All about friction
Went abseiling on the weekend. Almost chickened out because of the 'group fun' element, after a busy week, and wanting some time to unwind alone. But.. had agreed to it months ago, and decided it was the 'type of thing I wanted to do' (or more accurately, that I wanted to be the type of person who would go) so I went.
Was with girls from work, staying 2 nights away, and was surprisingly relaxed, group very forgiving of the random foibles we each had re equipment, food planning, sleep habits etc. First time over the edghe made me feel slightly frozen in the bunny lights of fear, but the next one was wholly exhilerating (and mebbe just a little scary too). 25 metre cliff but a view down a much bigger cliff face and into a valley that seemed positively miles away. When my rope spun around, as I went down the overhang bit of wall, and I could see the whole valley in front of me I may have cussed. Just a little bit, in both panic and wonder, and surrounded by kind of pained laughter, like a really good rollercoaster will bring out in you.
The friction on the rope from teh fancy arrangement through loops is amazing. Physics makesthe whole thing a lot more controlled than you might imagine, and the process of letting the rope through your hand to get movement, is a lot less scary than I thought it would be (ie does not require you to hold your own body weight in the palm of your hand).
Left feeling a bit sunburnt, but happy.
I haven't seen you round these parts
Well it's true I haven't been blogging here (or anywhere), for aaaages, and for a random set of life reasons, including, but not limited to:
- travelling
- getting all sick and fluey on return
- work ramping up
- dating
- having friends and family from out of town visit / return
- computer issues
etc.
I have been doing a teensy bit of writ-draw-ing for my zine, but that has been ant scaled. I have been writing for work, but not much there either.
Maybe it's winter - things slow down, grow slower, conserve energy for the spring, rest in the dark to keep energy for reaching up to face the sun when it comes back. The growth rings on this blog would be very thin in the winter months when sliced through and inspected by an interested logger's eye.
