The Great x-mas Tree Adventure
First....for the record...I have a good reason for falling off the catch-up post band wagon. I got caught up in some last minute whirlwind adventuring...but i'll tell you about that in good time...
...now back to where we last left our hero...
So, my amazing hiking trip had been in the beginning of December.
A few weeks before Christmas day the same people that I had done restoration work with on fladers moss before (recall the potato man and all that) was killing a practical bird and a seasonal bird with one stone. At this time of year they have Christmas tree cuts on flanders moss...people have the incentive of getting a free tree, and invasive pines that need removing get removed. They had already had their one for the public...which involves hundreds of people comming to each cut a few trees...and that happens on the outskirts of flandermoss where amatures are allowed to tread and their prise was norway pines...an okay tree...but not a classic christmas tree.
THe tree cutting i went to consisted of a few of us comming to each cut down hundreds of trees much deeper into flanders moss. We few (and by few i mean more like 12 of us) proud vip tree cutters are all enviro nuts and the like. And i'm not kidding when i say we cut down hundreds of trees each. Some were more sizeable, but alot of them were quite small and went down quickly.
The prize for our diligent work were gorgeous Scotch pines. Trees normally protected and encouraged over here...with flanders moss being the main exception. This is one of the few mosses about...and any trees dry out the peat...so for the sake of this magnificent ecosystem, we slaughtered countless trees. When we were done...on the one hand we were proud of our work...but on the other hand, the place looked like a greousome battle field with felled corpses all a round us...the acrid smell of blood in this case being the sharp smell of gin.
However, we consolled ourselves with not only a sense of commiting a necisariy slaughter (..now i sound like any numbe of power mongering religious elititists from the past who stained their hands with blood for the necisariy sins of crusade....how apropirate for chirstmas) and we had our trophies as well...
a prise which i brough home....
And turned into this!....
Complete with traditional christmas ninja...
her name is Kate....Kate the christmas Ninja.
(so, i almost didn't mention it...but i decided no one who read my journal is gunna get too bent out of shape about this...or so i hope...but the waste bin from my room that i used to put the tree in may or may not have contained a variety of bibles and krishna texts that me and my flatmates had been not so willingly given over the year...and to make them heavy enough and keep the tree moist...they may or may not have been waterlogged. It was really perfect actually....the gradual dispersal or moisture through capilary action kept the tree vital for a month with out molding it....we also threw some wine bottles in there for good measure.....how appropraite)
Before every one went their ways for the holidays, all my flatmates and I had a wonderful holiday-esce dinner.
Brian cooked. We had roast turky, green beans, roast tatties, and yorkshire puddings with gravey....sooo good!...oh also IRN BRU of course. (that's the ambroshial orange liquid in our glassies)
On actual cristmas, it was just me and patrick and brian. The dinner we had was quite similar, except we had mashed tatties instead of roasted...and we had like four yourshire puddings a peice (sooo good!)...but i don't have any pics of christmas day because we were too bussy playing spiderman monopoly (a gift to brian from our other flat mate/ his gf laura)...brian kicked our butts in the end...but we battled for hours.
SO yeahi might as well blurb about christmas day real quick here. ...
We three got up...opened our pressies...ate satsumas...and chocolate coines....and i made really rich hot chocolate which we put candicanes in.
We then opened up Brian's new spiderman monopoly game...each choosing one of the peices like "pole dancing spider man"..."taking a shit spiderman"..."and surfer dude"...all named for their postures.
That game started early in the day...late in the day we realized we shoudl probably get dinner on...did so...went back to playing....then carefully moved the board to have dinner...finished dinner (so yummy)...kept playing....had an icecream break....kept playing....and finally finished at about 10pm.
We then had more icecream with loads of sguigy cream (thats whiped cream for all you yanks)...and then watched NCIS for a couple hours...and then went to bed.
All in all, a very merry christmas. (i hope you all had the same)
Next time....new years in Edinburgh aka: The day I saw the least covert public urination ever
...now back to where we last left our hero...
So, my amazing hiking trip had been in the beginning of December.
A few weeks before Christmas day the same people that I had done restoration work with on fladers moss before (recall the potato man and all that) was killing a practical bird and a seasonal bird with one stone. At this time of year they have Christmas tree cuts on flanders moss...people have the incentive of getting a free tree, and invasive pines that need removing get removed. They had already had their one for the public...which involves hundreds of people comming to each cut a few trees...and that happens on the outskirts of flandermoss where amatures are allowed to tread and their prise was norway pines...an okay tree...but not a classic christmas tree.
THe tree cutting i went to consisted of a few of us comming to each cut down hundreds of trees much deeper into flanders moss. We few (and by few i mean more like 12 of us) proud vip tree cutters are all enviro nuts and the like. And i'm not kidding when i say we cut down hundreds of trees each. Some were more sizeable, but alot of them were quite small and went down quickly.
The prize for our diligent work were gorgeous Scotch pines. Trees normally protected and encouraged over here...with flanders moss being the main exception. This is one of the few mosses about...and any trees dry out the peat...so for the sake of this magnificent ecosystem, we slaughtered countless trees. When we were done...on the one hand we were proud of our work...but on the other hand, the place looked like a greousome battle field with felled corpses all a round us...the acrid smell of blood in this case being the sharp smell of gin.
However, we consolled ourselves with not only a sense of commiting a necisariy slaughter (..now i sound like any numbe of power mongering religious elititists from the past who stained their hands with blood for the necisariy sins of crusade....how apropirate for chirstmas) and we had our trophies as well...
a prise which i brough home....
And turned into this!....
Complete with traditional christmas ninja...
her name is Kate....Kate the christmas Ninja.
(so, i almost didn't mention it...but i decided no one who read my journal is gunna get too bent out of shape about this...or so i hope...but the waste bin from my room that i used to put the tree in may or may not have contained a variety of bibles and krishna texts that me and my flatmates had been not so willingly given over the year...and to make them heavy enough and keep the tree moist...they may or may not have been waterlogged. It was really perfect actually....the gradual dispersal or moisture through capilary action kept the tree vital for a month with out molding it....we also threw some wine bottles in there for good measure.....how appropraite)
Before every one went their ways for the holidays, all my flatmates and I had a wonderful holiday-esce dinner.
Brian cooked. We had roast turky, green beans, roast tatties, and yorkshire puddings with gravey....sooo good!...oh also IRN BRU of course. (that's the ambroshial orange liquid in our glassies)
On actual cristmas, it was just me and patrick and brian. The dinner we had was quite similar, except we had mashed tatties instead of roasted...and we had like four yourshire puddings a peice (sooo good!)...but i don't have any pics of christmas day because we were too bussy playing spiderman monopoly (a gift to brian from our other flat mate/ his gf laura)...brian kicked our butts in the end...but we battled for hours.
SO yeahi might as well blurb about christmas day real quick here. ...
We three got up...opened our pressies...ate satsumas...and chocolate coines....and i made really rich hot chocolate which we put candicanes in.
We then opened up Brian's new spiderman monopoly game...each choosing one of the peices like "pole dancing spider man"..."taking a shit spiderman"..."and surfer dude"...all named for their postures.
That game started early in the day...late in the day we realized we shoudl probably get dinner on...did so...went back to playing....then carefully moved the board to have dinner...finished dinner (so yummy)...kept playing....had an icecream break....kept playing....and finally finished at about 10pm.
We then had more icecream with loads of sguigy cream (thats whiped cream for all you yanks)...and then watched NCIS for a couple hours...and then went to bed.
All in all, a very merry christmas. (i hope you all had the same)
Next time....new years in Edinburgh aka: The day I saw the least covert public urination ever