Beckthorns Gill, in Thirlmere, is an unremarkable crag, with clods of earth sandwiched between loose rocks and the odd root. It was vertical and at a height that a fall could result in terminal velocity in a medical if not a gravitational sense. Being 16, I shot straight up without a rope in what I know now of as a style called solo climbing. I had picked a line that looked challenging enough to impress my mates who were congregated at the base, smoking cheap fags.
Fear began to creep in as I got stuck about half way up. No safe route to continue was obvious; any attempt to retreat unbalanced and terrified. I saw a wasp land on my left fore arm.
“Fuck me lads, here's a wasp!”
There were in fact a swarm of wasps stinging me all over. My left foot was imbedded in if not a wasp's nest then at least its front door; I was now perceived in some way as a threat to the continued survival of this colony. I was also still stuck on the rock face. There were peels of laughter rising from my mates below, smugly now voyeurs to this abominable crisis. I remember considering jumping and then found myself sprinting out over the top of the crag ripping my clothes from me as I ran.
Back at the bottom of Beckthorns Gill, wasps were flying out of my socks as I removed them (I had been climbing in trainers and sock), stood in my boxer shorts in a field in the Lakes, I counted fourteen separate stings. Paradoxically, having made one of the most fundamental and also stupid mistakes possible in approaching a climb without any preparation or forethought at all, I had fallen victim to a situation I have not seen discussed in any climbing manual or account in the sixteen years that have followed.
It's this realisation of the unexpected that has kept me climbing (if at most of the time at a pretty low level of ability) ever since. You just never know when you'll next get a buzz out of it. 
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