between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I'm back.

The first thing I did, when I got home, was throw my stuff into the washing machine. The second thing I did was get into a shower and stay there for forty minutes, scrubbing the whole time. I hadn't had a shower since Donegal, since I was on watch at Bangor when the others got to shower.

God, that was close quarters and an icky smell of feet. But an interesting week. Incredible, really.

Third thing I did was take the disposable camera down to get the pictures developed. Then I crawled into bed and slept for two whole marvellous hours on a wide bed that didn't smell of feet or damp.

Notes on the trip and pictures will follow, when I can manage them. I now know lots about the tallship STV Asgard II, even if I was too chicken to stow and set the square sails.

Also, I am fat. The ship's cook on the Asgard is apparently quite reknowned. Three meals a day, full Irish breakfast, desert after dinner, generous portions, really great ship-made bread... Yeah. Back on the minimal eating habit regime now.

Some bouldering today. No running.

In about two hours, I leave for Galway. This time tomorrow, I'll be shipboard, and thus not responding to comments or emails for the next week and possibly a day or two beyond that.

I'm going to try to take notes, which probably won't work out that well.

If zombies eat the internets while I'm away, please leave a comment so I know what I'm coming back to?

The climbing wall was empty of all other climbers save for me yet again today.

It was... oddly peaceful, with only the occasional rattle of a train passing by the windows, and the rumble of traffic from the street. Although I wish they wouldn't pipe in music from the gym - but at least it's not that loud, and fairly easy to tune out.

Not very much bouldering today. Some, but I'm not that good at it and have to go for an all-routes cheating approach to get more than half a metre up. Mostly I stuck with traverses, the safe-but-challenging, gloriously intricate puzzle of going back and forth along the face of the wall, where it's more balance than strength in play.

I nearly made it most of the way along, too. There's a bit where there's a knobby hold and then a juggy one, and the footholds are all tiny, and you have to go up about eighteen inches and back down and about a metre over. (Yeah, discrepancy in my measuring brain much? I judge short distances in imperial and longer ones in metric. Weirdness, huh?) Got my toes on the hold, got my fingers around the bulbous hold all the way over, and was just in the process of trying to move my centre of balance in the right direction when I slipped off.

I played about a little on straight up walls (the gym has a Rule, in Big Red Letters, where it says you're not allowed to climb above the first clip-in point without being roped, which is, oh, call it two and a half, not three, metres off the ground?), thinking about technique, and then burst a blister bouldering (my second blister burst just now. ouch.), which really put paid to more climbing for the day. It's kind of hard to climb when one of the areas you use for balance/grip/clinging is a)sore and b)weeping blister liquid at you.

I got a small bandaid from reception before I went into the gym proper. Blisters are unfun.

Treadmill: 1.5 miles in 16 minutes. Less desperately uneven than yesterday, at least: I made my mile in 9.5 minutes, and had a solid stretch of running that felt good - five whole minutes at 7mph - at the beginning of the session.

Did my sets of weights, too. Tomorrow I think climbing and running, but no weights, since Asgard happens the day after, and I want to be warmed-up and ready without having aches in my everything, the way I do tonight.

I should pack tonight, too, or mostly. Saves running around like a headless thing tomorrow.

It looks like the forecast is for Rain, Grey Skies, Showers, and Rain. I should probably pack the extra rain-jacket, no?

Tired now. I almost think there was something else I wanted to say, but, you know. Tired. Also, squeeful bouncing is not always polite.

So, today I got up at noon and went in to the gym. Hit the climbing wall, the treadmill, and the weights. In that order.

I discovered something new about myself. When there's no one else at the wall, I'm a total wuss at bouldering. If there's anyone there, fine, I'll go up to the top of the overhang, let my feet be four feet off the ground, no worries... On my own? I get two feet off the ground, and my brain starts to gibber What if we fall? We could break an ankle! You'd have to crawl to the door and yell! Let's not go higher, let's really not.

I stuck with really basic things, like hanging off the bouldering wall, and traverses along the length of the wall proper, never more than a couple feet off the ground. I still managed to whack my elbow a good one, though.

(An aside: why the hell do people always cancel on me when I try to find a mate to go with? It happens so often, it's starting to worry me.)

Running: I put in 33 minutes on the treadmill, for 2.5 miles. My legs informed me that they do not like running after climbing, so it was very uneven, with a lot of walking, some running, and a bit of flat-out 9mph not-quite-sprinting.

Weights: again with the do not want. But I stuck it out and got my sets, damnit. I haven't been at a gym since last Tuesday, and before then, not so much with the consistent effort during exam time.

I figure if I can go in again tomorrow and do much the same, and then do slightly less Wednesday, I'll be well set-up fitness-wise to take on the Asgard.

When I get back, I'm going to try to keep doing this, even if I do only have two weeks before I fly out for Crete. (My internets, I will miss you so! Checking email once or twice a week at an internet café will not be anything like the same.) I need to be as fit as possible before I hit the heat, to reduce the odds of immediate!death!collapse! the very first day.

I don't do well in heat, you see. But then, 25 Celsius qualifies as a heatwave around here, so I never have the chance to get acclimated to hotter.

I won't get back from Crete till September. Hopefully alive, fit, field-school-trained, and able to speak a modicum of modern Greek.

I hope to get my Advanced Open Water Diver qualification while I'm away, too. I need a refresher - a 'check dive', where they remind you of all the necessary safety bits and equipment care - and even if I can't get the AOWD, there's no way I'm not getting in a dive or three. Crete is actually affordable for dives, unlike Ireland. Also, warm, and generally good underwater visibility.

When I get back, I need to find a part-time job, pick up a lead climbing course, and find out what I need to do to get this qualification.

Because if I like climbing - and I do, a whole lot - there's no reason in the world I shouldn't consider ways of getting paid for doing something I like.

Academia could always fall through, after all. But that aside, one could always use a qualification for getting money while working one's way into academia.

What do you guys think? Good plan?

---

...In less than three days, I'll be on board a real live tallship.

When did I fall into this incredible life? For all the parts that suck, I really am having an unbelieveable set of great opportunities. I mean, this looks set to be an amazing summer. The Asgard. Crete. Field school. Diving. Possible lead climbing course in September, or if not, definitely in October.

A quarter-book that if not made of win, at least is not made of fail, and may actually get to be a whole book sometime within the next twelve months. WFC. Climbing. Greeks and Romans and Jews, oh my.

And if the economy sucks, and I'm stuck living at home for the next ten years, so what? I have mighty endorphins. I'll deal.

It's raining, and I can smell the sea on the breeze, all seaweed and sharp brine, almost stronger than the green scent of grass. It smells like bittersweet contentment. I don't know why, but it does.

Some days, I do love the weather here. Some days, I even love this place itself, for all its faults. (The housing estates, the never-ending construction, the endless roadworks, the dirt and the small-mindedness and the sense that this a town caught between city and country, sharing the worst of both and doomed never to grow better. I've seen less pleasant towns, but I don't find this one terribly uplifting, either.)

When the sea rolls in smelling of fullness and life, when the water's full and clear in the rockpools, when the seals gather in the harbour for the discards from the catch, when I see the brent geese perched on the rocks up by the further headland, spreading their dark wings to dry - yeah, I can love it then.

My joining instructions for Asgard II arrived today. Despite this, I woke up with post-exam fugue: the real version. My brain will come back, eventually. In the meanwhile, I think I'll enjoy the not-quite-enforced holiday and spend another couple of days going for walks and re-reading favourite books. If I work up the volition, I might have a look through boxes of papers that were important once, and may be important still. Maybe. Or tap around with duellist.

If I feel like it. Or maybe I'll just sit here and enough the scent of rain.