Baldernock Linn

Hi,

Just been twiddling around with plot lines and time lines for book five and getting a bit green with envy at fellow writers who spend a whole day here and there, talking to folk and making copious notes. For me it's a good look on the internet and a chat with everyone I know ... and somebody always knows somebody who will help out. This time it was the father of HWMB (he who must be ignored) who grew up near Baldernock and knew the site of my fictional dastardly deed very well. It's called Baldernock Linn. In my youth it was an open stream, caves visible but not easy to get to, having to pass along a four inch wide ledge above a six foot drop to the water before coming to the mouth of the second and much deeper cave. I can remember as a five year old being terrified out my wits as two friends of the family passed me from hand to hand over the (what seemed to me at the time) gorge where I could fall to my death. Like I say it's six feet at most. It's very overgrown now, and that makes it all the more spooky, it's almost dark at the bottom of the gully in early summer, the air is thick, full of insects and the only noise is the constant running of the waterfall that speeds like a curtain over the mouth of the caves.

I didn't hang around, strange feeling that somebody is watching us and I wanted back to the car. When we got there, there was a man standing at the car with a rifle. He seemed a pleasant chap, he and HWMBI exchanged a few pleasantries while I hid in the car. I was convinced he was going to shoot us and roll the burning vehicle down into the gully where we would lie undiscovered for years and be nibbled at by fish. Sometimes I think having an overactive imagination is a curse. The man with the rifle was a farmer of course, trying to protect his lambs from the crows.

Well that's what he told us.

I drove off at high speed in search of lamas and latte.

Caro