After our friends’ wedding, I had one more drink and then went to bed, and woke up early on Sunday. I’m not sure if I adjusted completely or never adjusted, running on adrenaline and hope, but I was up by 8am, wandering around Singapore fetching coffees and going to the shops to purchase mince pies and other Christmas stuff that’s hard to come by in Seattle.
I went climbing as well; I’d taken my climbing shoes with me in the hope I could get a session in, and I did just over an hour. Coming back to Singaporean climbing was odd; I’ve got used to the cool air in Seattle and felt terribly hot, even in just a singlet and trousers. I wasn’t climbing as well as I did in April, before I left, but at the same time things seem easier. That’s a combination of the walls being higher in Seattle and the holds further apart; there’s tricky stuff in Singapore too, but seemingly requiring less grunt and oomph. There’s more little holds with tricky bits to them, but I’m happy to say that by the end, I was at least doing 16s and managing trickier stretchy problems rather than just succeeding through yanking.
After that, I went to Marks & Spencer and found the branch in the central business district was shut on Sundays, so I went back to my friends’ flat, and played another game of Blood Bowl.
This was an odd one. For the first six turns I played terribly badly and expected to lose. Then I scored with a flukey series of rolls (5+/3+/2+/5+/3+, 320 out of 6^5, which had a 4.1% chance of working out – so quitr cruel of fate to allow it). Then in the second half I was again incredibly lucky, and eventually won 2-1. I’ve realised my play style is very different to some of my opponents; they are very slow and considered, whereas I play fast and loose, only slowing down when I have very complicated chains of events to plan out. Over the long term, slow and steady is more reliable, but that’s for people who don’t roll good dice.
Jubilant, I took a taxi to the newlyweds’ new condo to see them (and it is very nice indeed) before rushing back to find a branch of M&S that was open and stockpiling cheesy puffs and mince pies. Then there was just time to snatch dinner before going to the airport, and the start of the long journey home.
I didn’t have much time to miss my family on this trip, because I was just so busy, but on Sunday afternoon I felt the first twinges of maudlin homesickness. It’s nice to be away because it makes you appreciate the little lunatics a bit more. And, one hopes, they appreciate me more too.
Its still 17 hours behind in Seattle. This week is going to be really odd.
3 responses to “Away again and then back again”
That time difference does my head in. So Is that possible you might get to celebrate a birthday twice or miss out on it completely. I’m confused !
Yeah it’s weird how walls are higher in some places. Brighton and Edinburgh = high. Harrow (so same as Vaux I suppose) are lower. I would be too scared to jump off the top at Brighton but when I watched a Blokfest at Harrow (you know those nights you turn up to climb and when you arrive there’s stuff going on?) they had to jump down off some of those routes as you’re just left hanging at the end.
I find Brighton is more considerate towards smaller climbers these days, probably because there are so many talented child climbers around.