Those two railway bridges: Grosvenor St and Nightingale St. I would start on the south bluestone wall of Grosvenor, do six laps, right-to-left and left-to-right, then move onto the north side, slightly harder in the last half. Then if my fingers had any skin left, I’d go up to Nightingale St and work on the north side from the left — the south side had all this hardware clogging it, street signs and other rubbish. That north side was always the hardest thing I’d climbed, not sure if even out on real rock, in the Grampians or Guangdong, I climbed anything harder. The repetition appealed to me, same thing over and over, having a relationship with the rock. I’d tape my fingertips to get through the last laps, but in the end it was attrition, my skin would give out first. In winter, the first lap or two would be agony as the cold rock cut in, harder to climb but something proper in enduring it. There’s more graffiti now, about the same amount of dirt and clag, a few marks of chalk, unlikely to be my leftovers, even though they mark my route. Emile walked with me as I traced my moves, memory in physicality, movement, emotion.
