The Highest Place by Ben Whitehouse
October 5th, 2008 12:58 PM / Location: 52.497204,-2.045860It'd have to be something a little more "normal" than some of the previous completions.
The "go to the highest point of anything" seemed to be the best induction for the game for them to help with.
I looked up the highest point in the West Midlands and that was Turners Hill at 271m tall.
The photos and video explore how me and my parental units got to the top of the hill.
Oddly, this completion feels more about my relationship with my parents than it does about the hill. But then that's the beauty of psychogeography.
Turner's Hill on the A-Z Map.
Note the amusing/smutty place name on the edge of the Dudley Road. (That's got to be worth some points)
Just in case we got horribly lost...
I had a post code to search with using my mobile phone.
My Dad driving Mum and I to Turners Hill.
I'm in the back navigating. Shouting like an angry eight year old.
Uninspiring Golf Club.
It's what is at B65 9DP. I was a bit disappointed.
The way is blocked...
But I wasn't going to be stopped. We ducked under and around the gate.
Towers
Not as beautiful as the sutro tower but I felt a psychic kinship with the Sutro Tower.
The parental units peer at a bush.
They were holding me up.
Me walking up the hill.
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Past mysterious runes on the road. Past the sun. Past a bird squawking at me. My dad said I could go on without them. (Hence my Ok) Not sure what made me giggle. Then there's cones and a big hole. My dad shouts "Is that a hole at top of turners hill?" to which I respond on the video. Not sure what my mum said to provoke the "charmed response" but it was probably rude.
Tower.
Tower
The way is closed. It wasn't made by the dead and but it stays that way. And this was, perversely, the highest point.
Mum gets all post modern on me...
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I love how the camera seems to be the greatest piece of equipment my Mum has ever seen. And then we discuss what the tower might be.
Mum gets the right photo as Dad watches.
By this time they were into getting evidence.
I laugh in the face of protected fence signs...
Ha!
Trees on a Sunday afternoon.
I don't however laugh at this...
The way was blocked and I went no further. The quarry sloped down from this point.
The West Mids through the trees.
Ah. Pwetty.
Walking back.
Fallen down street lamp
Fallen, fallen is the mighty lamp
Mum and Dad walk back past cones.
Cone.
Lonely cone.
Hips. On a bush.
Mum took some dead stuff.
Think she's making a display or taking it into a school for kids who've never seen nature properly dead yet.
Stepping stones in the mud.
These little boys saved my shoes.
Mum and Dad by the car.
Yes, I know I look like my Dad. You should see the wedding photos. I needed therapy after that.
3 vote(s)
Terms
tower, parentalunits, turnershill, lonelycone, westmidlands, family, familypraxis6 comment(s)
I wasn't able to choose which hill was the highest in the west midlands. Also it's not a "go up and look around" tower.
The highest point of that hill is the top of the tower, right?
I mean, you could have chosen to go to the highest point of the lonely cone that sits on the road to Turners Hill.
There you go.
The highest point in the west midlands is the hill, not the tower on the hill. The tower wasn't listed on the list of "highest points by county in the UK" website.
The tallest tower in the West Midlands is the Raddison Hotel in the city centre of Birmingham but it's not the highest point. Had I been considering tallest building in the West Midlands I would have climbed that. (And that would have been a very different completion)
If the tower were not on Turners Hill and I were alone would that make me the highest point in the west midlands?
Let us not get metaphorical and talk of highest number of points for a completion or buildings.
And thanks for the Pirate flag. Pretty.
comment vote for parental tasking! big fan, here, of all kinds of multi-generational tasking. oh and plus, "I don't know what made me giggle." I love that!
A point for getting your parents involved.
I think a towerless hill would have been better in this one...