It's time for a rooftop blog, purely because I haven't done one in a while and also because rooftopping is fun, and great for unwinding. If you've been on Facebook in the last few months you'll agree that it looks like Zuckerberg shat in his hands and clapped. So it's time to do what I always do when I need a break- climb stuff and be a terrible role model to people everywhere.
Todays photos are from some new-ish territory. The Quarry Swimming Pool roof has always been partially accessible throughout the duration of my antics, but it's only recently been possible to get this high up, and overlook the Quarry.
Anyone reading this who doesn't know Shrewsbury will be confused by my use of the word "Quarry." In Shrewsbury, and only in Shrewsbury, the Quarry doesn't refer to a great big pit for extracting minerals. No, it's actually a reall nice park. To avoid confusion, it's not at all uncommon to hear people refer to it as "The Quarry Park" just so that people visiting know that it's a park and not a quarry, and therefore actually go to visit it. However the elders of the town go a little bit mad when it's refered to as such, and fire off a few rounds with their AK-Qwertys. It has to be "The Quarry." I never understood why the addition of the word "Park" makes someone go up like the Hindenburg, but some might say that I have questionable priorities too so who am I to judge?
The Quarry was an actual quarry many hundreds of years ago though, so there is logic to its name. In fact this is where they got the stone to build the town walls and keep out the pesky Welsh. How times have changed! Now they're trying to keep out the English.
People often ask me if I'm afraid of falling and dying from my adventures, but I think that far scarier than death by adventure is dying without having ever really lived. It gives me a sense of pity for the people who have spent lockdown being grumpy on the internet. The virus hasn't taken away our creativity and our spirit. We do that to ourselves! I consider myself to be a happy person. I do have my blips in mental health, but that's not my default. I'm predominantly content with what I've got. If happiness was as infectuous as the coronavirus, I'd cough all over you. Not a clearing-the-throat mini cough, but a good loud phlegmy one. Have all my happy mucus.
I think a vital part of coping with existence is having hobbies and having a sense of humour. If you don't have these, you might as well be a tree. Laughter is natures anaesthesia, and my life is far too imporant to be taken seriously.
Now look at lockdown and tell me that some parts of it haven't been absurd. I mean, Kate McCann went online to urge everyone to stay in to protect our most vulnerable. That's like Rolf Harris saying "Don't park outside schools." What's going on there?
I think at this point it's okay to refer to Lockdown in the past sense, because the human race has somehow made even a global pandemic into a fad. But when it first started, we were given some simple rules- to leave the house only when we absolutely had to, such as shopping for essentials, to go to work only if we couldn't work from home, and to have one form of exercise a day. Now, according to the 2011 census, the population of Shrewsbury then was 71,715 and I highly doubt that nobodys made any babies since, so we were never going to see the streets completely empty under the lockdown rules that we had. It just wasn't realistic. 71,715 mouths needed feeding. 71,715 arses needed wiping. And how many of those 71,715 people have dogs?
So, armed with this logic the population would naturally understand why they were still seeing people outdoors, right? We're an intelligent species, right?
Alas, if history has taught us anything it's that the story of humankind is all about burning people for witchcraft just because they've got a wart. Confined to their homes, people found that lashing out was easier than looking in, so rather than use lockdown as an opportunity to learn how to spell or something, people took to the internet to name and shame every single person they saw outdoors, even if they saw those people while they themselves were outdoors. It was like living in Nazi Germany.
But the big witch hunt of the apocalypse was, of course, the weekly applause for the NHS and carers. The original wholesome message of a nation applauding its healthcare service was soon eroded by this holier-than-thou attitude of guilt tripping others into conformity. If your kids wouldn't settle or you were at work, or if you were on the toilet doing a great big poo, or in any number of perfectly reasonable situations that stopped you being on your doorstep clapping at 8pm on a Thursday, you were the devil. No excuses. You could be in the middle of a lifesaving operation removing a brain tumour, and if you didn't drop what you were doing and run home to clap on your doorstep, you might as well have been Josef Fucking Fritzl.
So basically it became a means for the Karens of the world to rake in the virtue points and say "Look at me, I'm a good person. Much better than my neighbour."
I think the interesting thing about lockdown is that back when it started everyone said that this was a time for growth, that we'd learn from it, and once it was over we'd emerge with a heightened sense of gratitude for all the things we took for granted. We'd be hugging each other, and celebrating the pure miracle of existence.
Pfft!
Hahahaha!!
Moving on from the swimming pool roof, we have a nice shot of St Chads from the buildings along the town walls. I've been to the top of that church. It was very fun, but also very cold. From here it is possible to get into some of the roof of the old eye infirmary, but I understand that this is now apartments, and I didn't want to disturb anyone.
I try to be considerate with my antics.
Just down there, barely visible due to the street lamps is the last remaining watch tower of the town walls, which I actually did a blog about a while back.
And finally, we have the view from a more town-centric rooftop. It's one I've always wanted to do, and finally got around to earlier this year, and it's overlooking that damn tunnel I explored.
You'd be able to see it better if it wasn't a tunnel.
Heres the Sabrina boat, moored up for the night.
And this is the Welsh Bridge, which makes a nice change. I've done plenty of rooftopping around the English bridge. Here's the one that leads into Wales. This isn't the first Welsh bridge to ever exist in Shrewsbury. The remains of the original are actually preserved beneath the theatre, looming in the background, which I've also climbed.
As you can see, the water level is high. This was shortly before we had all those apocalyptic floods earlier this year.
Interestingly, the Welsh Bridge and the English Bridge each have the exact same number of arches as there are letters in their names, "Welsh" and "English." I'm not sure if that's deliberate, but they were built in days when architecture was an art form and not Starbucking, so it would not surprise me.
So over there, lurking in the trees, is the much loathed "Quantum Leap" monument, and the building with the carpark is the Shrewsbury Hotel.
Over there is Montys.
And there's our familiar clocktower.
It was a bit of a challenge to get up here, and it always leaves me feeling relaxed, leaving all the silliness of the world behind. I think that the best moments of our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments are when ones body and mind are stretched in a voluntary effort to do something difficult but worthwhile. Lose yourself in what you love and you will be happy.
The world is a bit of a cesspit, but I'd hate to be one of the ones doing all the hating down below. It must suck to hate someone. I mean, you're setting yourself up to fail. When the person you hate has a good day, you're going to have a bad day. What is the point in granting yourself an inevitably guaranteed bad day?
Next blog post will be an old airfield, and then I'm off to an abandoned house! In the meantime, follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook and Follow my Twitter.
Thanks for reading.
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