Day 240 - The Next Thing

repeat after me

Those faithful few of you who've been following my blog will be aware that I like to do a little rock climbing now and again...

Some of you no doubt consider this to be dangerous, and perhaps question my sanity...some question my morality...some even question my intelligence (raising immediate concerns over their own)...

I understand that climbing might appear to be dangerous, or scary (very different things)...and indeed sometimes it is one, or other, or in the worst case, both of those things. 

And yet here I am, unharmed and generally healthy, and largely unscathed by my adventures.

One life lesson I have learned from my crazy, stupid, ethically dubious escapades, is the value of the old Hitchhiker's Guide admonition, Don't Panic. 

It's all too easy, when standing at the bottom of a steep, intimidating rock face (or indeed when facing any steep, intimidating life challenge), to let your mind rush off quantifying all the possible negative outcomes...

What if I fall off?  What if it's too hard?  What if I get injured?  What if my equipment fails? 

What if I can't find my way?  What if the weather turns?  What if I drop something important?

However, if you rein your mind in from this unhelpful, counter-productive line of thought, and instead keep the Don't Panic mantra firmly in mind, you can simply focus on doing the next thing...

The next thing isn't so scary, it's just a couple of easy-ish moves up to that ledge...and oh, now I can reach that juggy hold above, and there's a little nook where I can squeeze a toe in to stand up on...and phew, there's a big hold inside that crack which I can lean back and rest on...

...and before you know it, you find you've reached the safer ground at the top, and...

Lo and behold - none of those possible negative outcomes actually transpired!  

When you think about it, even if any one of those negative potentials had happened, it would seem highly unlikely that another one would too...and actually, they're all manageable singly...

I have 623 outdoor routes and problems logged in my log book, and out of all of those, I only had a negative outcome once - I fell off a little boulder, back in May 2012, and broke my leg...but I only had 3 weeks off work, and I was climbing again within 9 weeks. 

The same can be seen to be true of life in general, self evidently through the observation that we're all still here...despite all the craziness, the trauma, the disaster, the tragedy, the misery, which we've all experienced to some degree at some time...despite all of that, we're all still here.

Whatever has befallen us, we all got through it every single time, and everyday life eventually resumed in accordance with it's doggedly determined insistence on continuing to tick along, regardless. 

That says something about the resilience of life, the innate, fundamental property of nature that is being alive.   There's life everywhere on this planet, and it's clear that life hangs on in the face of anything and everything. 

So when facing the daunting, the intimidating, the scary, the dangerous, or the unknown (or any combination thereof), really focus on the basic wisdom in that old cliché...

Don't Panic!

Just focus on what's in front you, do the next thing...you will come through it, you will survive, life will go on...it's the way the world works.

There's no avoiding it.



Thinking of you all, bro'...

Day 234 - Shoulders of Giants

work less, climb more

One of the most significant and valuable life lessons I ever learned was the incredible power of active learning. 

I had an epiphany one day in the early 1990's, that has had a profound and ongoing impact on my life ever since.

As a child, I'd always been musical, able to coax a tune out of any instrument without really trying...I could have made a career in music, if ever I'd bothered to apply myself.  But my youthful arrogance told me that I ought to be able to play anything easily - and therefore, I shouldn't need to practise. 

The ultimate impact of this little psychological, illogical thought pattern was that I never learned to play any instrument properly.

I had clarinet lessons and piano lessons, classical guitar lessons, French horn lessons and percussion lessons...in each case, I started reasonably well, as I could pick things up easily...but as I didn't practise, I made no progress and quickly fell behind what was reasonably expected, and so would drop the instrument and move on to another one. 

This carried on until I was in my late 20's, when for the first time in my life, I bought an electric guitar, which I'd never played before (I'd dabbled on the acoustic guitar over the years, and knew a few party pieces, but I was never all that enamoured with it, and of course I didn't practise!).

In my head, I placed huge value on playing by feel, and (again, illogically) equated this with not learning or honing technique, and neither learning nor applying theory and knowledge of music. 

Somehow (in my head), it was a good thing to not know what I was doing. 

As I later realised, not knowing what I was doing actually meant that I was unable to express myself fluently - I just didn't have the musical vocabulary, nor the knowledge required to build one. 

Then at some point as I was dabbling in the electric guitar, I came across two articles that piqued my interest.

The first was about George Benson, the jazz guitarist.  In an interview he was asked how he learned to play jazz, and he said something like,

"Well, first I had lessons, and practised my scales day in and day out.  Then I learned theory, scales, modes, harmonic theory...but mostly, I played jazz all day, every day, for ten years...".

Another article, this time on Jimi Hendrix, who epitomised all I admired in his style of musicianship, talked about how hard he had studied and practised, learning scales and chords and paying his dues, musically...

My epiphany came when I realised how ridiculously arrogant I'd been in deciding that I shouldn't need to practise...

...if jazz legend George Benson, and even the late, great Jimi Hendrix had to study and practise in order to fully express themselves in their own unique ways, who on earth did I think I was to not need to do that?!

I immediately started to study and learn...and within 3 years I reached a professional standard of playing, developing my own, bluesy voice on the electric guitar along the way, and I was teaching and gigging much of the time through the mid 90's.

It was truly revelatory, and made me realise how much value there is in standing on the shoulders of giants.  

There is absolutely no point in reinventing the wheel - when you want to achieve something, simply go and find the latest, best information source, and learn how to do it properly from the beginning.  Actively research, learn from the collective wisdom of all who have gone before, and you can get to a lowly, yet functional level of competency in a new skill area in a remarkably short space of time.

In this way I've learned to play drums, to take better photographs, to build PC's, servers and networks...I'm learning to slackline, to skateboard, and to do Tai Chi...

And of course I've learned to climb...

read more

Being older than those around me when we started to learn to climb, I knew I couldn't keep up physically...but I realised that whilst I couldn't climb harder, I could climb smarter.

So I read voraciously on technique and theory, and tried hard to practise what I learned. 

When we started to venture outside, I devoured books on rope techniques and climbing hardware.   This meant that we could more or less venture out on our own straight away, and the lack of an experienced guide just added to the adventure. 

I feel sure that my tactic of actively learning about my current interest brings so much more value to the whole affair, that I can't imagine why you wouldn't do it.

It's enabled me to be confident and capable, and unafraid to turn my hand to new things...this year in particular, I'm reaping the rewards of this general philosophy, and I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity to learn such a valuable lesson.  

So this evening, I noticed that our collection of climbing books has grown rapidly.  We have guidebooks that map out the climbing in various locations...biographies, story books of one kind or another, on the adventurous climbing lifestyle...and importantly, reference and educational books.  

I could waffle about that for a bit, I thought, being short of inspiration for a post tonight...  

And as a nice little bonus, I got to (adventurously) take these photo's without moving from my chair!

I'm going to call it supreme efficiency...

;-)

Day 214 - Neuro-Synchronicity

jiminy?

Oddly, it was only this morning that Jiminy Cricket hopped and skipped his way through my mind, and then this evening whilst walking Jazz down the lane we met this little fellow.

I was on a management and leadership course (I know, right?), and following a discussion on Values, we were asked to spend a few minutes thinking about our own personal values.  The idea was that in order to lead, you need to know yourself, be firm and considered in your values, and understand how they correlate (or not) with the values of the organisation within which you're leading.

Really, it's not as dull as it sounds! 

Ok, maybe it is - but I found it interesting...and as I pondered my values, I considered how the concept of following my conscience is a fundamental value of my life, (and the idea of which brought with it Jiminy Cricket, tripping along my neurological pathways...).   

Everyone else was talking about values in brief, abstract phrases, such as honesty, caring, and respect.

Some seemed nonsensical to me, such as loyalty (you may value it, but it's not a value - it's a characteristic, isn't it?).

Or the even odder timekeeping (the basis for which seemed to be "I hate it when people are late, it makes me so angry"...which I translates to me as "I hate it when people don't understand that I'm considerably more important than their own insignificant agenda's and life challenges!").

But my values were all more concrete and specific, and I suppose more philosophical:

- Always let your conscience be your guide...

- Treat others as you would be treated...

- Everyone has the right to be who they are (although not necessarily to impose themselves on anyone else)...

- People are more important than money...and more broadly,

- Living beings are more important than inanimate objects...

So anyway, apparently I'm still pondering these notions...I'm not sure the above is a complete set, but I'm comfortable that what's there are all solid aspirations/values of mine.

Consequently, when we heard the familiar chirrup of crickets down the lane this evening, it seemed opportunistically pertinent, like a little reminder of my earlier musings...and made for some obvious blog fodder, of course!

This is a Roesel's Bush-cricket, quite common across Europe...but still, not something you see every day, and a nice addition to my species collection (insect department)!

On the course this morning, the Trainer commented that she got the impression that I'm more reflective than most...which seemed a polite way of putting it - and I suppose it's true.

I can live with that...

:-)

Day 212 - Life in Death

 broiling insect ecosystem

Whilst wandering in the meadow down the lane this evening, we came across this gruesome hive of activity. 

The dead sheep is piled in a mound of manure that's been left in the field, and was a writhing mass of maggots, beetles, flies and who knows what else.

In this case, it seemed like the close up image was not going to be particularly palatable, so I didn't bother...and I'd probably advise not clicking on the photo to see it in more detail.

The shepherd seems to do this - just leave a dead sheep lying around in the field to rot away.  I don't know whether there's any purpose to it, but I've seen it before.

It's not very pleasant, I know, and I'm sorry to subject you to it...but it does make an interesting addition to my ongoing dead animal series, and it's not every day you come across a dead sheep!

Without human intervention, this would happen all the time, and is part of the natural order of life...it's fair to say that this carcass alone is supporting a diverse colony of life of myriad form and number...death always feeds new life, when allowed to...

It's curious (or maybe not, but it is interesting at least) to note that the closer a non-human animal is in size and shape to a human, the more we find its death disturbing, upsetting or simply distasteful.

Nobody cared about the dead giant woodlouse thing I found by the sea, and nobody thought much about the dead pigeon whose foot featured a while ago. 

But there has been much concern about merely the possibility of the death of Frankie the horse...and I anticipate that the image above will be treated with an element of upset...poor lamb. 

I somehow doubt if anyone would be particularly concerned if we now burnt this carcass, brutally slaughtering whole colonies of beetles and maggots in the process...

And yet, the price of life is the same for all of us, animal or plant (human or not)...and the price is precisely one death. 

No living thing can avoid the inevitability of this debt, which must in all cases be paid in full, upon completion. 

So I suppose it's understandable (and acceptable), that death should crop up every now and then on my blog.

We should neither shy away from it, nor glorify it, nor turn it into something wrong, taboo or distasteful...

...but we should always remember that every other living being, no matter how big or small, is worth exactly the same as each of us...one life.

As we value our own lives, so we should afford the same respect and concern for all life. 

Hmm, that one went off in an unusual direction...I'll shut up now!

Peace, out...

B-)

Day 205 - Overuse Injury

'ave it

I suppose it was inevitable that my penchant for tempting fate would eventually come back to bite (or in this case tweak) me.

I do believe that there's a living consciousness that's bigger and more potent than us puny humans.  I won't call it god as that would put all sorts of preconceptions into your mind, all of which would be built on baseless assumptions and your own conditioning.  

One of these preconceptions would be the idea that it might for some unfathomable reason be interested in me, or my life, or any of us humans (or any life on earth)...moreover, that it would wish to interfere, somehow, perhaps rewarding me for behaving in a specific way, or more often punishing me for not behaving in a specific way. 

If god was all powerful, wouldn't he have made us incapable of "sin"?  Wouldn't he have just not created "sin" in the first place?  Wouldn't he have made a perfect world populated with perfect beings, if that's what he wanted of us?

It seems to me that he's either rigged the game against us (in which case he's a bit mean), or he just made a bit of a mess of it (in which case he's not all that omni-anything)...or he doesn't mind what we do, hence bestowing us with free will and all that jazz (in which case he seems kinda cool and creative).

Anyway, maybe this consciousness was involved in putting together the fundamental laws that make up The 'Verse, although the established and emergent laws of physics seem to be on top of that particular little puzzle all on their own.

Perhaps more likely it's just another level of consciousness, an order (orders) of magnitude greater than ours, and virtually inconceivable to our limited capacity brain and mind systems...and no more interested in us that we are in bacteria.

Or (and this is the answer I lean towards) maybe it's simply the sum of all consciousness in the Universe - which self evidently exists (somewhat helpfully, via the laws of logic).  

In any case, why would this consciousness interfere in my life large, obvious ways, and what would be the mechanism of this? 

I like to demonstrate my faith(!) in this model of The 'Verse by flying in its face - daring it to interfere and punish me for my ignorance. 

My team at work hate it when I trip out the Q word, as in, "It all seems nice and quiet today, doesn't it?"...they are convinced that this will invoke an immediate tsunami of support calls - despite the fact that it never does. 

Several times, earlier this year, I mentioned to a variety of climbing friends and partners that the niggly injury phase of my climbing development appeared to be over...I just don't seem to get all the annoying little tweaks and tears, sprains and strains, bumps and bruises that used to be permanently in residence, irritating fingers, feet, shoulders, hips, elbows - pretty much anywhere there's a joint!

Then a few weeks ago (actually a month ago today), fate stopped by to slap me around a bit...

I was on a reasonably easy bouldering problem at the indoor wall, early in the session, when my cold hands popped off a hold...and immediately knew I'd properly hurt something...

Two or three of the main fingers on my right hand have been stiff and sore since...I think I've got some kind of minor soft tissue injury, maybe between the A2 and A3 pulley system on my middle finger. 

Over 4 weeks later, and they're not appreciably any better...it doesn't hurt, most of the time, although it seems a little swollen and it takes a while in the morning before my fingers start to work properly. 

Curiously, I can still play the guitar with no problem (other than that I'm just generally a bit rubbish these days).

I can still climb, too, and therein lies the rub - should I be resting it or working through the injury?

It only really bothers me in case it impacts my climbing...but I've climbed several times, including another hard bouldering session, and it's ok once I warm up - it doesn't really hurt when I'm on the wall or rock...

...but then it's stiff the next day, and no better...so should I rest?  Or not rest, given that it's getting neither better nor worse for being climbed on?

I'm fairly sure I know the answer to that one - it essentially boils down to a simple question:

To climb, or not to climb?

Virtually every time I find myself faced with this question, I end up siding with DMM:

Climb now, work later.

A motto for life, if ever there was one!

B-)

Day 187 - YMMV

rooney misses

Might as well post about the same thing everyone else is concerned with this evening.

We're off to the Lake District in the morning, and have masses to do this evening, but of course we're just watching the football. 

It's half time now, England are 1-0 down, and the pundits are starting to sound a little panicked.

I'm so glad that I don't really care!  

I'm really not that into football - I never watch it at all except for the World Cup and occasionally bits of the European Cup...do they even still have that?  I've no idea!

So I'm not really into football...in fact I'm not really into sports, as I've mentioned before, for various ethical and moral reasons which I'm not about to go into now.

I don't have any great patriotism, and I try to resist all nationalistic conditioning.  I'd rather consider myself a Citizen of the World than align myself with any particular administrative state.   Nationalism and patriotism do far more harm than good, so I have very mixed feelings about events like the World Cup.  

I don't feel patriotic and I don't wish to.  I find it odd the way people talk of the England team as "us"...to me, it's a bunch of people I've never heard of playing a game I'm not that familiar with against a bunch of other people I've never heard of...how do you make the leap to you somehow being a part of it?  

Proud of the team?  You didn't do it, it's not for you to be proud about. 

Proud to be English?  Well you have no right to claim pride for something you didn't do...do you?   It's just something that happened to you...you just happened to be born in a particular geographic location, or to a mother who happened to be born in a particular place.

As the late, great George Carlin questioned, are you as proud of your genetic disposition to colonic cancer?  


The second half has just started, so we'll see if it's the usual disappointmentfest...I'll hold fire before posting just to log the result, for future reference. 

But at this point, England need to be a bit less shit.  If they could think about maybe scoring more and conceding less, that would probably help...doesn't seem likely though.

All my life I've been watching this same scene play out over and over again.

I can remember the 1974 World Cup, although to be honest all I can remember is Johan Cruyff getting a penalty in the first minute of the final against West Germany, before going on to lose. 

But since then it's been the same thing over and over, and England never really look that good...

It's halfway through the second half now, and progressing as expected...that is, going nowhere fast.  England have all the possession, but don't look remotely close to scoring. 

Here's an interesting lesson on perspective...as mentioned above, I only really watch the World Cup.  So I've only ever seen Wayne Rooney play in the World Cup...my word, he's useless, isn't he?  

£250,000 per week he gets paid, someone said...really?!  No way!!  I've never seen him play well, so as far as I'm concerned, he's a total waste of space.

That said, he just scored, although I could have scored that one, and I'm shit too.

Oh well, there you go, situation normal, England going home.  They're saying England still have a chance, mathematically, but it's not going to happen, is it?

So now we have one country full of unhappy people, and another full of happy people.   I just looked up how many people there are in Uruguay, to see whether we've made the world happier or unhappier this evening. 

There's 53,000,000 people in England.  Guess how many there are in Uruguay...go on, guess...
.
.
.
.
.
.
There are less than three and a half million people in Uruguay...I wrote that in words rather than numbers so you couldn't cheat so easily...I'll give you the numbers now...

3,300,000!!  Tiny country!  

But bigger then England, in footballing terms, apparently. 

Anyway it seems we've got a net result of around 50,000,000 unhappier people than there were before.  Well, I guess not everyone is unhappy, many people, like me, don't really care. 

Let's say there are 20,000,000 more unhappy people on the planet than there were before. 

What was that about sport being beneficial for society...really?

Are you sure?

I don't think it's as clear cut as we're conditioned to think it is...

Your mileage (of course) may vary...

Day 170 - Playtime

buildering bridges

I've been thinking about the importance of playing, to us as adult humans.

I was going to use the word "mature", which made me think "immature"...but I don't think play is immature behaviour, despite what society often tells us.

Stop acting like a child, we're told, or act your age, if we do things for no other reason than just because... 

Of course, it's fine to play if it's competitive (in which case it's not really playing at all)...one can play football, or golf, or even darts - as long as there are losers, there can be winners...

(Side note - I struggle with the morality of sports sometimes...I fear they do subtle damage to society, by teaching the lesson that in order for you to succeed, someone else must fail.  This seems distinctly unhealthy to me, psychologically...it feels as though it might be a small thing that sits at the heart of our collective consciousness, leading to us valuing personal success above mutual support...the default game is win-lose. 

What's wrong with win-win?!)

In the adult world, play doesn't seem very...playful.   We play hard and we play dirty...we play the game, and if we play our cards right, we can play to win.

(Musically speaking, you can play it by ear, you can play it again, and you can play that funky music 'til you die...but that's a different meaning of the word play!)

Playfulness is one aspect of climbing that I find deeply gratifying...

Yesterday, Anna, Jezz and I spent a brilliant hour at the end of our climbing session, just playing, inventing simple physical challenges for each other:

Can you do this problem in only three moves?

Can you get to the top using only one hold between the start and the finish?

Can you jump up and catch that hold way up there, from these holds way down here?  

All silly, childish challenges, risking injury to no real benefit...except brilliant fun!

This evening as I was in the garden looking for subjects, Anna came out and playfully began to climb the house...exactly the kind of thing your parents tell you not to do when you're a kid...

I was pleased to find that my instinctive response was not "get down!", but rather, "climb higher, let me take photo's!"

If play is childish, then I'm glad I haven't quite shaken off my immaturity just yet!

:-)

In other news, we have an(other) intriguing new mystery!

On the decking in our garden, we have some trees and shrubs that stand on the corner in pots.  We planted them for our old boy Bluez after he passed.

At the weekend, we came down one morning to find that the bark mulch in the top of a couple of them had been pulled out and spread across the decking...Anna diligently picked all the bits up and replaced them...

Today, they're spread over the decking again!

bark bestrewn

Who (or what) is responsible for this?!   After I've finished this blog, I'm going to try to remember to put the trailcam (which Anna conveniently retrieved today) out there, see what we can see...

Finally, here are some flowers for my mum.

happy tuesday, mum...

This is the clematis that is blooming outside our kitchen at the moment...the flowers very much remind me of some of mum's artwork, and I thought she'd appreciate their vibrant colours...

:-)

Day 152 - Don't Worry, Be Happy

mow green

Suddenly, if feels like Summer...

Not least as I'm out mowing in the sunshine, which is warm, sweaty work!  It was my turn to mow the verge outside our property - the neighbour and I do it alternately.   

At this time of year, it grows so fast it needs doing twice a week...so for the next few weeks, I'll have to mow our internal lawns twice per week, and these verges once...it took an hour and a half to do the verge this evening...

Anyway, I imagine you may have noticed a sudden decline in the quality of my photo's...sorry about that.   Anna has taken the new DSLR to the States, so I'm limited to my phone, generally.  

I used to think that the phone took bloody brilliant pictures, but now it seems just a little bit pants...that's what expectations can do - make you less happy with things we were previously happy with. 

Best not to have expectations...many a relationship has broken own due to failed expectations.  If we don't have those expectations in the first place, they can't be failed on, and so we won't feel let down.

If you must have expectations, make them good ones...

• I expect that I will be mostly happy in my life...
• I expect Anna will remain as lovely as she was when first I met her...
• I expect Kim will be the same bright, beautiful woman as she was when a girl...
• I expect all of our animals will make me smile every day...
• I expect that sunshine and physical work will make me feel better...
• I expect that everything will turn out alright...

I carry these few expectations around me, and try to retain a mindset that generally approaches the world from this sort of perspective.   

And they are all consistently supported by the observation that they all keep turning out as expected!

On the other hand, combine high expectations with low self worth, and you have a recipe for a disastrous relationship!

"I expect you to remain faithful to me, yet I because I am worthless, I expect you will be unfaithful to me..."

There's just no potential positive outcome of that kind of explosive compound of bad thinking and internal conflict. 

So try to keep your expectations positive and realistic.  Try not to get bogged down with demands for certain things to happen...instead, simply hope and assume that everyone will be ok, regardless of what happens.   

This is virtually guaranteed to come to pass - it pretty much always does...as evidenced by the fact that we're all still here, and all still more or less alright.

And because of your more realistic expectations, you are satisfied that they've been met, rather than being disappointed that they haven't. 

There's a possible contradiction between all of that, and the earlier post I linked to above, but I can live with that...  

I'm an evolving being - I change from time to time! 

Anyway, it sounds kinda glib (although I don't believe it is), but it all it boils down (once again), to:

Choose happiness.

:-)

Day 150 - Dungeon Crawler

the abyss

Is 150 posts a significant milestone?

I can't really see that it is...which is just as well, with today's photo, which harks back to an earlier, coarser period of my photographic journey. 

Oh yes, nowadays I use f-stops and everything, don'tcha know!  ;-)

Anyway, just to demonstrate that my life isn't all glitz, glamour and adventure (nor always green or red), here is a photo of a place I find myself almost daily. 

You'll recall (well, you probably won't but ya know, poetic licence and all that), that I and my team recently moved office.  The new office is newly refurbished, so it's fresh, bright and clean. 

But right behind my desk, there's a little door that leads to this dark, dank service corridor, in the bowels of the County Council Headquarters. 

Every work day, at some point I find myself stooping and creeping along here, ducking my head to avoid the pipes on the low ceiling. 

Somewhere around here are a couple of cells where condemned prisoners were put, back in the day.  40 or 50m away is the dungeon where Quakers were imprisoned, back in another day (a bit later, I think).   

So, you know, mmm, a lovely reminder of our sordid past.

Although it's not really our past, is it?   If there were a centagenarian reading this, all of this particular sordidness happened some 250 years before even he was born.  

Our Past stretches back to the early 20th century at most, and for the majority of us, much less than that.  Anything further back than that is The Past, but it's not Our Past...and to pretend that it is, somehow, Our Past, is just a foolish way of pulling irrelevant, long passed (and should've been forgotten) conflicts, grudges, problems and concerns into our collective Now...for no benefit to anyone, and risking much potential grief to many.

The Past consistently demonstrates the folly of this kind of (un)thinking, and yet we rarely take heed...

Anyway, My Past goes back to the early 60's, a mere 3 weeks after Kennedy's assassination, as it turned out.  

That particular tragedy happened in The Past, but not in My Past, thank you very much.

In the name of, I dunno, Jonny Hendrix, I hereby confess that I had nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination.  

I wasn't even here, m'lud, you can't prove a thing!

B-)

Day 144 - Je Ne Sais Quoi

je sais. c'est un pommier

Twelve squared - get in!  

I only need to do this for around n-n-n-nineteen squared days, so I'm well over half way...aren't I?!

Anyway, dubious logic and maths aside, I've been feeling bad about not checking up on Frankie lately.  Life's been hectic, and somehow I just haven't gotten around to it.  

Shame on me!

This evening I resolved to make the effort, despite getting home late from work, very tired, with a bazillion (maybe even as many as a gajillion) things to do.

Maybe I saw Pinocchio one too many times as a child (although that seems unlikely - seeing a movie was quite the special occasion), but regardless, Jiminy Cricket somehow had a lasting effect on me.

Always let your conscience be your guide

That's what he said, I can distinctly recall...well, it's what someone said...or maybe I just made it up, I don't know...in any case, I remember it clearly, and for whatever reason have proceeded to do just that for most of my life. 

Consequently, by this evening, when my own personal little Jiminy Cricket was fair shouting at me, even poking me in the eye now and again for emphasis, I could ignore him no longer...

So I took Jazz out in the cold wind (what's that about?  It's May, for god's sake!), and we wandered over to the orchard to see how young Frankie was doing. 

He wasn't there! 

Now, two obvious possibilities immediately spring to mind; maybe he's been stabled whilst he gets on top of the laminitis; or the laminitis got the better of him, and he's gone to gallop over the grassy plains in the sky...

On the information available to me at this time, I have no reason to favour one explanation over the other...but I have a clear preference.

Therefore, I'm choosing to believe that he's in a warm, comfortable stable, with a soft bed of hay, plenty to eat and some good drugs, and in a couple of months time he'll be back in the orchard, trotting excitedly about.   

I will of course check with the shepherd at the earliest opportunity, and report my findings here.

As Frankie wasn't there, I took a few snaps of the trees in the orchard.  I just love this photo of an apple tree with the pale sunset behind, and I'm not really sure why...but that doesn't matter, I like it, and I hope one or two of you lot might like it too.   

It has a certain je ne sais quoi about it, don't you think?

As a bonus, here's another photo that I like (hey it's my blog, I can post whatever I want!). 

This looks kind of swampy to me, as though it could be somewhere in the North American Deep South...but it is in fact just over the road from where we live, maybe no more than 40 yards from where I'm sitting typing this.

by the bayou?

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a little over exposed...I'm just a bumbling amateur photographer, only just beginning to get to grips with the basics...gimme a break, huh?   I get distracted by framing and composition, and often forget to check the technical details such as exposure levels...oops!

Check this out though...the tree sneaking into the top left corner of the photo is an Ash, which I wouldn't have been able to identify until Anna told me how, not two days ago!

I bet you hadn't even noticed the tree, had you?

Honestly, pearls before swine...

:-p

Day 142 - Dangermouse?

nope...vole, not all that dangerous

This is going to be a tale of two parts.  In a few sentences from now, I'm going to wade into the soggy swamp that is the ethics of soloing, which is to say, climbing without the safety of ropes for protection.

The first part of the tale will be short, and appropriately, will be about a vole with a short tail.

Here (see photo, taken in a field) is a vole with a short tail - it's a Short Tailed Field Vole!  

Apparently they like to hide in the same place as grass snakes (many of the reptile mats we looked under over this weekend had evidence of vole, and occasionally shrew, activity), which seems an adventurous choice to me...go voles!  

Given that there are field voles by the million around here (I may not even be exaggerating, depending on your definition of "around here"), it seems that this risk is worth taking...the reward of the warm shelter in which to live and raise young outweighs the small chance of getting eaten by a passing snake.

Which leads me neatly on to tonight's main themes - danger, and risk.

My 50@50 Challenge has raised a few questions in the related areas of safety and responsibility that are worthy of a response.

There are obvious questions like "Isn't it dangerous?", or "Why would/do you do it?"

There are slightly more obscure questions such as "Isn't it irresponsible?", although this is more often framed as an accusation; "You are/it is irresponsible." 

Then there are those questions that are all about the subtext, as demonstrated by my mum's "Where is your hat?"

These are weighty questions, and the answers are even weightier.

Soloing is a dangerous activity, yes.  It's possible to kill yourself doing it.  The same can be said for driving a car, of course.  Or crossing the road.  

It's also perfectly possible to climb safely without killing oneself.   A simple priority of not doing anything foolish stops me from falling off a climb in the same way that it stops me from forgetting to brake and so running into the car in front, or walking out into traffic without looking.

This in itself could answer many of the concerns - if I'm not going to fall off, then the remaining questions become irrelevant, don't they? 

And this is a key point - I am not going to fall off.   I don't get on the rock thinking "I hope I don't fall off", or "It would be best if I didn't fall off".  

I get on the rock with a single thought foremost in my mind - I will not fall off. 

This ensures that I climb with the necessary calm, controlled care, I make no foolish moves, and thus, I don't fall off. 

There was the suggestion of using a bouldering mat (essentially a crash pad) under each climb, to give me some sort of soft landing.   And of course, my mum thought I would wear a helmet.  However, in both these cases, in my mind they introduce an element of doubt. 

"I will not fall off" becomes "I will not fall off...but just in case I do...".   

Suddenly, I'm in a different mindset, where falling off is a possibility...and maybe this takes the edge off my focus, lowers my level of alertness, and leads to me climbing in a less controlled (and thus more dangerous) manner.

To me, both Trad Climbing and Soloing are all about rational risk awareness.  It's a matter of analysing the actual risk, being aware of the debilitating effect of perceived risk, and making calm, calculated decisions. 

During my 50@50, I retreated from one route because it seemed too hard and I didn't feel totally solid on it, and bypassed one or two others because my instinctive response was "don't like the look of this one..."

For the 50 routes I climbed, I looked at them, decided "yep, I can climb this safely and successfully", and did...

Let me be clear - I'm not an adrenaline junky...I'm not even sure at what point my adrenaline might kick in, it happens so infrequently.   

Last Friday, I wasn't afraid at all - I experienced no release of adrenaline at any time.  You can see from the video interview that I was calm and relaxed, and so were those with me.

Nobody present was overly concerned that I was going to hurt myself. 

The outstanding question is the charge of irresponsibility.   This is an odd one, and raises many more questions...what is it that I'm responsible for?  To whom do I owe this responsibility?  By what authority does this responsibility lie with me?  

But the primary response, the one that instantly springs to my mind when such ideas are mooted is of course;

With all due respect, what has it got to do with you?

I must confess, I'm not very good with being told what to do...but I'm much worse at being told what I should or shouldn't do!  Does anyone have the right to tell me what I should or shouldn't do?  (I'm talking moral rights, of course, not legal rights). 

But even leaving that to one side, I think we can all agree that I'm going to die one day.  I'm reasonably certain of this.  So why does it matter how or when that is?   Would it be irresponsible for me to take an unnecessary car journey, knowing I could be killed even if I'm a perfectly safe driver?   Are some ways of dying more acceptable than others?   Is living longer more important than living well?

As you can see, I'm asking a lot of questions, but not offering many answers to them.  I could write for a week on these issues...but I've been reading about the importance of brevity in blog posts!

I'll try to round this up briefly...

So is there a point to soloing, or to this challenge, or to climbing in general?

Well, what is the purpose of life, if not to experience oneself?  Climbing (and soloing moreso), offers a rich depth of experience of myself.  I challenge myself in order to test myself...to compare myself with my preconceived notions of Who I Am, by exposing myself to challenging situations.

It certainly makes me feel healthier on several levels, and I think it makes me a more useful person, better able to deal with the rest of life with strong, calm energy. 

So, where are we after all of that wayward rambling?  

I don't think I've done the subject justice...but I hope I've offered some food for thought, and at least demonstrated that like most things in life, it's not black and white, but varying shades of grey. 

I can offer a real world example with the help of my trusty companion, the Right Honourable Jazzy B.  He's a black labrador, and nobody would dispute that he's black...except...

...check out this photo from this morning.   It's difficult to pick out any parts of him that are truly black...much of him is a shade of grey, almost white in parts (as he is almost black in others).

So yeah, it's all grey.

If anyone wants to take me to task on any of that, have at it, you know where I am!

B-)