A few days ago Ingrid and I went climbing, at an indoor climbing centre.

Ingrid had been climbing once before with her class at school. Last spring maybe? She liked it, and has been asking to do it again since then. I have never done any climbing indoors, but Eric and I took several scrambling and via ferrata vacations back in the days before kids.

We started out on the beginners’ wall for some warm-up and then gradually tried harder trails, with a bit of overhang and sparser handholds.

Ingrid took to climbing like a fish to water. She is strong, has great balance and coordination, and no fear of heights at all.

Interestingly, it looked to me like each trail was about the same difficulty for both me and her. I’d have thought that she would have to work harder since her reach is shorter. But I guess that I just reached for the next handhold further up, while she reached for something at the height of my chin or something.

Ingrid has been in a sporty mood recently. We’ve been going skating a lot, sometimes daily. For the spring term, Ingrid’s signed up for more swimming, but she also wants to start judo again, as well as riding. (She did family judo when she was younger but then took a break. Horseback riding is a new one; she tried it this summer and adored it, so now she will be trying it for real.)

Three sports activities every week sounds ambitious… we’ll see if we can keep it up.