We were originally of Scottish Blood

My life in Pictures

Last Update 04 April 2008

The stories I am trying my best to remember, please correct me if you know better...
How to get through a forest without touching the ground.
Featuring Mark "tarzan" O'Lone
Author Derek Beattie

Story Number 2 goes way back to the clandeboye forest years...

It was just another normal Clandeboye evening, the drink had taken its toll on the sanity of many but luckily not all,. 
It all started with someone stating that the best thing about living in a forest was that no one could "sneak" up on you,. this was stated by Mark O'Lone,  many others questioned this statement and put forth other ideas for silent approach all of which Mark shot down in flames by attempting them and proving them to be flawed... then a sparkle appeared in his otherwise blurry eyes,.. "I'll show you how its done" he said,. and immediately started climbing the nearest Fir tree,... trepidation set into all of us as he climbed higher and higher all the time giving us a running commentary. We still had no idea exactly what he was going to do,. climb from branch to branch maybe,.. nooooo.... suicide, no way the branch could hold him,.. we all hovered below hoping that if he fell we would throw ourselves under him in the hope of avoiding serious injury or even death.   Now when I say higher and higher thats exactly what I mean, he was at least 30ft. from the ground at the very "slim" top of the fir tree. It was then that all became clear, he started the tree swinging, more and more and more until it touched the next one, which he grabbed and clung onto,...  he then climbed onto it and started it swinging just like the first one,..  good God, he really can do it,. but again the idea proved to be flawed because the noise he was creating could be heard half a mile away,.  he must have crossed at least five trees before we admitted that it was a superb idea and finally got him to climb down,... the relief on our faces was obvious but the sheer pleasure in proving his point was even more obvious on Marks face as with a beaming smile he said,. " See,..  its a piece of cake...".  The next day when we showed him what and where he had done it his face became a little paler,..  "You're  ******g joking," he said,.. "Oh no" we said,.  " I must be mental" he said,. we looked at each other,. no comment....    please let me know if you were there that night...
Mark will appear again later in yet another moment of madness....

More soon