Unpacking the trumpet

Let’s suppose I get up my route. Let's suppose I break my vow of silence, switch metaphors, and blow out a loud and gloriously self-indulgent trumpet solo...

...which segues into one of several different scenarios.

Here's one. Steve Bradshaw Jnr and Matt Bush arrive to do the second ascent. Steve looks like a latter-day Adonis. Matt, in skinny jeans, muscles, tan and funny hat with little tassles, is harder to describe (Roger, you read this blog, and that’s your cue...). Suffice it to say that... They crush the 2nd and 3rd ascents and I spend my remaining days in the retirement home morosely picking bits of egg off my face.

I should never have unpacked the trumpet.

So instead let's imagine, as the last note of my solo rings out in a sustained vibrato (can that be done on a trumpet?), a bunch of bellowing bullocks are psyching up at the base of the route ready to send damuddafukka. The air in the gully is redolent with a heady mix of testosterone, chalk and the rancid reek of sweaty climbing shoes. One by one the Young Turks (bullocks, Turks - they all look the same to me) step up and one by one They. Are. Shut. Down.

I sit on a secluded ledge and smirk as their comments float up on the aforementioned aerosol of testosterone. To wit: “Fuck, I’ve got to eat more fruit”, “That old man can still crush” and “Steve Bradshaw Snr.; The Original and Best”.

I turn and walk down the valley, pausing briefly to whisper, unheard by the bros:

“That’s not hard, bitches”.