Recently on holiday I did a very bad thing. I nearly left the Fawn to die on a precipitous mountain path in the Canary Islands because she was having a terrible attack of vertigo that was threatening to spoil my fun.
No, worse: it actually did spoil my fun. Now that I’m old and boring I desperately need little jabs of adrenaline to remind me I’m still alive, and this particular route was doing the job quite nicely. Although it’s actually so undangerous that even my eightysomething dad can do it, it’s reasonably steep, it’s gobsmackingly picturesque, and it does now and then give you at least the illusion of a thrill because if you were to slip over the precipitous edge you’d definitely, definitely die.
My point was: ‘But you won’t die because the path’s broad and you won’t fall off.’ And the Fawn’s point — the vertigo sufferer’s point — was: ‘But I might. Don’t you see? I might and that’s why I can’t go on!!!’ So we had to go back and I couldn’t forgive her. There can be no meeting of minds between two people with such wildly differing attitudes to physical danger.
It all came back to me just now watching Life of a Mountain (BBC4), Terry Abraham’s documentary (the second of a planned trilogy) about hills in the Lake District, this one being about Blencathra. If you’re into hill-walking or beautiful landscapes hauntingly shot over the period of a year with a haunting background track of plaintive folk music, you’ll love it, as I did. Otherwise don’t bother; you’ll be bored.
What really tickled me was Sharp Edge, the spiny-ridge route up Blencathra which, having seen broadcaster Stuart Maconie and comedian Ed Byrne struggling up it on the programme, I’m now itching to try because it looks properly scary.
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