Childhood. In, like, Europe.

See this?

This is part of a little outcroppy-thing just behind our village. It's in a bit of the range called, appropriately enough,  les Dentelles de Montmirail. (trans: "the sort of lacey bits of the Admirable Mountains"). Les Dentelles are very high and jaggedy, and they go up  - and down, I suppose - about 2,400 feet. 

Quite a ways.

See this photo? 

This is Paul being all food-oriented and devil-may-care about halfway up. I'm sorry if it's out of focus. I was oxygen-deficient and terrified about being so far above the ground. I left him there because he looked as though he might keep walking up, and Up was not where I wanted to be. 

And - see this? 

If you look very closely, there's a teensy little leaning thing just near the cloud at the top. That's a man who passed us on the way up. See him? There? Just diagonally up from the unlikely spot of dark green foliage?. 

Now draw a line down the rock-face from him. See, just about half-way down the sheer ediface - that little balancing thing on the outcroppy bit? That's the little boy he had with him, who might (as far as we could judge as he scampered past us) be ten years old. Perhaps eleven. 

And see quite a long way down from him? Quite a long wayyyyy  dowwwwnnnn? A little bit of a pinky thing - little white cap?  Yes, there - teeeny teeeeeeeny little thing, quite a long, long, long way down from, say, help or rescue? Double-click on the photo, if you can - it might help

That's the girl. Maybe seven years old. Maybe not quite. Singing. In French. 

Couldn't see Mother, funnily enough. Not anywhere. Which, I think, is perfectly understandable...

The lesson here, then,  is that if you ever get stuck on a mountain more than about say nine feet above the earth, pray to god for a French child to help you down.

Not for a Harmon.