Climbing trees

is something all able children should be able to do - at least once in their lifetime.
Someone left a comment for me yesterday. In it she said one of the reasons she did not want to grow up was so that she could go on climbing trees.
I thought about this. Adults don't climb trees do they? At least, they don't climb trees for the sheer pleasure and challenge of doing so. They don't jump in puddles or avoid the cracks in the footpath either. If they see adults on the play equipment in the playground they think "how immature" and "they shouldn't be doing that". 
There are a lot of things you are not supposed to do simply because you are now a "grown up".
I often wonder whether the verger who performed the cartwheels down the main aisle of Westminster Abbey after the wedding of Prince William and Catherine was disciplined. I hope not. I think God would have thoroughly approved the verger's joy of the occasion and the successful conclusion of the ceremony.
I remember once reading a short piece by a man who went out into the night because he wanted to swing on the big swing in the park.  From his account he enjoyed doing it - but he felt he could not do it in the daylight because of what others might think.
As a kitten even I climbed trees. I never went too far up - my brother went higher than I did although never too high. As a four year old Middle Cat  once climbed up the back trellis and on to the roof of the house. Our Serbian neighbour at the time was hysterical.  Our mother simply stood there and told Middle Cat to get down "immediately". She came down - and was given the hairbrush treatment. (It didn't stop her climbing the trees at the far end of the garden.)
There was the boy at camp one summer who was born without arms -  they were simply short stumps. He climbed one of the trees on the campsite - having prudently arranged for his friends to "catch"  him if he fell. None of them could have caught  him as they were all more disabled than he was. He managed to get on to a branch and sat there grinning at me.
     "Well done," I told him, "It's lunch time."
He got himself down hanging like a monkey on one leg. 
I told Ivan Southall that story when he was talking to me about the book he wanted to write, "Let the Balloon Go". He asked a great many questions at that time and, apart from "Josh", it was the book he found the most difficult to write. Put simply it is a book about a boy climbing a tree and growing up and breaking away in the process. We agreed that there is something very important about climbing trees. Even "normal" people need to climb trees sometimes.
I wonder if,  in the current state of affairs, any adults have rediscovered the joy of climbing trees? Have they allowed their children to climb trees? 
We need trees to climb - and we need to plant them so we can climb.