I think that if I “lived for art” I would be a very strange person indeed. (Perhaps I am anyway!) I practice art: I enjoy art: it is an important part of my identity: but it definitely has its place alongside other activities. Among these is climbing. Today, being Tuesday, was my climbing day …. and what a beautiful day it has been. Actually, under some circumstances it could have been a bit too sunny. When I got back to the car the thermometer was showing the ambient temperature as 28 degrees. Up on Stanage Edge, however, there was a very pleasant breeze, which made for a perfect day out.
I began to realise how lucky we are to live in this part of the world when, in conversation with the two young men who were on a route adjacent to ours, that they had come up from the South Coast in order to climb. Here in Bradford were are surrounded on three sides by good climbing venues.
The day was made special in two respects. By agreement between the National Park authority and the British Mountaineering Association, climbers agree to avoid certain locations when birds are nesting there. Notices were posted today along a section of the crag advising us that ring ousels were nesting there, and asking us to avoid climbing on that section of rock. The ring ousel is fairly rare in Britain. It is about the size of a European blackbird, which it resembles apart from the fact that it has a white collar. I was delighted to catch a glimpse of one.
The other noteworthy feature of the day is the fact that I led a route called Sociology. If you’re not a climber you might not know that climbers give names to routes. These vary from the routinely descriptive, such as Long Crack, through those that commemorate the first ascent, such as Piggott’s Stride, to the downright fanciful. There is one somewhere in the South West called A Dream of White Horses. Sometimes naming can be witty, sometimes banal, and sometimes just plan silly. I was intrigued as to why Stanage should have routes names Psychology, Sociology and Some Other Ology. Anyway: bearing in mind my former professional identity, I could not let pass the possibility of leading Sociology. I don’t know whether this is intended or not, but it was hard to start with, but once you got the hang of it, it was very enjoyable.
I like to think that climbing helps to keep me sane. There is doubt as to whether being a university teacher was as salubrious.
PS: I think that I only have one request for my funeral service. The coffin should be carried in to the clinking of climbing gear.