During the space between Boxing Day and New Year, we travelled up to visit Dave's family, and I took the opportunity to check out Rock City, the climbing gym in Hull.  The converted industrial building houses a great combination of top-roping, lead climbs and even a trad wall (although I didn't have a chance to check it out in detail), with high walls, a nice combination of slabby easier climbs, trickier overhangs and lots of lumps and bumps alongside the bolt-ons.  Needless to say, with two 14 year olds in tow, I didn't actually climb myself but I had a great time introducing the whole business of top-roping; a new experience for them, although they have bouldered before.  After a couple of hours, both were capable of tying in, scrambling up and belaying one another; Alex in particular rapidly overcame any qualms about heights and put his flexibility and power/weight ration into good action, at one point making his way up a panel with two 5a routes on it; he switched between both but the holds were anything but friendly and he was pretty much unperturbed. 

The last part of our session was a visit to the bouldering cave where I demonstrated quite how out of practice I am, and how incapable I am on an actual bouldering wall without bolt-ons, particularly one that overhangs.  As a consequence I am determined to spend more time bouldering and not feel the tyranny of having bought a harness…

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