I love climbing. I love the physical poetry of movement over rock, the craftsman’s satisfaction at seating a well-placed nut, the lazy camaraderie of people who choose to label themselves climbers. I love sunsets at the top of Stanage. I love looking down on trees. I love doing something that is still, to many people, a little bit “different”.

I hate climbing. I hate being cold. I hate training incessantly in an echoing chalky bus garage and achieving precisely bugger all. I hate failing miserably on routes well within my ability and I hate being the rubbish one in any given group of climbers. I hate being scared.

Love and hate, like many extremes, are simply two sides of the same coin.