Looking upwards

I've mentioned before on Blip that many of my interactions with my daily job take part in transformed churches; the BMC offices in Didsbury were once a chapel (BMC), and there are many more climbing centres in churches across the UK  - they're spaces that particularly offer themselves to conversion - nice high roofs - big structurally sound walls & not a lot of internal clutter to get in the way.
Manchester was one of the first and earliest walls to use a church (I think that Bristol was the very first) and they did it really sympathetically - they've retained for many features - but pride of place goes to the Cathedral Rose window -unsurprisingly it appears in a lot of their advertising & recently had a brief cameo on Sport England's excellent "this girl can" campaign advert.

Today I had a couple of meetings in the depths of the building - but arriving early (well just earlier than everyone else who was fighting the snow) - I stopped to grab a coffee & watch this chap sketching his way upwards, for the moment at least unaware of his magnificent surroundings, focused on just making that next hold (the angle of this shot really doesn't show just how steeply overhanging that section of wall actually is). Made me wish I'd got a bag with a rope in it - rather than a laptop!