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 Come answer a question, share a laugh, encourage one another, and bring me a coffee! |
In my early teens, I had a friend who developed a taste for rock climbing. He tried many times to persuade me to have a go at it and, for the sake of a quiet life, I eventually agreed to accompany him on one of his escapades. We rode our bikes to an old quarry in the side of a hill just beyond the city limits. My friend, who I shall call Simon, because that was his name, shot up the face of the cliff that formed the tallest section of the quarry. As he went, he yelled for me to follow. I had a closer look at the cliff face. Since that time I have taken a greater interest in geology and now know that the rock it was composed of is called a conglomerate. This means it is a variety of different types and sizes of stone, all held together with a petrified mud. It's not a very confidence-inspiring rock for climbing, and this particular one was beginning to crumble so that, although there were plenty of handholds, some of the stones that formed those holds were quite loose and likely to fall out of the cliff face. I didn't fancy the climb at all, but I'd said that I would give it a go so I began to climb. About halfway up, I found a good hold in a large rock sticking out of the face of the cliff. I tested it and decided that it was safe. But with my weight on it, it started to fall out of the surrounding substrate. For a few moments, I fought to keep the thing in its socket, precariously balanced between success and falling with the stone a good fifty feet or so to the base of the cliff. It was one of those moments that could have gone either way. Obviously, since I'm writing this now, I eventually managed to shove the stone back into its hole. Having done this, I retreated rapidly down the cliff and refused ever to go climbing with Simon again. Interestingly, Simon gave up on rock climbing soon after this and picked up on some other obsession instead. I had lost interest in his various new ways to scare the living daylights out of himself, so I can't tell you what those occupations were. |
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