Ad hoc climb

"Fancy a climb at Dart Rock 2nite?" One can tell I have modern friends! Though the most unlikely of people tend to abbreviate in their text messages. Anyway. I figured that would be a wild and mad night climb, until, an hour or so later, it suddenly dawned on me that "Dart Rock" may actually be a climbing centre. Less wild! But fun too.

I arrived at Ferret's place (for he had been the messenger) feeling like a wet newspaper, but the cold in the climbing hall woke me up again. We teamed up with an old friend of Ferret's, who had come along to a recent caving trip as well, and together we tried some routes. I felt all Norwegian! In my mind, climbing halls are Norwegian. And that is a good association! The old days with Tana (when they were still good) and Celia and Audun and all the others came back to me. The contrast between Audun's somewhat gung-ho approach, and Ferret's by-the-book safety mentality could not have been more striking. And (should I say "nevertheless" or "therefore?") we had fun! And the timing was excellent; coming up from Ludcott mine I felt I really lacked arm muscles. Strange, as I did not have that feeling coming up a much deeper shaft only a few weeks before that. But the best way to get arm muscles is climbing! And it was a bonus night of not being a workaholic nerd, but an active and social citizen. Splendid!

Ferret scaling the wall