Beginning with an ending
Today I am sleepy.
Yesterday I went to work as usual, only to find it particularly dull because there was no one else in the department. Boooooring. I am a social creature, you see. Or a chatterbox. One of the two. After work I had arranged to go drinking with The Youth of CH, but alas! alack! dispair! I couldn't drink because I was going climbing later on.
Climbing is my new addiction. It is not so new, but the addictive quality is relatively recent. Climbing as a recreational drug is probably around as expensive as heroin but more hell on your arms. I started doing it because all my friends are doing it (seriously. just about all of them) and i find it a thrill, although it sometimes makes me feel unwell. Luckily it has a self-limiting quality so that once you've had enough you actually can't take any more, so I am unlikely to die of an overdose.
Yesterday was a ratho day. In past years we have stopped going to ratho at the end of September and not started again til May because that place is bollocking cold - always colder than outside and yesterday was a cold day. But skydivers fear neither man nor beast nor extreme sports at sub-zero temperatures and, fool that I am, while I find climbing to be far more... better than skydiving, i enjoy their company and I do love a bit of ratho, so I tag along with them.
I climbed the tower. This is an actual acheivement as well as a personal achievement - the tower is very high (30m/100ft) and you start at the bottom, so it is a long way. I am pretty scared of heights most times, but a combination of beginning to really trust the rope, getting used to the situation that climbing puts me in (climbing up leads to me being, you know, up. but gradually, managably) and, frankly, not looking down are really beginning to help me get that a bit more under control.
On the way up it was very cold. The holds were really freezing and by the time i was halfway up my hands couldn't really bear it any more. I tried clapping them to get some blood flowing, then whacking them against the wall when that didn't work so well. I didn't notice til i got down but the latter technique really did get the blood flowing. No big cuts but quite a lot of very small ones. Twatturd.
By the top I was very tired. I looked down and though good things about triumph and sporting achievement. I try to stop listening to the voice going 'high... i'm high up... that's the ground... it's far away, down there, look how small becky, becky who is holding this flimsy little bit of rope i'm attached to... time to be sick and have a panic attack...' I look down, give a big smile and a thumbs up, and try to hold it in as I abseil back down.
As well as the tower I also did a bit of a lead climb. Only a bit because it was cowboy time when I started (ten to ten, and ratho closes at ten) and last time we nearly got locked in.
Then we went for a beer. I'm not sure if it was really good beer or if it hit a spot I didn't even know I had, but it was forking delicious and went down a treat.
By the time I got home it was past midnight. And exhausted. And drunk, from my beer.
So today? you got it. today I am sleepy.
Yesterday I went to work as usual, only to find it particularly dull because there was no one else in the department. Boooooring. I am a social creature, you see. Or a chatterbox. One of the two. After work I had arranged to go drinking with The Youth of CH, but alas! alack! dispair! I couldn't drink because I was going climbing later on.
Climbing is my new addiction. It is not so new, but the addictive quality is relatively recent. Climbing as a recreational drug is probably around as expensive as heroin but more hell on your arms. I started doing it because all my friends are doing it (seriously. just about all of them) and i find it a thrill, although it sometimes makes me feel unwell. Luckily it has a self-limiting quality so that once you've had enough you actually can't take any more, so I am unlikely to die of an overdose.
Yesterday was a ratho day. In past years we have stopped going to ratho at the end of September and not started again til May because that place is bollocking cold - always colder than outside and yesterday was a cold day. But skydivers fear neither man nor beast nor extreme sports at sub-zero temperatures and, fool that I am, while I find climbing to be far more... better than skydiving, i enjoy their company and I do love a bit of ratho, so I tag along with them.
I climbed the tower. This is an actual acheivement as well as a personal achievement - the tower is very high (30m/100ft) and you start at the bottom, so it is a long way. I am pretty scared of heights most times, but a combination of beginning to really trust the rope, getting used to the situation that climbing puts me in (climbing up leads to me being, you know, up. but gradually, managably) and, frankly, not looking down are really beginning to help me get that a bit more under control.
On the way up it was very cold. The holds were really freezing and by the time i was halfway up my hands couldn't really bear it any more. I tried clapping them to get some blood flowing, then whacking them against the wall when that didn't work so well. I didn't notice til i got down but the latter technique really did get the blood flowing. No big cuts but quite a lot of very small ones. Twatturd.
By the top I was very tired. I looked down and though good things about triumph and sporting achievement. I try to stop listening to the voice going 'high... i'm high up... that's the ground... it's far away, down there, look how small becky, becky who is holding this flimsy little bit of rope i'm attached to... time to be sick and have a panic attack...' I look down, give a big smile and a thumbs up, and try to hold it in as I abseil back down.
As well as the tower I also did a bit of a lead climb. Only a bit because it was cowboy time when I started (ten to ten, and ratho closes at ten) and last time we nearly got locked in.
Then we went for a beer. I'm not sure if it was really good beer or if it hit a spot I didn't even know I had, but it was forking delicious and went down a treat.
By the time I got home it was past midnight. And exhausted. And drunk, from my beer.
So today? you got it. today I am sleepy.