Lepper

Nat's Warrington death flu has become worse and worse since Fri, today she was at the docs and was handed a prescription for some Antibiotics despite this she's beginning to perk up.
Up until now I've been feeling fine but tonight I feel like utter sh*t. What could be worse before a bouldering trip than being ill and having to work hard?
I went to the works on Mon, again the comp wall wasn't too thrilling and the training board didn't seem much better (sorry Dave M).

Day Off

Nat took this Fri off, the plan was to break up the journey to the North East (Chrimbo Visit) with a days climbing in Yorkshire.
Slipstones looked the best bet weatherwise after a lengthy chat with a few people.
Only one problem, thur evening Nat arrived home early with some form of the Plague, Fri morning she was worse and the last thing that seemed sensible was to go out climbing in the freezing cold.
Damn
Damn
Damn

Mon I will be back in Sheffield
By Thur finish (should that be start?) stupid RTP report that will eat time.
Thur drive down to Watford.
Fri drive to FONT!

Is grit worth it? Part II

Friday night came and pessimistic Paul reared his ugly head. I went to the foundry. I found most people down there to be proclaiming the forecast incredible and they couldn't believe they had to visit their Gran/work/take the car in etc. I warmed up slowly and kept explaining my fruitless day on the grit earlier in the week. My cries of melt water and ice did nothing to dampen their impressions of the forecast and so in an unprecedented move I took off my boots, and headed home (without pulling hard at all).
The morning came and I wasted a tonne of texts finding out what was in condition. Nothing seemed perfect so I headed to Robin Hood's and Cratcliffe.
We warmed up on the chipped arete boulder. Jackpot! Conditions were incredible and I promptly phoned my mate James to gloat. After we were both warm (and I was bleeding from 3 knuckles after a moment of sheer stupidity) I remarked "I'll just go and do Jerry's Arete quickly before we venture on"...
*Tantrum*
Yes, despite my best efforts I couldn't claw my ass up it which was quite frankly dismaying given 3 years ago I nearly flashed it and then did it second go. I convinced myself I had the sequence wrong (I didn't) and wasted ages on it before it finally dawned on me; maybe conditions weren't very good down here in the trees. In fact, it turned out that conditions were fairly poo everywhere other than the first boulder we climbed on...Thank f*ck for that otherwise I'd be metaphorically hanging my boots up (that one's for Ben).
At Cratcliffe it was much the same. We did a few things but it all felt a little damp and I was very aware that climbing on wet grit is very bad practice so we called it a day. Not quickly enough as Nat managed to fall off and stamp my hand onto a nearby boulder. I ran around for a few minutes like you do exhaling loudly. The next day it was swollen and very sore!
Not quite as sore as James' ankle. The plonker fell of great white on his best go yet and dislocated his ankle on the mats. After picking him up from the Hallamshire Nat and I braved Meadowhell for Christmas purposes, it wasn't nice but it was needed.
His ankle is much better just a few days on. Being stubborn he's walking on it a lot and pretending it isn't hurting at all.
Right time to be off, Nat is arriving back at the station from her works Christmas do. It could be interesting...

Grit, is it really worth it?

The other day was a real let down. Dave, Katherine, Vic's, Nacho and myself arrived at a locked plantation car park shortly to find out that everything was suffering from run off. Burbage West wasn't much better so after moping around Dave and I went back to Sheffield via the Broomhill friary.
In the evening I climbed like a donkey, I'd resurrected my old boots and my feet were skidding all over the place. TBH looking back the session wasn't terrible but there were plenty of signs telling me to stop and go home. I ignored these but had a laugh nonetheless with Andy H reminding us of some of the classic feature and disc problems on the wave.
Just found this on the Climbing Acadmeys Blog:

Life getting in the way?

It may seem like my plan to try and get out as much as possible has failed and I'm falling comfortably back into my training rut. But, I must assure you this is not the case!
Last weekend I went out on Sat with Nat. As this is old news now I'll be brief; we started at the plantation which was cut short by a trip over to Froggat to spot a mate on Renegade. He didn't need it and was packing up as we arrived (ARGH!), Met Richdraws. With about an hour and a half of light remaining I had a tussle with Famous Grouse at BBG West. I lost. It felt like a bit of a wasted day for me at least. Thanks to Andy J, Nat floated up Pebble arête and was made up. Maybe by the ascent but mainly I believe at how nice everyone is in the 'scene' if I dare call it that. She's never really enjoyed 'sport' etc. but I think the social side of climbing and the fact she now realises that it doesn't just come instantly have helped in this case. Thankfully with no applied pressure from my direction, well apart from the odd rant.
Sunday wasn't good as I remember and the week was a busy one for me. This Friday I was meant to be out with Neddy boy but he screwed up his lecture timings and it left me a bit short on time which again felt like a bit of a waste.
The weekend was spent stranded in Watford with Nat's family instead of the usual Xmas formalities. Although I was a little bored I get on well with her family and her Dad has a lot more time to be sociable now that he is fully retired. Lots of drink was had and I scored brownie points by fixing various electronic devices and turning their DVD player Multi-region.
Now I'm back in Sheffield and I'm starting to get a bit worried about what I want to achieve work wise by Christmas and how little time I have left. Not to mention the fact that I only have one more weekend (this one coming) to enjoy in the Peak before its time for Bleau! Despite that I'm heading out tomorrow with Dave M to meet a team at the plantation before going to Baslow for Dave to do Flatworld RH (I think?).
I've been frequenting the Foundry board when I've had free time and I've just started getting to grips with it in the last two sessions (despite having man flu). Its not perfect but it IS good. Great to see Andy 'hydraulic crimping fingers' Harris at the wall the other night.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Dan V properly this week and being shown their board (although I couldn't climb as Nat had stolen all of my stuff). Thoroughly nice bloke and he didn't seem to take offence to some past comments made about Queens, although TBH I think my comments weren't the offensive ones!

It seems like a lot of people are out in Font over new year, if you're one of them then let me know its been ages since I tried something in a big team. It may even give me the balls to try some highballs. Hotline is on my list already!