amount of stars I'd forgotten about and the pale band of the Milky Way stirred up all sorts of memories of being camped out under a similar canape.
I decided I needed to get out into the country again and asked the misses if I could disappear for a weekend for a solo hike across Dartmoor. At first she was against it on account that I might die, I'm too old and the skills I had as a kid too rusty and were probably never good enough anyway (she might have put it better, I kind of switched off). I walked into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a Pepsi can meths stove which I sat on the coffee table and lit up grinning as I proved my skills were as sharp as ever. I can't blame her really, she watched "127 hours" the week before. So I promised I'd work out a route and leave her with a copy of it so she knows where I'm headed the whole time, I'd make regular text updates (although I pointed out signal may be a problem) and I'd take a really sharp knife so that if my arm gets stuck under a rock I can cut it off easily. This did the job, and I got my weekend pass.
So I set about hitting the interwebs for affordable kit, and yesterday my new knife arrived. It was sharp, but not quite what I'd promised. I went into the shed grabbed a sharpening stone and started work. 20 minutes later and it was sharp enough to replace my mallet. Cut paper? it struggled to cut water for f***s sake. How the hell do you forget how to sharpen a bloody knife? In fact I hadn't forgotten, I knew what to do, just couldn't do it. Now I was doubting my skills, would I forget how to set a compass bearing? would I forget how to boil water? OMG I can't remember my name. Obviously she couldn't know, I smiled a bit and pretended everything was fine slipped the knife in a draw under a pile of bills and left it alone. This morning I decided to have another go, this time I stuck a pound coin at the back of the stone and set the knife on it as a guide, this gave me consistent strokes and it's nice and sharp again.
I'm off to Dartmoor Friday 24th and will let you know how it goes, if however I die out there would someone mind telling her I was hit by a car or something, because I'm sick to death of her always being right :p