Healing hands
May. 31st, 2002 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenSurprise, surprise. As my womenfolk told me, though I didn't believe them, the burns have already started to heal up well. I peel off the dressings and then have a shower, using the right hand carefully, but I can bend the fingers and there are no blisters. Yet. So we head out, heading North up the east coast to the tiny village of Maughold - so small it has no shops, nor even a pub (to K's astonishment), but a fine old church with a splendid collection of early Viking/Christian crosses - in typical Manx fashion, languishing unlabelled in a hut in the grounds. Anmother mystery for the unenlightened are three shallow cobble-lined pits amongst the weathered gravestones. These are keills, early Christian chapels. They were tiny places, room maybe for half a dozen huddled worshippers, half dug out of the stony ground and presumably roofed with wood - no walls have survived, though some show post-holes. I am moved by the image of those first-millennium faithful huddled in these dark, cramped little buildings, yet possibly finer than their own dwellings, praying to an unlistening god. They were made of sterner stuff than I.
As is shortly evinced. Kjersti is no taken with these relics - as she points out, they have lots and lots of Viking relics at home, and they're more impressive than this - so we walk out around the headland down towards Port-e-Vullen. The hillsides are covered in sheep - on the flatter fields, traditional British breeds (Merino? Texel? Contrary to some claims, I have little interest or knowledge) but on the steeper hillsides there are Manx Loughtan.
Everyone's heard about Manx cats with their absent tails, but Manx sheeps are less well known. They're feisty, independent, half-wild beasts with shaggy brown coats, quite unlike vacuous dirty-white British ovines, but their real distinguishing features are their horns.
They have four.
Two are quite straight and antelope-like, standing high behind the ears, but each animal also has two curly ones like an ordinary ram's, curving down to shield the eyes. Interestingly, these farm animals have one pair much larger than the other, while the display specimens in the Curraghs wildlife park or other tourist attractions have all four similarly-sized - presumably, they are chosen for their symmetricality. However their array, they are noisy buggers, bleating loudly and staring at us in an unafraid and more than a little hostile way.
We pick our way down to the sea, but the going's too steep for me. I have acrophobia, which I can conquer to climb the Laxey Wheel, say, where intellectually I know I'm safe, despite my churning guts and adrenalin-flooded blood. It's another matter on a empty remote hillside falling hundreds of feet into the sea when the gradient tends more to the vertical than the horizontal.
Kjersti forges on ahead, leaving me trembling in a dell, watching wheeling seabirds swoop and call. Even from this height I can identify shags, puffins and terns alongside the ubiquitious gulls. Soon, though, it's too steep even for her and we trudge back up - then keep on going up to the top of the headland, to be rewarded with impressive views of the North-western Island. Below, a determined biker wobbles uncertainly along on a Fireblade on the unsurfaced road out to the lighthouse. Still, maybe he has the right idea; hill climbing in bike boots and full leathers is a game for the foolish. We're happy in our way, though.
As is shortly evinced. Kjersti is no taken with these relics - as she points out, they have lots and lots of Viking relics at home, and they're more impressive than this - so we walk out around the headland down towards Port-e-Vullen. The hillsides are covered in sheep - on the flatter fields, traditional British breeds (Merino? Texel? Contrary to some claims, I have little interest or knowledge) but on the steeper hillsides there are Manx Loughtan.
Everyone's heard about Manx cats with their absent tails, but Manx sheeps are less well known. They're feisty, independent, half-wild beasts with shaggy brown coats, quite unlike vacuous dirty-white British ovines, but their real distinguishing features are their horns.
They have four.
Two are quite straight and antelope-like, standing high behind the ears, but each animal also has two curly ones like an ordinary ram's, curving down to shield the eyes. Interestingly, these farm animals have one pair much larger than the other, while the display specimens in the Curraghs wildlife park or other tourist attractions have all four similarly-sized - presumably, they are chosen for their symmetricality. However their array, they are noisy buggers, bleating loudly and staring at us in an unafraid and more than a little hostile way.
We pick our way down to the sea, but the going's too steep for me. I have acrophobia, which I can conquer to climb the Laxey Wheel, say, where intellectually I know I'm safe, despite my churning guts and adrenalin-flooded blood. It's another matter on a empty remote hillside falling hundreds of feet into the sea when the gradient tends more to the vertical than the horizontal.
Kjersti forges on ahead, leaving me trembling in a dell, watching wheeling seabirds swoop and call. Even from this height I can identify shags, puffins and terns alongside the ubiquitious gulls. Soon, though, it's too steep even for her and we trudge back up - then keep on going up to the top of the headland, to be rewarded with impressive views of the North-western Island. Below, a determined biker wobbles uncertainly along on a Fireblade on the unsurfaced road out to the lighthouse. Still, maybe he has the right idea; hill climbing in bike boots and full leathers is a game for the foolish. We're happy in our way, though.
