First he stole my youth...

It wasn't long after the echoes of the last thunderous dinosaur footstep died away that Roger and I bumped into each other in the kloofs of the Magaliesberg. Actually, we didn't bump into each other - our egos maintained a minimum separation distance of several metres. It's a little bit like the Pauli Exclusion Principle, but on a somewhat larger scale. For a while this was fine, because I was better.  And then only slightly better. And then he opened some slithery thin route in Tonquani and slapped a big number on it, and boom, I was in second place. I bought the SA Climbers Club so I could edit the newsletter. I removed his name from any news reports (with Tippex, because we didn't do things electronically). He onsighted White Rider.  I couldn't do a route of his in Boulderkloof. Fame, Fortune and Glory. And they were no longer mine. That was it. All gone. All of it.

Eventually, of course, I got over it. I emigrated to the Cape, shaved off my moustache and made a decent living pretending to be a chemical engineer. I was happy in my new life.

Until now.

He tracked me down. I don't know how he found me but he did. And insidiously he started stealing my life again. It began innocuously. The suggestion of a long weekend climbing at Umgeni. And what about a week in Oudtshoorn? Then a weekend in Oudtshoorn. Before I knew what was happening my life was out of control. I resigned from my job and grew back my moustache.I got my old lycra pants out of cold storage (if you have kept them at room temperature I am sorry to say that the elastomer will be buggered and you will be holding a pair of saggy, but nonetheless bright and spangly, tubes). He did The Eviscerator before me. Next month I am going to Boven. I don't even know where it is, but I am going. I just cashed in my pension to buy a long enough  rope and enough draws to climb at Milner in the New Year.I have surrendered my life to climbing.

The moustache I am re-growing. Nice.