So PJ and I went to Culdaff for the Sat evening to join Margaret & Gertie for dinner, having forsaken the Owey weekend in favour of a 20 mile Dublin marathon training run.

Got up next day feeling thoroughly wrung out but thinking “A wee climb and then home. Black Perception it is. We’ll work out where it is once and for all, get the GPS coordinates, mark it on a map, climb the fecker and go home and tell the world.”

1 hour later and with PJ protesting about her sore knee from the running and me my sore arse from falling on the black rocks near the sea (a squeaky bum moment with the waves whooshing in below) we gave up the search.

We blundered our way back to the top of SRS Slabs to abseil down and found Alfie, Anise and Aaron, who said we couldn’t join their AAA team because they liked 3 letter acronyms and anyway PJ’s name was totally out of kilter.

A wee saunter up Belfast Blitz Boys passed 30 minutes while Alfie doled out lessons on abseiling, Z-pulleys, rope coiling and sandwich making to our erstwhile beginners. He was no help in finding Black perception though.

My own pet theory is that it’s hidden behind a fairy gate that only the good and pure of heart can pass through, in which case I can forget ever climbing it again, or that it’s made from the mythical element “noclimbium” that fades in and out of our planar existence as the whim takes it. Usually it’s more “out” than “in.

I’m sure I climbed it once during a bygone ClimbFest, but they tended to be heavily-alcohol-fuelled (with a side order of herbs) weekends back then before PJ tapered me down to a mere 2 crates and a bottle of whiskey, so maybe I imagined climbing it?

If anyone can provide a 10 figure grid reference (12 or 14 if you have it) for this most elusive of climbs I’d be very grateful.

Anthony