I was going to talk about surfing the unpredictable ebb and flow of psyche, of ageing, of competing with your younger self, of being steamrollered by the weight of expectation, then being buoyed on by an infinitesimally tiny success. Of the silent guilty resentment when everyone else gets their projects done except you. Of misjudging the conditions, going to the wrong crag, or going to the right crag at the wrong time. Of how there’s definitely a right time for certain things, for you, no matter how fleeting. And how if you can line things up on that day then almost anything is possible. Of how, conversely, if you force it the door slams shut.

When bouldering mats became commonplace in the late 1990s and early 2000s, one of the oft-cited benefits offered up as an excuse for lugging a huge square of foam around (largely to placate the “you’re all going soft, we used to do these problems with just a bar towel stolen from the pub” crowd) was that by using bouldering pads we were protecting the ground from further wear, stopping the grass being battered by repeated falls etc etc. Win win - what selfless legends were were! However, far from being a ‘win’ for erosion, pads clearly just served to enable the whole activity, making it an enjoyable mainstream prospect for all climbers year-round, not just the preserve of fringe nutcases with cast-iron ankles, lowball traverse fans, and cutting edge players needing a training option in the summer - the only time the landings were dry enough to stand on. Hence the massive boom in bouldering participation over the last two decades, with a commensurate strain on the land. Bigger numbers now means at certain places we’re seeing massively accelerated erosion, and it won’t just sort itself out, it’s going to need some legwork from all of us.

It doesn’t hurt that such a full-day immersion in complete bouldering all-you-can-eat gluttony is reminiscent of the fabled “first day in Font” vibes of yore. Arriving in the Forest already dehydrated by 8 hours of driving, fuelled only by coffee, beaucoup pains au chocolate and what scant sleep you managed to scrape whilst lying on the floor of the lounge in a budget ferry whilst being stepped over by various chain-smoking continental lorry drivers, the stage is set for an epic day of climbing. With no concession made to saving any energy or skin, and - with smartphone weather forecasts still a full decade in the future - no way of knowing what the next few days will bring other than a half-remembered forecast, all bridges are burned on the first day. With elbows duly wrecked by locking between the chipped slots on the Cuvier red circuit, the hope is that those bridges can be at least partially reconstructed later that night by judicious use of fingertape, ibuprofen and antihydral. Rinse and repeat for seven consecutive days. Bon chance.

It’s cold, maybe too cold? Turn a cheek to the wind and glance - well, squint - across the moor to the jumble of gritstone boulders silhouetted on the horizon. Gonna be even colder up there. Is the cloud level going to play ball? The hours spent checking and re-checking weather forecasts at least confirms that this is exactly as anticipated. Should be the right conditions for it, on paper at least. That bodes well, perhaps this is the day after all. Could do without leaving empty handed this time, it’s a bit soul destroying. You wonder if you’d have been better off going elsewhere. Cue frantic waving of arms in an effort to pump blood into the fingers, the first of many such episodes.