Sunday 23rd June 17:00
It’s not quite another fancy Italian restaurant but our weekend seems to have instead been bookended with Starbucks. Not that I care, this is the first half-decent cup of tea I’ve had today.
Tea was very nearly one of the cornerstones of my existence missing from my introduction to my fourth decade (I’d say substitute ‘nice tea’ in there but it wasn’t that bad). You know, some of the things that happen to me, or people they happen with, on this day every year.
And so, in the time honoured writing spirit that sustains blogs and cheap journalism all over the internet, I shall explore each of these in turn; elaborating as I go to create a story that takes the reader through the journey of our honeymoon/birthday weekend.
Climbing
Possibly the oldest of my summer traditions, other than merely surviving another year, involves some sort of climbing. The Birthday Tradition is such a big thing for me, it has it’s own page on the site. Needless to say, more than anything else, for the past fourteen years (at least), I’ve quite liked to climb on my birthday.
As mentioned above, as well as in my previous post, our destination doesn’t lend itself to outdoor rock climbing. So in the modern fashion, I made do with an indoor session.
Indoor climbing as a poor-man’s outdoor venue is a view widely outdated now. Even those geographically capable can often prefer to head inside on a sunny day. Then, of course, there are those that are geographically incapable of going outside; a position I found myself in. Or rather, one that was planned.
Oversees
To pause the climbing thoughts for a moment, since 2010, I have strived (striven? I can never remember) to ‘spend my birthday in a different country every year’. Again, there’s plenty on this on here already but in recent years it’s been a bit trickier.
At one point, the plan was for New York but realistically this was always unlikely. Whether it was a birthday with a 0 at the end didn’t magically produce the cash required for that one.
Still, this was my 40th, making it slightly more significant than any old birthday, making it more likely that this would be another to add to the famous list.
Meanwhile, given Em and myself got married a little over a month ago, this weekend merged into a birthday celebration come honeymoon. So a double celebration really.
But in the same way that being a round number didn’t magic money, nor did two wedding rings clear a space in the diary for us. We literally had 48 hours to go away, have a nice time and get back again.
We needed somewhere close enough to make this work, somewhere that we hadn’t been and, as mentioned in the previous post, preferably somewhere we had history. The problem was, somewhere like Amsterdam kinda kills the climbing aspect of things. Well, any hopes of climbing on rock at least…
Climbing Oversees…
Due to my own long-standing attitudes to indoor walls (my OWN use of indoor walls, I hasten to add, NOT my opinion of how others should view them), I think I’ve made it 40 years without ever climbing indoors abroad. It’s never seemed a worthwhile thing for me to do, to be honest. And while my attitude is changing and I’m climbing much more indoors for it’s own sake than ever before, I’m still not entirely sure that I would typically spend my time and money pulling on plastic while away on a trip.
Indoors or outdoors, though, I do still like to climb on my birthday. And that is how I found myself almost excitedly feasting eyes on Amsterdam’s Beest Boulder Centre.
I don’t really know why I expected it to be different walls back home. Granted, there’s a wide spread of climbing gyms in the UK: from outdoor replicas to indoor gym’s; converted churches to fancy sites on industrial sites; those with 17 coffee options to those whose roof still leaks, an ‘indoor wall’ is never the same as another (from a different chain I mean, one Depot is almost identical to some of the others). But I kind of expected a bit of a Dutch twist on things.
There was no twist really, which almost left me feeling a little flat. I mean no disrespect to Beest in the slightest, it’s a great gym and I’ll elaborate in a second. This is an issue with my expectations, not with anything Beest did. I guess I was expecting something other than the usual coffee, cake, chalk and climb. Even the shop was familiar, selling shoes and own branded t-shirts made by the same company as my own work shirts.
Still, their version of ‘a climbing gym’ was certainly not bad; up in the higher levels of those I’ve climbed in previously. Routes were set via colour of hold – very common in the UK these days, sadly – with grade boundaries (also familiar) that were a little too broad really. Not wanting to spend time projecting a single problem, I dropped from the top white problems (around 7a+) to have a blast at the yellow circuit.
Incidentally, I will just have a moan for a second: the yellow circuit was climbs from 6b-7a. Outside, that is an ENORMOUS difference. Literally, years, even decades, can pass before people go from one end of that spectrum to the other. Or in other words, that can range from warm up to impossible. And the unwitting climber can be none the wiser until they step off the floor. We really should be doing much better at this, it’s genuinely not good enough.
What was good enough were the quality of the routes though. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to flash 7a so the circuit worked well and I was taken with the style of the problems on hand. Many walls have favoured modern competition-style climbs, with linked moves, giant holds and heaps of dynamicism to the climbs. Beest seemed to strike a happy balance.
So overall, other than being indignant on behalf of other people (something I generally hate doing and try and avoid, though in this case I think I have a point), the climbing was good, the centre was pleasant and, most of all, I got to climb on my birthday. Abroad no less.
The Company
While that was a lovely way to finish, I would like to quickly comment on the company I usually keep around this time of year.
First and foremost, my most loyal of friends. Tess, I wish you could’ve come with us. Actually, no that’s a blatant lie. The last time we took you to Amsterdam was a complete nightmare, you wouldn’t have been allowed in anywhere and you’d have hated it.
I fear, the days of us travelling away like we used to may be behind us, pain me though it does to say it. Still, if life is indeed us making memories ready for old age, I feel we’ve made some bloody good ones to look back on.
It seems Tess has been usurped, from my partner in crime to my partner instead. From travels with my pet to travels with my wife. My pet wife perhaps? No, that doesn’t sound like a phrase that going to be very popular at home… [Should’ve thought about who was sat on the seat next to me on the plane, here, as I have just received a classic eye roll]
Em has indeed not only become a regular sidekick on these expeditions but often the orchestrator. The Font trip of 2022 was almost entirely her doing and even this bore her hallmarks in many ways.
Sadly, the children haven’t been able to join us this time but their time will come. They’ve been in the care of my parents, who in their own way have their own level of responsibility for all this foolishness. They planted the seed after all.
The only others that have become staples are the friends that attended our wedding earlier in the year. Attending a wedding is one thing, attending the honeymoon is a little odd.
No, this was the perfect company for the perfect weekend. Even if we did walk further than most Alpine trips…
chezdelabloc 