On The Rocks

RISK MANAGEMENT

I've always been an adventurous sort. As a kid, I'd scare the life out of my mum doing crazy (to her) things - ie. climbing up high and balancing on ledges. My childhood was filled with things that, had my poor mum seen me doing them, she'd have had a fit, I'm sure. Things like climbing 13 floors on the outside of a building at 12, jumping across the gap at the top and riding on top of the lifts - just to name a few.

Rocky relationship
So, we're in St Ives, Cornwall where I've been coming every Easter since I was a little kid. The town is on a sort of island - surrounded by rocks, which you can navigate to get to the other beaches. In the glorious lo-tech 70's and 80's, we had arcade games for a bit of a treat at the seaside, otherwise, we had to make our own fun with whatever we could find - and a lot of it was on and around these rocks. My brother and I were just reminiscing about our time here as children this morning, telling my niece and nephew about how we'd never been bored as kids.

We headed back from Carbis Bay Hotel after a lovely (boozy) family lunch and I suggested to my girlfriend that we take the rocks round, like my younger brother and I did at 12 & 8 years old - and join another walkway that takes us up the cliffs, back to the other adjoining beach just half a mile away. 

It was on the first tricky bit, that I realised my other half's abilities to climb slippery rocks was not as highly adapted as my own, but mercifully, with a bit of assistance, helped her to get around a potentially dangerous portion of the rocks. We'd managed to get around another couple of edgy bits - my girlfriend's three pint confidence helping her to beat the fear of serious injury or death, when we came to a really precarious and slippery part. Then it came back to me how I'd got my 8 yr old brother to do this section. It was pretty hairy looking at this now, even as a grown man - and I still enjoy dangerous pursuits like rock climbing for fun. What were we thinking!?

In the end, I had to get us up a different, equally steep and precarious cliff back to the path and safety - where we embraced and laughed about our recent brush & victory with death! The relationship was saved after all...

The tech-kid generation 

The kids never did get to play on the rocks. They weren't even allowed to stray out of mum & dad's sight for the whole trip. They were bored unless on an iPhone or in the arcade - they couldn't make their own fun. It's a very sad modern-day situation. 

I'm so glad I grew up in a different, more free-to-roam age. Kids should be allowed to explore more and we need to encourage it more. It's important for their characters to form properly. Otherwise, how will they ever find the metaphorical rocks needed to help them grow.