6. The Food Chain and Greetings

The Food Chain

Producer                             Herbivore                                      Carnivore

No serious expedition can consider itself properly prepared for emergencies until it has included a herbivore (vegetarian) among its number. The graphic above, which I am sure is familiar to most of you already, makes it clear why. But do remember, it is not a light thing to eat your vegetarian; it should only be resorted to in the most extreme situation.

Greetings

To greet or not to greet? You need to make a judgement based on who's involved and where you are:

Close to car parks and other public facilities: greeting is impractical here: there are too many people around, and they neither deserve nor expect acknowledgement, being, after all, mostly picnickers.

Look out though, for the couple with a child in a backpack. These are real mountain types, grounded the while by having recently received an infant. They can only dart out for a brief moment of low altitude pleasure until the child lustily complains, needs feeding or has a poo-plosion. See the longing in their eyes as you bound along, and give them a supportive smile.

Big groups - What does one do about big groups? One cannot greet each member - one would sound like a dementing police constable. The best plan is to greet the first few in a generalised sort of way and then adopt an amiable leer for the rest of them. This can be replaced by a look of humorous resignation on rainy days.

An individual hunkered down over a hole in the ground - avert the eyes and walk on. I don't want to talk to you.