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Aug. 15th, 2010 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squeefulfishYesterday mostly sucked and for many hours. Went on mountain walk thing with a bunch of people, left Kinsale at 0900, arrived mountain at 1245. Within minutes it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the rest of the group. I've gone on hikes before, admittedly years ago and rather sedate ones at that because we always went at the speed of the slowest person in the group. When you're on a mountain it's not nice to leave someone behind, they might fall or otherwise injure themselves and if on their own they've no chance of getting help unless the group decides to come back the way they went up. So I've always had it in my head that you do not leave someone behind, ever, that you do regular enough headcounts to make sure that no-one has been left behind at any point. And if they have, you fucking find them. As someone who is less than perfectly confident in the strength of her ankles/agility/has mild balance issues due to weird inner ears and boobs o' doom, I'm usually the slowest person, but I'd asked beforehand if I'd manage the trip and was told I would easily do it so I went along for some fun on a mountain.
But I'm slow, apparently way too slow for anyone to notice that I'd fallen behind, and fallen behind quickly. Other people had the bags containing the food and the water and the sunscreen. I very quickly got hungry (didn't wake in time for breakfast), thirsty (mountains in summer are hard work to walk up) and sunburnt (I burn. Under cloud cover. In March.) I also got very pissed off, very very quickly. How dare they not notice I wasn't there?! How very very rude not to provide everyone with directions to the top where the pretty tarn was that I wanted to see?! How dare Vodafone and O2 not provide perfect coverage on a mountain so I could call Christian and tell him to get his arse back down the mountain and gimme car keys so I could at least sit and read while being pissed off with the rest of the group for forging on ahead like mountain goats on speed?!
So, text of pissed-offednes sent and read only after everyone started thinking about heading back down the mountain. I decided to make the most of being stuck on a mountain on my own, as well as find a friendly bush that wasn't made entirely of spikes cos my bladder had been rapidly filling on the four bloody hour journey to the mountain in the middle of nowhere. To stop myself from crying, decided to tell a few people that I was stuck onna mountain (didn't know which one, guessed it was somewhere in county Waterford, began with C and was in the Comeraghs.) Wandered off, exploring instead of entirely exploding with rage and frustration. Found a dead sheep, thought about bringing vertebrae home but didn't have a bag and didn't know what I'd do with sheep vertebrae anyway. Saw lots of pretty butterflies. Cried a little, mostly because of hunger/thirst. Ranted a lot.
Eventually, everyone decided to make their way back to the car park, which I'd eventually found again after quite a bit of scrambling through undergrowth, tripping over roots, squidging on years of pine needles, seeing bunny holes/entrances to setts or something like that and generally realising that I was never the sort of person who likes the outdoors and nature. Climbed into cars, explained why I was pissed off, drove around mountain to Mahon falls, got left behind again on the walk to the falls, got even more pissed off in view of having Just Explained Why I Was Pissed Off, wandered back to car park and sat making St. Brigid's crosses for a while to keep my mind off killing everyone in the world.
Tasty pizza of all the cheese with all the spinach and none of the pine nuts later made me a little bit less unhappy, using very small words, repeatedly, to explain just why I was terrifically annoyed and planning on heading home to Drogheda today made me feel a lot better. Decided eventually to stay for tonight as well, as it's a long journey home and one bad day shouldn't put me off seeing one of my dearest friends.
So today we drove round to a beach, I had a panic attack at not being able to get to the beach without killing myself/spraining ankle (which would be a 30 grand mistake to make - repeating 4th year, paying fees and not being paid for internship would be a very, very expensive sprained ankle.) So panic over with it was off to Garrettstown for a swim. Has been years and years since I swam in the sea and I'd forgotten just how much sand gets everywhere. Also forgot that I've an extra hole in which to accumulate sand - showering took a bit longer than usual because of that.
People are making dinner and making innuendo right now, I should probably offer services for something or other. As usual, glad I came down, just could have done without the humiliation, hunger and boredom yesterday. But all's grand now and tomorrow I'm back to Drogheda to start studying for that exam thing as well as finish off my portfolio and get that handed in.
36 shifts to freedom.
But I'm slow, apparently way too slow for anyone to notice that I'd fallen behind, and fallen behind quickly. Other people had the bags containing the food and the water and the sunscreen. I very quickly got hungry (didn't wake in time for breakfast), thirsty (mountains in summer are hard work to walk up) and sunburnt (I burn. Under cloud cover. In March.) I also got very pissed off, very very quickly. How dare they not notice I wasn't there?! How very very rude not to provide everyone with directions to the top where the pretty tarn was that I wanted to see?! How dare Vodafone and O2 not provide perfect coverage on a mountain so I could call Christian and tell him to get his arse back down the mountain and gimme car keys so I could at least sit and read while being pissed off with the rest of the group for forging on ahead like mountain goats on speed?!
So, text of pissed-offednes sent and read only after everyone started thinking about heading back down the mountain. I decided to make the most of being stuck on a mountain on my own, as well as find a friendly bush that wasn't made entirely of spikes cos my bladder had been rapidly filling on the four bloody hour journey to the mountain in the middle of nowhere. To stop myself from crying, decided to tell a few people that I was stuck onna mountain (didn't know which one, guessed it was somewhere in county Waterford, began with C and was in the Comeraghs.) Wandered off, exploring instead of entirely exploding with rage and frustration. Found a dead sheep, thought about bringing vertebrae home but didn't have a bag and didn't know what I'd do with sheep vertebrae anyway. Saw lots of pretty butterflies. Cried a little, mostly because of hunger/thirst. Ranted a lot.
Eventually, everyone decided to make their way back to the car park, which I'd eventually found again after quite a bit of scrambling through undergrowth, tripping over roots, squidging on years of pine needles, seeing bunny holes/entrances to setts or something like that and generally realising that I was never the sort of person who likes the outdoors and nature. Climbed into cars, explained why I was pissed off, drove around mountain to Mahon falls, got left behind again on the walk to the falls, got even more pissed off in view of having Just Explained Why I Was Pissed Off, wandered back to car park and sat making St. Brigid's crosses for a while to keep my mind off killing everyone in the world.
Tasty pizza of all the cheese with all the spinach and none of the pine nuts later made me a little bit less unhappy, using very small words, repeatedly, to explain just why I was terrifically annoyed and planning on heading home to Drogheda today made me feel a lot better. Decided eventually to stay for tonight as well, as it's a long journey home and one bad day shouldn't put me off seeing one of my dearest friends.
So today we drove round to a beach, I had a panic attack at not being able to get to the beach without killing myself/spraining ankle (which would be a 30 grand mistake to make - repeating 4th year, paying fees and not being paid for internship would be a very, very expensive sprained ankle.) So panic over with it was off to Garrettstown for a swim. Has been years and years since I swam in the sea and I'd forgotten just how much sand gets everywhere. Also forgot that I've an extra hole in which to accumulate sand - showering took a bit longer than usual because of that.
People are making dinner and making innuendo right now, I should probably offer services for something or other. As usual, glad I came down, just could have done without the humiliation, hunger and boredom yesterday. But all's grand now and tomorrow I'm back to Drogheda to start studying for that exam thing as well as finish off my portfolio and get that handed in.
36 shifts to freedom.
