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Fringe 2010 Blog - 21Arthur’s Seat Folly – Friday 27 August 2010Don’t ask me why I decided to do it. I don’t have a good reason and I simply cannot for the life of me even make one up. There’s absolutely no reason why I decided to climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat. I suppose there were a number of factors that contributed to me putting on my best walking shoes. The last time I was in Scotland on tour, some of the cast and I had climbed a very steep and very dangerous hill (visit my website to read that blog entry - I promise it’s worth it – it’s in the Othello tour blog and the entry is titled The Poop Trail) and I wanted to uphold that tradition. Also a couple of days ago, a Facebook friend had updated his status to say that he had ran up Arthur’s Seat in 15 minutes which made it sound like an easy climb. Finally, I needed something interesting to write about in this blog (hey, I’m being honest ok?!) And so some time in the mid-morning, I found myself wandering around the streets next to the Pleasance Courtyard. I really hadn’t planned it very well. Anna, another person in the cast, had climbed Arthur’s Seat a week earlier, and had given me vague instructions on how to get there. I believe her exact words were, “Go to the Pleasance Courtyard, walk up the road and turn left after a while”. It is essentially the truth, but in the sense of only giving the absolute bare minimum of information necessary. It’s like telling someone to “go east till you hit China and then turn right” when trying to explain where Australia is in relation to the UK. They might get there in the end, but equally they might not. After a long time tramping up and down the distinctly unattractive streets further up the hill from the Pleasance, I began to get worried. I must have spent a good hour or so walking around looking for a way to get to the hill. However, everywhere I walked, there was always a row of houses between me and my destination. It was like driving around trying to get to the Eiffel Tower and always being within sight of it, but never actually succeeding in finding the road that leads to it. I began to think I might not make it to Arthur’s Seat at all! Eventually I phoned Anna to get better instructions. Eventually, my legs already aching and my heart almost ready for a rest, I found myself at the foot of the hill. To be honest, it didn’t look like much. For a start there where a lot of people climbing it, many of them old enough to know better. Also, there were steps zig-zagging up the hill. Steps! How lame was that? I laughed out loud as I made my way towards the bottom of the stairway. This was obviously not going to be the challenge I had been led to believe it might be. The Stirling hill (just read the blog entry ok?) had been steep and decidedly hazardous. Climbing it was, in hindsight, a bit of a dumb thing to do. It was nothing like this at all. For all I knew there was a kiosk at the top of this one selling ice-cream and fridge magnets. I began ascending the stairs. I was in good spirits, even taking them two at a time every now and then. I’d love to be able to say that I sprinted up the hill in a jiffy, did a hundred press ups at the top, and then somersaulted back down without breaking a sweat. I wish to be able to say that I made it to the top without much trouble. But saying something like that would, unfortunately, be nothing but a massive lie. It was anything but that. The closest I can give is a rough estimate, but I’d say about... uh... well, roughly ten seconds after beginning my ascent, I was ready for a break. Twenty seconds later I was out of breath, panting like an over excited bear on heat. Five seconds after that I had developed massive sweat patches under my armpits, and my clothes were beginning to stick to me. Twelve seconds later, I was panting out loud (you should have seen some of the looks that came my way), my tongue was hanging out dribbling long streams of saliva onto the rocks as if I was marking my route out to be able to find my way back down, and my feet dragged along as if made of very heavy bits of fat (which is essentially what they are). The views on the way up were stunning. Simply spectacular. But did I care? Did I? Hah! Who has time to admire the view when you are struggling to keep hold of the final strains of life inside you that you can feel ebbing away with every upward step? When every indrawn breath is a struggle? When every single muscle in your body aches and you just want to curl up in a ball, stick your thumb in your mouth and slowly expire? I don’t recall when I began weeping and calling for my mother, but I believe she might find a very short and incoherent message on her answer phone. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Do you want to know what the worst thing was? Not the pain, or the sweat or the dehydration-induced hallucinations. No, the worst thing was the joggers. I don’t know who these people are or if they’re human at all, but the hill was crawling with them. Maniacs dressed in rain jackets, with huge demented smiles on their faces, jogging up and down the hill. Should I repeat that? I said UP and down the hill! As they ran past, they all flashed this look at us mere walkers, a look of smugness. A look that said, ‘Oh look at me! I’m jogging! I had muesli for breakfast today and I’m healthy and you’re not, so out of my way you walker!’ I swear I hated them more than Gollum hated the sight of the Nazgûl. At one point I tried picking off a few of them with a couple of well-aimed stones, but there were too many. Smug, healthy freaks. Sorry, I got a little heated just then. Where was I? Oh yes, the climb. Eventually, the steps of doom petered out and were replaced by a gravelly pathway. Out of breath, soaking and aching with every step, I scrabbled and scraped my way up the rest of the hill, clawing at the hillside sending pebbles, rocks and small children slithering down the hill in my wake. Eventually I reached the top. Except that it wasn’t the top. No, in one last cruel twist, the hill had a ‘fake’ summit. The real summit was up another slippery, treacherous pathway on the top of a small hill. Muttering to myself, my eyes bulging like some crazy person, I set about climbing that. At the top was a scattering of people. The wind blew like crazy. The view was, well, stunning. It truly was lovely. I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at of course (well I knew it was Edinburgh, but I didn’t know what was where in Edinburgh if you get what I mean). It was lovely to look at, but quickly got rather boring. However, for the moment, it was lovely. I sat down to recover and wait for the spots to clear from my eyesight so that I could properly appreciate the view. Then something frankly ridiculous happened. Some lunatic, on reaching the summit of the hill (all 251 metres of it) was so taken by the momentous occasion, that he ripped open his backpack, pulled out a set of bagpipes and proceeded to blast the peacefulness to smithereens. I couldn’t believe it, seeing this mental patient (I mean what else could he be?) puffing away at his bagpipes, ruining the beauty of the area by playing what is quite possibly the most ear-shattering instrument in existence. There he remained for some time, screeching and squealing away, without even having the decency to look sheepish about it. I believe it is the only time in my life that I have envied people that are hard of hearing. When the madman had finally finished his deranged stunt, he quietly put his bagpipes away. But here’s the thing: the rest of the people, far from calling the asylum to come and collect him, instead burst into applause! I hate to have to do this, but when my hand is forced, I’m left with no option. I really do try not to preach or admonish in these blogs, but really. Seriously folks, you shouldn’t encourage this sort of behaviour. Bagpipers are dangerous. They are prone to play at loud volume and none of them can approximate anything approaching a tune. When they begin to stray from the Royal Mile, we really shouldn’t approve. It will only encourage them. Well anyway, I’m going to begin wrapping up here because I’m feeling tired just talking about it. I got lost on my way back down the hill and spent a few heart-stopping moments clinging to a rock face wondering if I was going to be the splattered reason our show would be cancelled that afternoon. Thankfully I managed to scrape out of that potential mess and the show went ahead as usual. The next day I opted for a much more easy-going hike around Calton Hill and the observatory. Much less likely to die of exhaustion and, most importantly, no bagpipers. |
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