Jamie and I congregated in covent garden yesterday to finally redeem our ice-climbing vouchers.

I arrived early and performed an early recon, discovering that the ice wall was in a climbing shop spanning its two floors. Not quite the hundred-foot cliff that we had imagined!

When jamie arrived, we looked for a suitable place to have lunch before our allotted slot on the wall. We spotted a suitable spot called the “Box Cafe”. The two chaps we spotted in the window seemed to be eating tasty food, so we headed for the door. Beside the door we noticed a poster advertising the “Box Cafe Calendar”, which on closer inspection was composed entirely of semi-naked men. We looked and noticed there wasn’t a single female form inside. We exited stage left.

The climb itself was good fun. We were kitted out with all the helmets, ice picks and crampons we needed and after 3 mins of instruction, we headed up the wall.

There were two normal sections to the wall, 1 completely vertical and 1 with a very slight angle. We both set off up the wall and got to the top first time, though, as I took the first go at the vertical wall, it took me a little longer than jamie. He was wondering why I was making such hard work of it until he attempted the vertical wall. We both found it increasingly hard on the arms, and found that we’d have nearly reached the top, but barely have the strength to lift our arms to make that last few foot. After the hour we were shattered, arms aching and pouring with sweat despite the low temperatures needed to keep the wall frozen.

Afterwards we met up with Kit who had been delayed by the Iraq protestors and then walked the streets of london in search of a pub showing the rugby.