A Decade...

No that's not the amount of time its been since I last posted something of interest, as of my birthday just over a week or so ago I've been climbing for around 1o years.
I was going to get all nostalgic and go through what I've done, who I've climbed with and all of the best bits but I really can't be faffed.

It's been a while so this is all a bit haphazard and long so apologies in advance:

For my b/day Nat took me to Leeds for a weekend where we ate and drank far too much, it was all great apart from a nightmare train journey to get there. Points failure led to them almost sending us back to Sheffield, 2 hours after that we arrived. Nice.
The week after I offered to belay for Dobbin up at Kilnsey, hoping to regain some of my psyche (cue doyle's Sunday sermon, too true). I really like Kilnsey, its where I started climbing on Limestone and where I excelled as a youth-ier yoof:

Pantomime, what a route! Strangely I prefer it to comedy. (for age reference, look how short Tom Newman is!)

I got the train to leeds (with ed brown) and then we drove up to Kilnsey, to be honest the car journey was worth the train ticket, non stop banter, I'd umm'd and ahh'd about climbing opting out of making a firm decision until I arrived but as soon as we neared the crag I was already pretty psyched, unfortunately the view of kilnsey isn't as inspiring from the Leeds end, come from the North and you turn a corner at the top end of the valley and notice half a hill missing somewhere in the distance.
I decided not to bother with the Diretissima and instead had a rope on Face Value, Ed commented that some people are wanting to Retro bolt it, i'd be strongly opposed to that.

After a sh*t warm day doing trad nonsense up at Rylestone I joked to the group I was with about doing it, on the way home they stopped by to stop my winging. I warmed up on Diretissima and fell of loads, the wind was bitter and I was pretty nervous having just fluffed the warm up more than once despite that I lowered off and went for it, everyone was fairly quiet...

I arrived at the chain tasting blood, i'd somehow managed to bite through my lip whilst climbing. Its one of those climbing moments that has stuck with me for ages. The thing is I've spent so much time there over the years that there are a lot of memories like that and routes that I simply can't get enough of, any other crag will struggle to beat that, not to mention the twisting B roads that you approach on from the north, that teamed with a mini cooper in the latter years of living further North was amazing.
Anyway this is all getting a little too near to the nostalgia I was trying so hard to avoid, with Dob and Ed I basically got spanked, it was the summer before I broke my leg that I last tied on and therefore (understandably) I was unfit, I could still remember all of the moves on the routes (and noticed that my sequences were from a time where I NEEDED every single trick and intermediate that I could lay my hands on) however I just didn't have the stamina, it comes quickly though, something to do with being light i think.
I climbed last night at the works, my membership had finally expired which was a bit of a pain, I did a bit but took it relatively easy as crimping small holds always seems very brutal after a little lay-off. Mike asked to be shown the rings afterwards so I went through the entire workout for him, to be honest I felt pretty damn strong, doing fly's from my meet on a chair (more stable now due to mat covering) and at the end doing 3x3 cross pull-outs. These are basically an iron cross in an L-sit position with your toes clinging on the edge of a chair, keep everything taught and lower into the cross then press it out. I've never managed more than 1 before and it can only be down to the weights.
The problem with doing the rings in the works is it becomes one massive spectacle which I don't really like. Fair enough with a few people up the school testosterone and ego's can help play a decent roll in creating a good/hard training atmosphere. At the works you just feel like a twat, I would of loved to see where I was at with a lower down or a powerspot (or my dream machine) in a cross position but with that many people, well I can just see the w*nker smileys piling up as I type. Sorry for the crap writing above, I haven't got time to read it all back through, a bit report is due on Friday and I'm a little behind.
Picked up my School T, very nice.
Keith, you'll look like a bin man.