Last year in April, a friend of ours introduced us to one of her favourite sports, and we've stuck with it since - bouldering. Bouldering is basically climbing, but only to a height where you can still (relatively) safely jump down - and consequently, you're not using a rope or other safety gear. In a bouldering gym, you have thick mats under the walls, so you get a (relatively, again) soft landing when you fall; and then there's different routes screwed onto the walls, usually colour-coded to show how easy or hard they approximately are.

It's a very interesting sport, because it's not only physical. Yes, having a lot of strength and power and endurance does help a lot, as does having a good sense of balance and body tension. But you can substitute quite a bit of sheer strength with good, efficient technique.

And it's also a puzzle to find out how to climb those problems. A puzzle whose solution is, or can be, extremely dependant on the body size, shape, and type of the climber. We have a climbing buddy who is taller than both the Most Patient Husband of Them All, and I'm on the short end of our group. We also have different proportions in our limbs, and different amounts of strength and flexibility.

A lot of the easier, more straightforward problems are the same for all three of us. One doesn't have to reach as far as the other, but basically handholds and footholds and technique are very similar. There are other problems, though, where sometimes we end up with three different solutions, and in a few cases, everyone could do all three versions, but one just feels best. In some cases, the other methods just won't cut it at all - the foot won't go to the hold, or the arms are not long enough, or there's not enough strength for a specific move, or the hold won't accommodate both hands.

So sometimes, you can see the three of us hang out in front of one of the boulder problems, trying to think of all the possible moves one could do, trying to find a sequence that works for the one of us who has problems with a part of that boulder. (Unsurprisingly, quite often, that is me, being the smallest - followed by our buddy, who is sometimes too tall to make our solutions work for him. As much as I might complain about being way too short sometimes, being tall is not always the best thing for bouldering either...)

Recognising the differences in these moves also made me think about the differences in crafts procedures. There, too, is a standard method, with standard tools and movements, that will usually get the job done. However, different people might have different problems with these moves, and in some cases, it will turn out to be inefficient, and there needs to be a different approach. When it concerns methods, like, for instance, in tablet weaving, the same applies to brains. Not everybody is comfortable with the same system - I've met people who prefer flipping the tablets instead of reversing direction, people who turn them individually, people who turn them in several packs. There's quite a few different methods of writing down patterns, too - and obviously they all work, if not for everybody. So in some cases, it's a question of finding the method (or the teacher teaching the method) that will work for you. That is sometimes easier said than done, and there's always the possibility that a technique, even if you get it taught in a way and for a method that does work for you, will just not become your favourite - and that's fine. But if you are just starting out learning something, and get the feeling that you just don't get it, my recommendations are: persevere and try some more, but also go and see if you can get input or a lesson from somebody else than your first teacher, or at least watch other people doing whatever you are trying to learn. It might just click suddenly for you.

Here's, for a change, a selection of semi-random links:

Ask the Past tells us about coffee and how to substitute the real stuff with... other stuff.

There's a kickstarter running for bras for asymmetrical breasts; for the start, there'll just be a one-cup difference between left and right breast, but their plan is to offer more variety and bras with larger cup differences in the future. This is a brilliant idea!

2017 is the bicetennary of Jane Austen's death, and the Literary Hub has a long article about the woman herself and the many ways we are wrong about Jane Austen - who is surprisingly hard to get hold of.

And finally, the reason why there are no more unicorns:

 

Textile craft stuff just is so versatile, and here's two examples of it. First of all, a really nice article about knitting spies and knitted secret messages - though I'm rather convinced it's not a dropped stitch that actually happened, but something like a yarnover.

Knitting codes is definitely fun - the most patient husband of them all knit yoga socks that morse code spell out "Yoga socks", and he had a lot of fun with that. I've yet to do something similarly geeky, but it is on my list. (Though not very far up the list, I'll admit.)

The second link is not knitting, but crocheting: the clinic in Hannover is giving hand-crafted cuddly snails to children getting cochlea implants (German site). These children are born deaf, and they are getting the implant operation at a very young age - usually still a little less than a year old - which is of course quite exciting and frightening for them and their parents. So the staff of the clinic in Hannover has started a project back in 2015 where each of the about 100 children getting the implant each year gets a hand-crocheted snail to cuddle. It's intended not only as an emotional uplifter for the children, but also as a token of appreciation for this very big step in their lives.

In case you have itchy fingers now, the (German) pdf instructions on how to crochet the snails are linked from their site. And if you love the idea of the snails getting handed to children - all snails are crocheted by volunteers, and the clinic is always looking for snail donations, which are much appreciated.

It's a holiday here today, so you're getting some reading stuff from around the net which will hopefully amuse you:

Making a disease from a remedy - how Trotula gets misinterpreted in medicine papers.

Disability, fraudulent beggars and medieval surveillance.

Fictional languages get a real-world breakdown. This is a really fascinating video, and if you are at all interested in languages and pronounciation, I thoroughly recommend it.

Just in case you are looking for a job connected to experience archaeology: There's a job opening in Dorset for an Ancient Technology Tutor, teaching children. There's a second job in the same place, the Cranborne Ancient Technology Centre, for an Outdoor Education Administrator. Both offers have an application deadline on June 18.

And just in case you're looking for something to read: Springer is running an e-book sale, where all English e-books published before 2004 are available for 9.99 €. You need to enter the coupon code SBA17E when ordering, and you can take a look at the books here.

Aarhus Uni Press is offering "Mobile Bodies, Mobile Souls" as free e-book of the month. The book is taking a look at the complex relationships between family, religion and migration.

Hooray it's Friday, and the start of a long weekend! The weather is pretty hot and sunny here, my workspace looks quite a lot better now that I've finally put away most of the stock into the newly ordered shelf (yay for visible floor space), the next project is just getting  started, promising to be exciting and a lot of fun and I'll tell you more about it soon, I got another lesson in beekeeping this morning (which included trying a bit of honey), my dad's health checkup came back with the result of "everything stable", I have ordered enough F-clamps to enable me to do the long-planned tablet-weaving workshop, and I have the strong suspicion there will be iced coffee in my very, very near future.

So - life is good. And full of things. Which is also good.

Another bit of good news - you remember the petition to save the museum in Lyon that ran a good while ago? The president of the region has pledged to help save the museum and provide an annual sum in support of it, provided that the city and state also pitch in. This is the first really tangible good news on this, and I do hope it will all end well, and with the museum in a stable position. You can read the full update (in French) here.

And that's it for now, from me. I'll see you on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday here) and hope you will have a nice weekend too!

Here's a stack of things you might enjoy... first of all, the children's quiz show that I was filmed for in January is online for four more days, and you can watch the episode here. (It's the second question in.)

Here's an article about the hatpin in the early 20th century and its use for self-defense.

Looking for something less martial? Here's a 14th century recipe for doughnuts, courtesy of the British Library.

If you are interested in studying Experimental Archaeology, the UCD is offering a new course for a MSc in Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture. Application deadline is on June 2, so if that sounds interesting to you, you will need to be quick.

Speaking of programmes, the Nobilitas Akademie this year will be 10-12 November on Burg Hessenstein. As usual, there's a variety of different topics, all sounding quite interesting! Their programme is online, and you can register for it; if you do it soon, you'll get a bit of an early bird discount, too.

Finally, here is a blog article about a spinning technique with hand spindles that I have on my list of "things to try and figure out how to do" - rotating the spindle in the hand, but not with the hand and finger position similar to short suspended spinning, but more or less horizontally. I've seen this a good while ago for the first time and have since dabbled some with the motion (which is totally intriguing), but as I said, it's still on the list.

Hope you enjoy one or more of those!