My life is usually taken up with work , gym, climbing and socialising but recently the house move I have mentioned in previous posts has been  dominant almost to the point of suffocation.

Life has  at times been a crushingly monotonous hamster wheel of packing boxes, moving boxes, building wardrobes and trying to shoehorn all our belonging into a smaller and unfamiliar environment. For my wife its also been an enormous task (which I think secretly she relishes) of cleaning and home making  and I’m so proud of the effort she puts into making us comfortable. We said goodbye to our beautiful home of 10 years a little over two weeks ago but really the move has been happening since late June and is only now coming close to and end.

Lately we’ve been enjoying time with each other exploring our new town, eating out, going for coffee and most recently I spent the weekend with friends at a music festival. No -one mentioned climbing or the gym – and I didn’t either.

The Pendulum is swinging.

At first I was able to put missing the gym and climbing to one side, telling myself I’d be back soon. As time ticks on though its clear I’m swinging further way from this certainty. I tell myself a rest is good, socialising and being “normal” is good for us, we cant always be climbing or training or out in the mountains… but the words are getting hollower by the day.

The Pendulum is swinging further and further from my passion towards pedestrian pace urbanism and I don’t feel it slowing.

That my wife (and best friend) is with me of course softens the blow but I know from experience that the Pendulum is very real entity in my psyche and in my life and if I don’t stop the swing (and reverse it ) I can’t be certain of it ever returning me to my chosen life of health and well being based out in the mountains. I’ve not been at the indoor ice wall for months, climbing wall for weeks and the gym only once or twice in the last few weeks.

In the past the Pendulum has taken me on other life journey’s. I was for a time almost a permanent fixture in the weights room, training 5 or 6 times a week. Before that it was (briefly thanks goodness)  Golf – I had “all the gear and no idea“. For many  years before it was DJ’ing and producing music – and being a full time clubber.

The Pendulum swings and my life follows, consumed,  leaving little room for other interests. How much control do I have over where it goes?

A Pendulum needs to swing or it stops in a no mans land of the “middle”. Not moving one way, or another. When it stops?

I’m not sure I want to find out about that.

Autumn will come and soon after Scottish Winter. The rubicon of the arc will come then.

The Pendulum is swinging.