The Heights

I reworked the painting of Carreg Cennen this week. I hadn't exhibited it as I wasn't 100% happy with it. Anyway its done now. It is quite a climb up to Carreg Cennen but worth it when you get there.
I did a post yesterday about my brother going deep sea fishing despite getting sea sick. Well actually I did something equally inappropriate. I don't like heights.
I do believe you should conquer your fears if possible and to that end I have done a parachute jump climbing onto the wing of a biplane and throwing myself off. I also had a job with a cowboy roofing contractor for a very short period.  Now my brother who is not at all bothered by heights used to go climbing quite a lot.
 I can understand the sense of achievement that it must bring following all the exhilaration.
I must say it never appealed to me in the least, but I did eventually agree to try it. So one day we went off to a cliff face in Mid Wales. Now I would have been happy if we had ropes and all the things you knock in to the cracks to clip onto. But no my brother liked free climbing. Great. So we set off up this face with nothing but a set of old daps as far as equipment was concerned. The face was only about 100yds high but high enough to kill you if you fell off. He seemed to find it easy and encouraged me. I struggled but got half way up the face before getting stuck. Unfortunately the face was mostly slate and shale which meant half my footholds disappeared below me whenever I moved. I also found that there is an incredible amount of effort involved in pulling yourself up a sheer cliff. He climbed down and called out the holds and somehow  I did get to the top.
I din't want to do it but you know having tried it I was just as determined never to do it again as long as I lived. It didn't cure my fear of heights, neither did jumping from a plane or working on 3 story roofs.