Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The Middle-Aged Woman and the Volcano



Since I bragged about living on an active volcano yesterday, I thought better supply some proof to my claim. So, as the title would suggest, this is me with the volcano. Actually, the volcano is uphill left, downhill right being the Pacific. What we really see is (me and) the lava flow hitting the ocean, spewing up a handsome column of steam. We weren't allowed any closer than this, although there are times and conditions when you can get so close you can poke a stick into the lava. My younger son was sorely disappointed he didn't get to do that. My older son was too cool to even come on the daytrip with us, preferring to sit indoors listening to Marilyn Manson.

They found a piano atop the Ben Nevis in Scotland! Britain, my former land of abode, I salute you. First a lost pianist on the South Coast, then a piano up north on the highest peak. Nevermind your decades of awful politicians, the bad plumbing and even worse insulation, and your everlasting preoccupation with sex. You are the true eccentrics of the world. Or at the very least, Europe.

© 2006 Anna MR

5 comments:

nmj said...

Ha!, it takes a Finn in Hawaii to tell me that there is a piano at the top of Ben Nevis, now this is what blogging is for! I googled to find out more, a guy called Kenneth Campbell took it up there, he'd taken a barrel up previously for charity, he wore a kilt, he must've been eaten alive by midges, the Scottish 'mosquito'...

Anna MR said...

On my camping expedition to Scotland, a land of beauty and wonder, I spent a night by some forgotten-named loch where there was such a dense population of midges my then husband and I sported beards made of midges (they seemed to home in on our breath). We left and camped elsewhere the next morning.

Official opinion on men in kilts: sexy. No arguments.

nmj said...

Mmm, men in kilts are only sexy if they are sexy without the kilt to begin with... the kilt does not maketh the man, the man maketh the kilt!

Michelle said...

Awesome picture. Look at you in your sexy little mama black tank top. You better watch out or your demographics might shift to the slightly hairier crowd. :)

Anna MR said...

Why thank you. They can be hairy, if they wear kilts.

What I need to know is did that chap Campbell (in his kilt) carry the piano up Ben Nevis *on his own*? Because if he did, it's quite a feat. We tried the Ben Nevis and turned back at the snow level (this was June) realising it was not a hill to be strolled up in a pair of espadrils (which I had done w/r/t Snowdon the previous year).

Incidentally, when we were up Snowdon, there was a couple of young men and their mother scattering somebody's ashes, presumably the dad's. Leaning against the topstone having a well-earned smoke (given up since) we were sprinkled with someone's earthly remains. All sorts of incidents make up a life, no?