VRS

Last weekend began with a whistlestop tour of the North half of England.

Sheffield > Liverpool > Darlington > Leeds > Sheffield > Stockport > Home then on Monday a quick 1-2 back to Stockport to pick up our newest car:

Before this we had a little too much money tied up in vehicles with the Van and the Punto (which didn't seem to be attracting many lookers, none in fact). Thankfully they both sold, and fairly painlessly too leaving us room to economise slightly and be happy.
I have to say, I'm made up with this one. Like usual I spent an age trawling relative forums looking for the regular faults so that on inspection I knew what I was on about.

It was quite funny in some cases to see what some people considered to be 'Great' condition; I'd have said: parked repeatedly by a blind person in one case .'FSH' (Full service history), being a business card for a Skoda salesman who would "tell me what its had done" was another. Shame as the optional leather was rather tasty although not very grippy in the corners.

The one we ended up with I'd passed over on autotrader due to it only having three pictures, all of which were bad and showed nothing. After viewing the rest and a lengthy phone call with the backstreet dealer proved he knew a thing or two, we took a chance and slipped over the snake once more expecting disapointment. This one was perfect, gleaming bodywork, clean interior, smooth power, no pulling no torque steer (different engines in the '06 models producing a much smoother torque curve and 138bhp standard). The ability to remap these up to 170bhp without any hassle whatsoever has been on my mind and with my free-thinking insurance company it isn't a problem anyway but I honestly have to say this car doesn't need it and likely won't get it.

Already we're seeing 56mpg and I havent stopped using my heavy right foot despite the white stuff that seems to have stopped everything else. I feel a bit stupid that I discounted these when we bought the last Punto, they may have a few less toys but what they do have is so much better (side note: why on earth has skoda released the new VRS with a piddly petrol?) and thank f*ck its not a golf. Perfect as they are, unless its sporting a GTI/V5 badge (or upwards) Golfs are automotive beige.

Hopefully I'm on the money here and we can keep this one a while, I'm getting tired of buying and selling cars. 7 in as many years is a bit silly.

Nat was off the rest of the week and as I am snowed under with work (it isn't going well) we decided to stay around and sort out the many chores that are mounting up and finally sort the rest of the flat out. 20 ish litres of paint later and we've only got one more room to go.

My elbow started playing up before this week so I've taken some time off; this has done nothing. Tonight, after seeking the advice of someone qualified I think the prognosis isn't that bad. Pronator curls here we come!

...Furthermore, I have to say I'm blown away by Dave-wh0-isn't-a-racist 's latest ticklist. That man is on fire. I wonder if I buy some skull candy, start wearing camo and walk around with a questionable hand position whether I'll get stronger?

D.D.I.Y.

Dare I type? (well at least its now on this blog and not on the Boltfund website; fool)

I have to say that I don't think I've been this tired at midnight on a Sunday for quite some time. Last weekend, before heading out on the grit we decided to quickly strip down the bathroom to its barebones and re-grout the shower. Needless to say; heading out on the grit didn't happen.
There was obviously something up with the first pot of readymixed grout (I say this in hindsight) but to me, a newly inspired tiling DIY novice I didn't have a clue and merrily carried on spreading it between all of the tiles before returing for a pre-bouldering snack. On finishing (eagerly) I checked out my handywork and realised what an utter mess it was. Then began the process of removing it all, which took until about Sunday evening. At this point you begin asking yourself "What was wrong with the old bathroom?" and "How much is my time REALLY worth?".

Every night this week was spent in the (very small) bathroom, doing and re-doing everything from grout, electrical fittings, floor, paint and wall fixings. I managed a quick session on Tuesday night where even removing my weightbelt made no difference and I quickly scampered back home to do yet more DIY. This weekend the remainder of our flat/workshop (at this point) needed restoring to a habitable state BUT goddamit I was getting out on the grit! Well.. Not so much, as someone bought our van on Saturday morning, the new PC arrived, as too did the NAS. All bringing with them a new list of things to do. (Although to be honest shifting the van is a load of my mind, and a car will allow Nat to stop commuting by the godawful rail network that links Leeds and Sheffield thus buying us back around an hour a day!).

Its all setup now and I can't wait to get back to some kind of normal behaviour. I've got plenty of work to do but at least I've now got the tools to do it and its all laid out in front of me; do this, do that then write; a fuckload. Tomorrow I'm going to strive to learn LaTEX and see if it lightens or increases the load, then, and only then I might be able to climb although I'm not expecting much. I'm sure at some point my commitment will return fully (he says [types] sipping on Leffe).

Weight

Today was one of those days whereby a helpful collection company give you the time slot of 8am to 8pm and I was stuck in. My university license issue hasn't yet gone away and thus I had an unproductive day of the highest order.

Nat returned home (late again after another shocking day on the trains; morning cancellation of service, then return journey 30 mins late and half the carriages == travelling like sardines) exhausted and less than enthused by the Foundry. However, for me, cabin fever had truly set in and we were soon Foundry bound and recieving a soaking of the highest order on the ~5 minute walk.

Having now done a large proprtion of the problems (look at me etc. [actually I think its a fairly easy set]) and then doing most of them again on features I couldn't really work out what to do. I'm still in the stage of upping the intensity at a slow pace and the board and campus board all seemed a bit too much for my notoriously fragile fingers. Instead I had the genius thought of resurecting my weightbelt. Made from Decathlog ankle weights and some cheap webbing it is actually very good but I've never actually used it with intent.

During school time (you see what I did there?), I'd occasionaly add plates to myself, gain assistance (as my feeble legs weren't enough) to the bar and attempt to emulate a level of zippyness that I never truly managed. Other times I'd stick a few plates on and ladder on the moon board (on the system holds of course). A few times I'd attempt a problem Joe le Sauasage style (Basic Knitwear if you want the true tick). Never repeatedly and never with much focus.

Tonight I saw clearly. Problems, problems on features, problems with added weight, problems with added weight on features. Double the amount of problems; Result! Weightbelts seem fairly in vogue right now and what a difference a few Kg's make! Even sitting seemed like a lot of effort. Technique took a serious hit as I fought to keep myself in contact with the bendecrete wall of choice and with every completed problem came a joyous crunch to my knees as I hit the deck with added oomph. Reversing wasn't an option, I'd barely made it up there in the first place. I was having fun, recieving a spanking of my own design.

My better half was not; continually face planting on a problem wasn't (for some reason?) making her night. Towards the end of the session I felt compelled to see if my Gym Boss was still working (the answer is; barely) and took it next door to beneath the beastmaker. Belt in tow, I somehow felt Encores were a great idea. 3 sets of torture to be exact.

Sitting here now (on my tiny netbook, I miss my desktop already), my shoulder blades feel more worked than I can remember.

What a relief to unclip the buckle and drop a few kg's instantly. I bet all the fat bastards out there wish they had a buckle.

But they don't.

Steaming

I've had a fairly frustrating few days...

On Friday my home PC started to bork. It looked as if it could all be down to my own stupidity of keeping it next to my Xbox 360 (which up until recently has been unloved). That thing (being an early elite) kicks out some heat; in the direction of the PC cooling fan. I rescued the poor Acer from its Microsoft cell mate and lo' and behold, the problems vanished and I managed to do a successful backup. Rosy.

Last night, I took the decision to have a late one busting out some work to start on the grid computing facilities. Roughly 30 simulations each requiring about 8 hours of run time + another hour to do some post processing. I finished at 4am and tried to upload them to my ftp account. But stupid me, I'd forgotten just how long it takes to transfer files of that size and number from home. I fell into bed, exhausted. This morning, I awoke to find a PC recovery console as my desktop with a big fat 'Failed' error message. It quickly dawned on me (over my morning green tea with lemon) that yesterdays hard work was all for nothing. I wasn't happy. Then again, I hadn't lost all 'that' much and set the PC recovering from a handy system image. Its completed but no longer seems to believe it has a network adapter. It wouldn't play nicely with Ubuntu either, or MemTest for that matter. Basically, its f*cked.

A little miffed I headed into uni/work and begun re-making my files. It always feels tedious doing large batches but even more so the second time. I finished at about 7 this evening and put them onto the grid computing system to find out... that there are currently no licenses for the given software.

So since taking over Fluent, Ansys have removed my standalone license, invoked a university wide license (which isn't currently active) and transferred the grid licenses to Fluent 12, which has failed. I'm effectively a hydraulics experiemnt which is short of a fluid. Having access to three grid accounts I'm now effectively 18 times slower without it. Thats a lot and makes any effort at the minute seem absolutely futile (but necessary?).

There is an upside to this all however (in fact a few):
1. I'll finally sort out my woefully inadequate 500Gb filled to the brim passport backup.
2. I went to the Foundry tonight and tore the place apart

I know its the done thing to claim general weakness when asked but without blowing my proverbial trumpet, I feel quite strong. Not my strongest ever mind you but certainly something approaching decent. It may seem from my recent postings that I've lost sight of my previous epiphany, that is not the case. Time is conspiring against me at the moment and there's nothing I can seemingly do. Indoors will have to suffice for the most part and the nature of training goes a long way to destroying the memories of a frustrating day.

Got wood?

Tonight (at the Works) I decided that next session, I'll be joining the Foundry. Not simply because its closer as an in-situ wonder mule made the though of boarding it at the works actually appealing, but simply because I can't have productive sessions there often enough.

Tonight (again) as I attempted to train amidst the throngs of teenagers who thought dyno'ing and forward rolls were endlessly entertaining someone muttered "show off" as I was doing one armers on the giant scaffolding rather publically situated by the entrace. I looked stunned for a minute (I'd assume) and inwardly fought my tourretic self from screaming something involving CVNT very loudly. The very thought that I'd rather be in a dirty old building at the top of heeley as far away from this climbing reality as possible obviously wouldn't have occurred to him and I decided to just carry on.

Simply put: I long for the board back. To be able to train in relative solidarity without being angered by those around me. To be able to shout loudly when I fail knowing only that I might upset a very thin pot smoking violin maker (and even that was hard). I want problems back that highlight a lack of power, an inability to squeeze hard enough or to pull. I DON'T want to train to Kelis. I'll still endeavour to get out as much as possible but looking at my list of 'loose ends' from my research I can't see this Winter being that productive or facilitating a lot of 'extra' time. At least training hard will do something to quell the quesitons that circle in my head after a day spent staring at the same model I've been using for nigh on 3 years (the situtation of which seems to get worse daily).

As per the advice of a certain round farm animal I've been taking it easy, from a Summer of tradding and a fair break from training as I know it, my body simply isn't ready to jump back into training hard. Its gone from once a week, to two. Now it features a bit of touches and a few one armers. Shortly its time to look at whats lacking and get to it. My core seems floppy on the BM board and my fingers feel weak. Rings would be great, but I'm not going back there.

I usually find Gymjones' tweets to be a bit much but a recent quote from Ueli Steck was brilliant:

"I am not better than anyone else, I'm just fanatical about training"

Well I certainly share the sentiment about training.



(^ Proof that we actually do go outdoors still)

I finally managed to sell my Italian Stallion over the weekend. It's been advertised for four months with barely a whisper of interest apart from one text, quickly followed by another to tell me he'd found something better.

Being a Fiat it didn't go quietly. Having been sat in a garage for four months without being started or charged very often I felt certain that we'd be playing warning light roulette on the morning of the sale. Strangely after being on trickle charge it lept into aciton with the first turn of the ignition. Shortly after it was left ticking away on the drive to re-charge before sitting there anxiously waiting for the next idiot who fancies some budget hot (well warm) hatch diesel fun.

The viewing went fine with the guy crawling all over the car and not raising a single problem. That was until he asked me how to open the bonnet. Previously (on return from 6 months of fun) I'd found my Dad had managed to spring the cable from the release handle. It took a lot of cursing in the foot well but eventually in a cramped dark garage I had it back on and we were in business. Knowing all too well that it was a Fiat, I finger tightened the bolts as they were obviously going to need taking off sometime again.

I cursed some more, but no sweat this was a quick task out in the open and in less than 5 minutes the cable was re-attached. I pulled it. Nothing, pulled harder. Nothing, removed cable, used big pair of pliers. Nothing. Sent the viewers in for Coffee while I tried desperately to spring the bonnet to no avail. In the end it was a test drive (thank goodness it started) to the local garage who heaved on the cable whilst wrenching the bonnet upwards, managing to spring it. Phew. By this time I was heavily p*ssed off as my hopes of achieving a good price had evaporated. Suprisingly however they were in love with the little Italian despite its obvious quirks and only negotiated the negligibe cost of the cable from the price. Result.

So now we're left with this:



It has nearly a 100k on it and Nat has in her wisdom decided that the train is not for her and she's going to drive again. That amongst other things makes the van an impractical single vehicle. Its a shame really as it does look very nice. I'm trying very hard to pick a practical vehicle that we won't need to change for a while (it seems like I've bought and sold a lot of vehicles over the last 2-3 years). Despite this there's an Alfa on the list.

Roundabout

Its incredible how it is possible to go so quickly from climbing outdoors all the time, to being aware that everything that can is getting in the way of getting out and it has been almost a month since you did anything really enjoyable on rock. This isn't a good thing but as I approach thesis write up time, deadlines get closer, problems NEED to be solved and Nats new job is leaving us both less and less time, it is reality. Whilst I'm here moaning its also worth remembering that there are a great deal of people far busier than I, who have levels of psych that are just beyond me. Work, Cycling, Climbing, Family etc. I applaud you as I slump on my sofa.


Since Pembroke I've managed very little, a quick dabble up Sheperds crag with Nat and Dad which was far too easy to be anything more than a bit of fun. Climbing as a three and leading every pitch was a bit of a pain if I'm honest and protecting two seconds seemingly defeated the point of using two ropes for what realistically could have been done in one, 60m pitch without too much hassle or forethought.

Alas the day was not wasted as I bumped into one of the first people to take me climbing and teach me a thing or two. Mr 5c Senior, it's been roughly 8 years since I saw him last. Our conversation was cut short as a small child tried their best to cut short their life by taking a tumble and clipping rocks, brances and everything else in sight. The kid was ok.

The slightest hint of climbing has been indoors. Its a funny one this; as Adam pointed out (no doubt whilst smirking), I've done a bit of a U-turn with regards to training, climbing and trad. Its been fun and I hope it'll stay with me for a long time. It may be easy, you mightn't have to be 'that' strong or fit but in reality it tests a whole different skillset, requires different knowledge and ultimately leads to some amazing experiences. There are a number of places in the UK that I still haven't visited, I hope to rectify this. If you're reading this and you once enjoyed a bit of the easy stuff and have never been to the likes of Pembroke I strongly urge you to give it a go. The routes I've done this year have been some of the highest quality that I've done in the whole of the UK. From watching a number of Seals bobbing up and down as I wobble high above a wire, to catching a little bit of sea spray on Rusty Walls, all of it has been fantastic. Despite this, its time I drifted back the other way a little. Comparitively (and I say that to avoid being one of those annyoing people who claims weakness before busting out a few one armers in an L-sit), I'm weak, my fingers are weak, my core is weak and I can't pull for toffee. If i'm going to enjoy my slightly imrpoved footwork after this winter then I'm going to have to re-align the starts and put in some hard work. It seems to be hard work. This summer has left me with a disdain for indoor wallas that previously I never felt, thankfully I still enjoy the masochistic undertones that training gives. Once I get going it'll be fine. So far this has consisted of a couple of trips to the Foundry and a bit of rings. Bring on the psych, albeit slowly as we all know how my body likes to cope with intensity. Snap.

On another note; Finally, someone has contacted me about the Punto which is a good thing as I was getting edgy and the van has been at the very front of my mind as an unnecessary luxury. As Dobbin points out, when you attach a certain value to motoring (even in a van) it gets costly. Do we really need it?

I also tried my best to cost myself yet more money by smashing a few flashes off some hard concrete. They've kind of survived, but it'll definately teach me to be a little less blase with minor gusts. I have to admit, I do quite enjoy dicking around with camera's at the minute. It'd be nice if everything stayed intact.

Have a picture:

Nat managed to scrape an extra week off between changing jobs (she now gets the train to Leeds) which teamed with her remaining holiday allowance gave us 12 days to enjoy. It was all a bit last minute and after failing to book onto Lundy we weren't quite sure what to do. Europe seemed like a safe bet, after all we'd been fairly lucky in our last trip. However, the Jura looked wet and would be undeniably hard, the Verdon looked great but its so far away and Calanques?... well we were faily sure our van would be stolen, or smashed in. Or maybe both and then burnt out.

Various discussions had us leaning one way or another until a few days before where Pembroke seemed like the future. I've been working on my head, not my finger nor my core and the other trad venues all seemed to have poorer odds with regards to the weather.

Arriving in Bosherston the place felt familiar, I know where to eat, sleep and buy food and by now I'm actually getting a feel for different areas. Much in the same way as the previous trip the climbing all went well, Nat led some more and we continued pretty much where we left off. One thing we failed to do was check the firing times for Sept and as luck wouldn't have it the MOD had big plans for playing soldiers as soon as the 1st arrived (which it did), Mother Careys was an option but having now done most things at our team limit (or Natalie imposed ceiling).

We sacked it to North Wales via the Osprey project. We've driven past this a number of times before on the way to Tremadog and carried straight on, this time we chose to take a look, approximately two days after the birds had migrated. Great.
North Wales was Scorchio and a few days were spent between the Cromlech and the stream in the pass where we sat with our stinky feet in the nicely chilled water.
The last few days were spent back in Sheffield carrying out 'necessary' tasks so that Nat was happy when she started her new job today.

Tonight, complete with Man Flu (Tm), I was coerced into a session at the Works. I can honestly say I haven't had the desire to go indoors for a while and tonight was no different. The works had an unusual scene, the amount if ripped up, hungry looking storng people was frankly shocking. The women were tearing the place apart and I fell off the first problem I pulled onto (a jug romp). That pretty much set the tone for the evening. People kept interjecting with comments such as "Don't worry it'll soon come back" to which I stared back blankly. Basically everything I've been doing of late is at odds to climbing hard and bouldering. I climb statically on trad, I'm careful, considered and faff around looking for jugs that in bouldering don't necessarily exist. I've got no snap, no pop and my tendons seriously did feel like they might crackle as I pulled on anything smaller than a finger bucket. It didn't bother me all that much. Ok, I'll fully admit that I don't really like a public ass-kicking or feeling weak but it wasn't at all suprising and isn't what I'm after at the minute.

What bothered me slightly was the fact that I didn't or don't have that 'will' anymore. The will to say no to chips, beer and gin and to hang off a wooden edge repeatedly instead. To try hard, eat clean and put everything I am into climbing. I'm more psyched for enjoying other aspects of life, trying to improve at photography and reading anything I can get my hands on.

But it'll change, it'll come back one day... I think.

(Random photos stuffed in from the Hols and the weekend. Some Rubicon shots (Nige) using flash which I 'think' ended up being quite subtle)

Preopsterous Tales

If I took you blow by blow through the last few weeks this would be a very long post indeed and to be honest I can't be bothered and I'm fairly sure anyone reading this can't be bothered either so I'll be brief and stick to the highlights.

Firstly, I can't believe its taken me this long to remember another aspect of climbing that is so enjoyable. Furthermore I can't believe that I've been climbing for this long without being dragged in some way shape or form towards the bottom end of wales.

Before leaving the forecast looked, lets just say; British. A quick check of other euro-destinations showed the South of France to look incredible. Somehow I held my nerve and decided we'd go to Pembroke.

Basically, we worked our way through our tick list (courtesy of UKB regulars) and rarely strayed from the Rockfax top 50. The tone was set early buy ensuring Riders on't storm was the first route we got on and the second was Bloody Sunday. The leap is fantastic and I can't see myself from running out of challenges down there anytime soon!

I was absolutely shocked when I abbed in down the Monster Face (it looked wet, it wasn't) to find Keith and Mule underneath Minotaur. We both respectively set off on different minor epics. When I got a little lost I asked Nat where the belay was. She promptly picked up the guide, read a different route description and sent me off on what turned out to be an interesting linkup of most routes within the central section.

We made it to Mowing Word and all the way up to St. Davids, which whilst a nice setting, seemed a litte boring compared to the more imposing routes at Pembroke south.

I've been trying fairly hard to work through the grades and try and build myself a somewhat solid trad head/foundation with which to build on and its going fine. Nat seems able to follow happily up to about E3 as long as the route isn't too steep but on our next visit the going WILL get tougher. I've got a few routes in North Wales I'd really like to get on this season and hopefully a few more in Pembroke and one on High Tor. If these all get ticked then I'll be happy and my short term goal will be ticked/realised/sent.

All-in-all my head seemed pretty solid up until the last day. A few too many in the St. Govans left me with the hangover from hell and the smell of fear (or maybe beer?) escaping from me at every possible point. Abbing into a calm, almost serene Mother Careys I inexplicably became intimidated by my chosen routes and tried to find every excuse under the sun to avoid them. That was until a little voice clicked and after bitching at Natalie for what was clearly my head issues we got sorted and had a whale of a time on the almight Zeppelin. The territory is outrageous (a bit like Rock Idol on steroids) and the climbing fantastic. It would have been a little better if there hadn't been a communication error that left me off belay for a moment on a less than solid finish.

The weather was generally kind to us but as the tides starting playing up a shower had us packing up and heading North for what turned out to be a lot of driving for a day trip to Tremadog. Twas a successful trip however. Nat did her first lead, the first pitch of Christmas Curry shortly followed by her second, the final pitch of vector (namely one step in the clouds).

Sorry if this is all a bit vague, there's a lot to cover.

Other highlights include over filling my coleman stove, pressurising it and priming it which then led to it heating up and forcing petrol out of the filler cap. This then took light and a self perpetuating petrol fire ensued.

I had a mission trying to get on Mother night. The stake seems to have disappeared thus making the rockfax high tide access descriptions no longer valid. I still tried. Raining blocks down on myself, lowering in and then top roping out of 'Just Klingon' to pull into the final groove, a bit pissed off and quite pumped to be chucked up at/on by a Fulmar. Two washes later and my trousers still have the tell tale oily stain.

My old cams ceased due to the sea air, an obvious sign that they needed some TLC.

...and naturally we went for 'Preposterous Tales' only to find someone had taken a shit down the exiting chimney. Nice. This would make for a good DWS for the first two pitches should anyone fancy it. After that you could easily reverse it and finish up high life.

As Nat has taken a new job she finishes in Wakefield on Tues leaving her another 12 days off before she starts in Leeds. Currently its destination unknown but its not as if Pembroke isn't a strong contender after this trip.

Nightmare of Brown Donkeys

The irony continues this week as once again my good lady is further North than usual and I am armed with four wheels and yet unable to use them with an impending deadline this Thurs.

The weekend wasn't looking too great further afield and over the phone I crumbled and agreed to her family popping in for dinner (a long way from Watford, non?) one evening either Fri or Sat. They plumped for Sat and on waking in the morning after sampling some local ales at the Riverside, it was plain to see that the flat wasn't going to be in an acceptable state to have guests if we went climbing. Reluctantly we both sorted the mess out and vowed to be more organised next time, with me silently cursing my moment of weakness.
The evening itself went off fairly well, her mother deposited some matching cushions (I shit you not) for the van made out of scraps from the upholstering. Leaving it too late again we scrounged a table at Zeugma 2 for what turned out to be a frustratingly average meal and one of the first her family have let us pick up the tab for.
Sunday came and I'd like to say we jumped out of bed and got going bright and early. The reality of it is Natalie woke early and I slept like the student that I am. After midday I surfaced, ate and plotted a course to Matlock.
Ever since abbing in to High Tor the first time I've eyed up the lines that break out of the Castellan cave, they breach some impressive territory and I can remember thinking on more than one occasion that it was unlikely I'd ever have the balls to do any of them.
After consulting the guide it turned out that many not so desperate routes forge their way through this steep ground. Circumnavigating the steepness with devious lines. Nightmare of Brown Donkeys (sadly I've not been dreaming about an ethnic neurotic version of the wonder mule, or is it the paragliding mule? You never know these days) was the route of choice. Mainly picked for line but backed up by stars and a recommendation from Mr. Littlefair. What I should have learnt by now (but sadly I haven't), is that Natalie is very happy to follow me up anything I should choose (that puts a sensible cap on it anyway!). However, if there is any form of sideways component to the route, she instantly becomes unhappy, and 'touchy', not to mention her movement slowing to a glacial pace.
The ab went fine although some fat b*gger has removed the spiky foothold I use to get past the first bit. All that remains is a brown hole where it once was. Abbing the line I pulled in on various bits of tat to ensure I had a fighting chance of ending up in the Castellan cave and thus avoiding the first pitch of loose VS crap that is skylight. Success was had and I was glad to be in the cave as Natalie rained down a block or two whilst abbing in. Good skills.
The first pitch is pretty fun leading you out of the cave on the RHS along the lower break to a stance below the groove.
Following this is one or two tricky (slightly bold) pulls into a dirty crack after which you climb up until you see a large peg, down climb a bit and then try and fathom whereabouts you actually turn the corner to the obvious ledge on Laurin. This took a while as there wasn't any chalk, and more to the point, there wasn't much for your feet. Especially if you've been an idiot and are now suffering the consequences of breaking in new boots in the most undesirable manner. After what was likely an age I found the traverse line and scrabbled my way across to the ledge via a piece of tat that looked bomber. Looking rightwards my error was clear; tat may look good on the outside but sure enough the bit inside the rock is probably not that confidence inspiring (exposed core and not much of it). A breather was had before eyeing up the various bits of tat, snapped bolts and wooden blocks and opting to belay under the big roof (not advised in the guide). Once again this had so much rotten tat that it was hard to pass my sling through the fair sized pocket in the back of the birds nest.
At this point my earlier identified issue came into play. Nat struggled with the initial pull into the groove, fought her way up to the peg then rat crimped her way over to the ledge looking non to happy. At the belay I gave her the option of backing off (I'd managed to lean out and grab the ab line on the aforementioned ledge and trailed it with (I really thought she'd want off at this point). My offer was met with a resounding "NO!" so once again the ab line was freed to hang in space.
The next, and final pitch has to be one of the finest positions I've climbed in thus far in the UK. Traversing on undercuts and poor feet underneath a roof to its edge and then making some fantastic moves around it and into a groove above. Sadly this is where my delight ended. Rock quality from hereon was poor to say the least and each path I attempted to leave the groove left me on holds that seemed more inclined to part company with the rock than I care for! Lower turned out to be the way, with an old peg marking the path that some fool must have picked out many moons ago.
At the top, boots off, life returning to my toes ever so gradually, Natalie began what was to be an entertaining pitch. Having placed two runners fairly early on the traverse, the first easily visible, the second somewhat buried, I made sure to explain that if needs be she should clip into the first bit, lean across to strip the second and then unclip from the first, remove it and continue. This almost registered but not in its entirety. From what I gather, she did indeed clip into the first, and then succeed to remove the second. However, she failed to remember to unclip from the first and thus began a process of moving the nut and then re-weighting it in exhaustion. This process was repeated until the inevitable happened; she'd moved it enough that it wasn't good enough to sit on. A little shriek later (enough to stop walkers down by the road), a lot of cursing, and a quick top rope of a dirty (harder) route and she was into the joyful world of loose rock for which I was blamed.
On summiting a quick glance at my mobile showed that it'd taken us a whopping 5 hours. I still can't quite fathom where the time went but considering you can get a meaningful value in mm per minute and that people climb El Cap in less time it was seriously slow.

(I really wish I had a compact to carry on routes like this)

Wet and Dry

As Nat is away this week and next the aim was to get out as much as possible and do very little work. However, next week I have a rather large progress meeting and this simply isn't possible. I'm starting to get very disillusioned with my studies as a lot of the time I feel I'm scratching around in the dust looking for something of novel interest. Add to this that I struggle to justify the increasing complexities of my models; they don't give better results (in fact they're arguably worse) and computationally they take much longer. Currently I have around 18 all queued up on various university accounts. Each one takes 160 hours on the grid computing system I have access to. Thats a lot, althought not as bad as an earlier one which took nigh on 28 days of iterations, night and day.
Due to this, I didn't leave the office until after 8 today and made it to the Foundry by about half past. A brief hello on the way in made me a few minutes later and by the time I'd finished re-filling chalk and lacing on my new pair of boots it wasn't that far off 9.
I hate time-pressured sessions in or out. There's so much risk that you either won't warm up enough, or you'll warm up too quickly and ruin what little time you have etc. Thankfully tonight I did none of these things and the session felt very like a good (dare I say it?) School session. The wave is a great wall, even to this day I've never come across a wall thats as good at introducing steep footwork and power in a realistic manner, granted the feet are always going to be a bit bigger than when out but its not bad is it?
Anyhow, I climbed well and with little rest. I felt powerful but more importantly I seemed to be moving well (which is a good feeling). I think there's something to this getting out lark?

Unfortunately something tonight really boiled my piss. Talking to someone whose name I really ought to know by now (I don't), the conversation drifted to Kilnsey and I made mention of the recent changes in condition seemingly overnight to which he laughed. He then made a fly-away comment about how 'his mate' had been bragging that he was going to post a false 'wet' conditions report. Now if this is the case I think its fairly off. People base their (treasured) weekends/evenings/days-off on the information supplied by freinds and the good people of UKB trusting them to be accurate with maybe a little pinch of salt thrown in for the needlessly pessimsitic (*cough*). To undermine this system in such a manner seems to me needlessly selfish, maybe it secured a quiet crag, maybe it was just for fun but personally I don't find it very funny.

Thats all a bit heavy so feel free to click on the recent Flickr uploads link for a laugh. If anyone is interested (which I'm sure they're not) I'm keen to get a piccie of someone on powerband using rim lights etc. Recently I flicked onto the Beastyboys channel and saw some of Mark S's recent off-camera flash and thought I'd stop neglecting mine and aim to use them in a climbing context. Which as until now (apart from an indoor shot:

at the works), I've failed to do. I wasn't really happy with that one either, can't put my finger on exactly why. Maybe 'cos its shit.

Unleashing the dank physique

The cornice certainly won today...

The clean routes were unaffected by this recent spell of poor weather. The less clean stuff wasn't and was hanging onto moisture to the bitter end.
After nearly punching myself in the face a few times on undercuts and then becoming airborne in a blink of an eye. My best boots split with a giant smile rendering them useless.
After this performance I'd run out of excuses why not to get on something tricky. Monumental was clearly going to be too much and a little damp, K3 and RNP appealed but something a bit more left field, featuring the word 'technical' appealed the most. Unleashing the wild physique seems to follow a fantastic line (or it looks too from the ground), the climbing is thin and technical with some finishing spice. Its at a bit more of an ameanable grade than the other routes on my list (although in my estimation it sits fairly high in this boundary).
Anyway I had a brief crack, which rapidly turned to bolt to bolting (wearing a ruined pair of dragons). To be brutally honest I found it quite hard. The bottom is easy, the top is ok but very fluff-able, the middle is thin and very fluff-able. My sequence doesn't seem perfect but a quick chat with Carl suggested I make a few adjustments that retrospectively make sense.
Typing this, my middle finger aches. I'm a little worried, with little over a week before the big hol I don't really want to re-injure my finger. It might be worth backing off just ever so slightly until afterwards.
Cordless Madness looked good from above and has been added to 'the list'.

Tor'd

Another of the 'excuse routes' went down the other day and just as I was about to get on the last remaining one it was snatched from beneath my gaze by an eager clipstick. To be fair, I was knackered from the previous evening and having done an awful lot of mileage in the last week, I wanted a rest day.
Saturdays weather didn't offer an easy choice of weekend destination so we stayed in the Peak. We didn't get going quickly either. Some time in the afternoon we plumped for High Tor and drove through on and off sunshine and rain all the way to Matlock. At the top it was windy so we sat (and bickered) wasting time. If we were both honest, neither of us were feeling the psych.
The clouds parted and after pointing a nearby walker in what I now know was completely the wrong direction (oops, thankfully not off the cliff), we bit the bullet and abbed in. Darius was what I wanted having thought I'd followed it a good few years ago with a Mr. Bell (namedrop alert). That day we didn't have a guide just a local climber who obviously didn't know what on earth he pointed us at. The route I did on Saturday was not the same and considerably easier. I remember starting up a hanging groove which had a large bit of tat hanging from a peg with a ring (which was split) and then belaying off on the right somewhere on a very large (4" diameter) round 'peg' which was folded behind a flake, does anyone know what this might have been? I'm pretty sure we finished on the final pitch of Debauchery.
Anyway, this time we did have a guide, and to be fair, the line is bleeding obvious. Its good too. We split the pitch for a few reasons and I have to say it took me a good long time to find a decent stance between the miriad of shit pegs on perseus. My nutkey, some digging and threading came good and I was happy. (For all of the purists out there I made sure I went back down onto the original line as not to miss out any of the hard climbing.
Higher up on the crux move, (certainly the nicest move?), I managed to f*ck up my ropes. This was clearly going to lead to a lot of drag and a pain in my ass so I had great fun reversing the cross hands manouevre back to the bolt (another question, why is there a bolt right next to a bomber thread?). After this the climbing is piss but the territory steepens a little. Nat didn't like this, especially when removing her knuckles to retrieve a wire.
Sunday was spent at high tor again, this time Perseus featuring on the agenda and some serious scoping of the routes right of Flaky wall (this looks fantastic by the way).
This week and the next she's up in Newcastle, leaving me to live the climbing bachelor lifestyle (wifebeater vest; check), complete with van. The problem is I've got a massive progress meeting a week on Thurs and a few unexpected twists and turns has left me a little pushed for time. I can do the work easily enough IF it'll converge in time. It seems a waste not to make the most of this time but sadly its looking like I might have to scrounge what little climbing I can between bouts of hard work.
This evening was spent on the wave (what a wall!). I was expecting to get absolutely spanked but gladly I felt fairly strong and even better I seemed to be moving and twisting in all the right ways.

Two weeks to holiday time. Just made a ticklist and it amounts to 60 routes in North Wales alone.

Seriously Sloe

I thought I'd finally collared a belayer for the spider later last week but he escaped at the last minute leaving me as another tag along to the Cornice. I've never really trained stamina and never really felt the need to as it seems to come quite quickly at the start of the sport climbing season proper after a few frustrating sessions of flailing.
Having now learnt how to climb at the Cornice a little better and having the numbers on almost anything that could be classed as a warmup I've been well poised to get a bit fitter by ticking routes I've never been on and getting them wired so when it does become the time to get stuck in I'll be ready.
That time is vastly approaching. Tues I spent at the Cornice, twice. I'd agreed to go out in the evening with somebody and then a better offer came a long for an early start to mid afternoon. I took both which resulted in doing 10 laps up and down. Some of those were doubles but not all and led me to believe I was getting a little fitter.

Random old photo of Nemesis to break up this mass of jibber jabber. Taken Sept '05!!!.

August is rapidly approaching and I'm aware that another good weekend of weather (although the forecast wasn't that way) was lost to sorting the last bits and bobs on the van. Apart from one 'maybe' task, its done and I have to say a big thanks to everyone thats lent a hand and for abuse of Nats' parents hospitality and tool'age. Worryingly enough it seems like far too long since I required my nuts, I'd rather have my head in the right place before our two weeks begin rather than feeling I lose a few days getting into the groove. We have 16 days, I wonder how much climbing we'll get in? (My mind has been thinking of viable backup alternatives should the UK ressist with a wet fortnight).
Yesterday was meant to be the cornice again but an achey belayer bailed on me. It was probably a good thing too as tonight I went and felt a little creaky. Maybe I'm not 'quite' as fit as I was hoping. Nat joined me tonight after work and got stuck into War Memorial (after a few cams were placed for the ending spice). She frustrated me greatly by putting in a valiant effort, flailing at the bulge and then walking up to the belay and then, not getting back on? Much bickering ensued, mostly from my side. Although, she has developed a new style of belaying. I like to refer to it as emotional belaying. I won't go into detail, but its not ideal.
I did a few routes but annoyingly couldn't seem to get on the ONE route I was hoping for. There was a serious man in-situ, not very talkitive and who broke out his protein post redpoint. Laughably another less serious man chose to break out the Sloe Gin. As ever my wishlist is expanding at an unstoppable rate. This can only be a good thing right? It is an indicator of psych. The main issue will be when I have to pick something meaty (oh look at that, pick on vegans Friday already?). I've got a few more excuses (this is the river and the other line into it) for staying away from the burl or the tech but they won't last long, a couple of sessions at best (worst?). Then I'm lost:

Unleashing looks fantastic.
K3 - tempting but every man and his dog seems to be on this one route, queing isn't fun
RnP - supposedly better?
and the big one...
Monumental - it looks fantastic

Other things on the list are:
Spider
Lockless - hopefully a quick affair?
HFC - this should be done and is grating away at me

I wouldn't mind swinging around the main roof at Kilnsey either, if only for an onsight blast as I'm sure the frigging will get tiring in more than a few ways. The chances of me getting on, let alone completing all of these routes is slim to none. The spider can wait until later in the season and HFC will be avoided until I know for certain it'll get done instantly, another day spent on that and I will lose the will to live. BUT, the Cornice needs full appreciation while its in condition.

Being a complete amateur, my boots are now well and truly ruined. I've got one pair of ok ish dragons, a new pair and an ill fitting pair of verde's. This needs rectifying in some way between now and holiday.

Right better go, funnily enough I'm at the Cornice tomorrow.

Van Conv.

Can't be bothered to insert all of the tags for the recent conversion pics. If you're interested they're here:

http://bit.ly/bN48l4

Got offered a years secondmant today in Stuttgart. Anyone know of the climbing situation Jura/Pfalz both two hours away?

Monumental Failure

Last Tues should have been spent out, not in. However, Nat had made other arrangements that left me without transportation and with a million and one things to sort out so I was doomed to a sweaty evening at the works. Actually there was quite a good scene and I climbed surprisngly well given my lack of indoor activities over the last few months (novel I know).

Later on in the week 'she' left for the North East as it seems this is the only place in which her office has any work and I used my time alone to make the flat look as if I am indeed a bachelor by not tidying up after myself, batch cooking and drinking solo. I cobbled together a last minute plan to get out on Fri although I struggled to find other daytime warriors and finally used UKB's hookup forum to get out and about.

When Friday came the destination had been agreed as Cheedale cornice. Why not? Its not as if its dry often and at least it should be quiet. 'Nai' and I enjoyed the place to ourselves warming up on something incredibly filthy (not in the good way) and being generally blind to fixed gear I ended up making it more bold than it needed to be.

Now, the Cornice and I have a strange relationship. The first place I ever climbed on Peak lime was Cheedale Cornice. After being at uni for a matter of minutes I posted over on UKC (note the difference) for someone to climb with. I'd spent the summer working my way through many of the trade routes at Kilnsey and had topped off my season with my hardest every redpoint and basically I was overly confident (hopefully not equally arrogant), coming from a small climbing scene I imagined that I in fact was much stronger than in reality.
Who answered my post? None other than UKB's insect overlord the Shark. I popped over to his that evening for a quick drink, met his mad collie and heard how a freindly local student had kicked his wing mirror off (I think?) after an evening on the sauce.
The day of reckoning came later that week as I stood outside ranmoor waiting for my lift. It came in the form of a 330d estate and I don't think I'll ever forget a foolish comment made by another passenger at the time which resulted in more rapid progress throught the peak district than I anticipated.
We parked at wormhill and I spent the next 20 mins sliding around on my arse as skate shoes clearly weren't up to that muddy approach. When we arrived at the Cornice every one else seemed plenty happy enough but not me. Having spent most of the summer at Kilnsey with the odd trip here and there to Malham or Gordale I was seriously unimpressed. I was assured the climbing was great and the various teams started warming up. Clarion Call was the first order of the day and begun my Peak limestone education with a big fat slap back to reality. I can't even remember if I got to the top, most likely yes but not by much.
I lowered off and Shark went on K3. Powerplant was my chosen route (fool) and I spent the next 30 mins suspended from the bolt by the undercuts perplexed. One thing that its worth noting is that back then, power was something I didn't have. Currently when I go back on one of the routes I enjoyed that summer at Kilnsey its blatantly obvious just how much weaker I was. My sequences involve deviances that I wouldn't even think about currently. If you haven't seen it yet, the irony here is that aged 18 I actually identified this as a weakness and delt with it accordingly, it took until I turned 25 to see that I didn't ever stop in this pursuit.
After yet another schooling on powerplant I moved on, this time to climb with Mark on 3rd reich I believe, a thin 7c ish (?) thing on the right hand side. Again the holds were tiny, the climbing tenuous and I had recieved another harsh lesson on the white stuff.
Fast forward a few years and i was back again, this time my Curly haired belayer and I arrived and I knew exactly what to do; avoid clarion call. Inspired by a picture of Ru footless I decided to dog up Nemesis. The climbing was good and I sorted the moves individually (no doubt swearing they were/are easier than clarion call) and lowered off to take over belaying duty. When it was again my turn to climb I put in a valiant effort which ended on the Sika'd hold, pumped out of my mind with little chance of recovery that day. I picked off something in the center of the wall at a much more ameanable grade before leaving.
Now back to Fri; Having only had one day of sport so far this year (which went 'kinda' ok) I wasn't sure what to expect. I haven't trained in a while and outside I've been plodding. My forearms were still a little tender from the weeks earlier session. I decided after looking at a particular route that any chance of a hard route was out and that I should try and enjoy some onsighting. The warmup was done (as above) and we moved onto clarion call.
From here on out I climbed the worst I've climbed for quite some time. I couldn't pin point what was wrong for the simple fact that everything was wrong. Sloppy footwork, poor reading, no arms, no fingers, no stamina. Thankfully one thing was with me, no fear (well only a little bit. Beal Joker 9.1mm + GriGri + Featherweight + New belayer leaves a few nerves here and there) and it was a good job too as everything and anything from here on I fell off. Redpointing 7a's was soul destroying and I couldn't really find a reason to cling onto. Pritch turned up and didn't seem to believe how poorly I was climbing until he witnessed it with his own eyes. I was all ready to right this blog as an admission of my poor performance without excuses however my body has obviously created a highly developed self defence mechanism wherby dobbin esque levels of neurosis are converted into actual ailments; in this way as Fri progressed so too did 'Man Flu'...

The weekend was spent stranded in Watford making final adjustments to the van and drinking too much at the family BBQ. It wasn't fun and as I was doing very little (stitching) I couldn't force the workers to speed up. Another weekend is required to finish the last little bits and I don't really want to sacrifice any more good weather for this.

Later on this week a Cornice re-match... maybe.

I have now booked two weeks off starting in Aug which I hoped to spend puntering around throughout some UK venues. The list is long and I have to say, after Fri the confidence is slightly dented.

Dream of White Horses (fancy a spot of riding?)

Very tired today after having a monster weekend at Gogarth. We left Sheffield at 10pm on Fri night after sorting plenty of last minute van things (including a stove). We arrived later at the South Stack lighthouse to see nought but fog and a beam of light cutting through it. I tried to capture this but failed miserably (repeat after me; manual focus).

Lighthouse, Gogarth, South Stack from Bennp2000 on Vimeo.

I also spent a small age trying to figure out how to use rear curtain sync to take a photo of Nat with a slow burn and then flash her in. Again I failed as canon doesn't offer that off-camera apparently?

Day 1 (or Saturday as its more commonly reffered to) was spent at Wen Zawn and the nearby areas. For the popularity of our first route we were (pleasantly) surprised to be the first people on the crag and the only team that appeared later went on Wen anyway. As everyone surely does, we viewed the Zawn from the promontory which somehow managaes to offer a viewpoint that reveals none of the obvious bedding planes you can see instantly from the ab. I'd advise gearing up somewhere other than the top of the ab itself, the approach and scramble down is atmospheric to say the least.

Dream itself is fantastic, the final pitch crosses territory that it really shouldn't (at the grade) and set the tone for the remainder of the routes (and moreover the weekend). Later on we headed to the Britomartis area and did a few routes here. A route finding accident left me on slightly harder territory at one point but apart from knowing I was in the wrong place I was fairly happy.

Not a terrible photo given you can't tell what you're taking using our horrendous little Fujifilm, the lack of viewfinder makes it impossible to know what you're taking a picture of when you're outside. It is however, waterproof should it go for a swim (I felt like testing this at more that one point).

Some helpful sole asked to use our ab rope which of course was not an issue until later that day when I came to take it up and found they'd left a nice big overhand knot in the bottom of it. Of course it got stuck and I got pretty angry.

The weather on Day 1 was fantastic (as above) with little wind. However Day 2, was somewhat contrasting. Despite the sky and ocean being stupendously blue, the wind made the whole Zawn a lot colder and a trifle more intimidating. The wind literally emptied my chalkbag as a gust came through the arch and straight upwards, showering the top of the crag in superchalk. I could see on a colder day with stormier sea's that these areas could get rather intimidating to say the least.

As Nat decided that The Flytrap (despite my best persuasion techniques i.e. Bitburger) wasn't one for her after our slightly harder route finding fail the day before we opted to do another route on the Zawn. Concrete chimney. Again this takes a line through territory that looks rather unlikely at the ameanable grade that it gets and it felt fairly exposed on the lower arete with the wind doing its best to try and unerve us both. It failed with me (medal?) but mightily pissed me off as I found I had to place a cam to keep what should have been a bomber sling in place! Nat was a little unnerved and below the final pitch we had a quick chat to check she was ok continuing (instead if slinking off onto Dream). It wasn't wholly clear if she was entirely happy but I couldn't be arsed waiting for it to clear anyway. I'm glad we didn't slink off as crossing through another unlikely set of overlapping slabs and roofs is one of the finest pitches I've ever done. Afterwards we called it quits and headed back Sheffside exhausted, the van having served us perfectly over the weekend.

More more more.

Week in Photos

Not really in the mood to write a lot. Mon - Tues was spent in North Wales with Reeve on the slate. Anything hard was his, anything easy was mine.

No doubt some will view that as ruining the onsight on some classics but it was a good few days and there are plenty left.

One nu-skool classics we went on was the Wow Wow, great fun but there was plenty of loose rock on the 2nd pitch (my pitch), which I wasn't happy about.

The van has progressed nicely:
Aux input
Underseat sub
Metal Frame
Wooden boarding
Foam

Now all that needs doing is covering the foam and sorting out some curtains or thermo-mats. I'm getting a little bored of sourcing ancillaries however its nearly done. Its a tad painful as with the van conversion, the van itself and upgrading my (or our) rack:

(add to that a Beal Joker and we're away!)

...we seem to be spending at an unsustainable rate.

The van is supposed to facilitate more climbing. It'll be good when thats the case.

Electric 6ix

The fusebox was a bit messy so it was time to tidy it up:

Barely visible:

Also got the back window tinted.

Seem to have found a little problem; the aerial or the headunit won't pick up radio very well (thankfully in Sheffield its ok!). I can't really work out if its the unit or the aerial, I did however notice that the headlining has been peeled away slightly by the aerial connection (its in the screen btw). The connection doesn't seem broken and technical prodding hasn't made much difference (if anybody has any idea pipe up!).

Got measured up for the rear frame. I'm going box tube with welded connections to keep the structure as shallow as possible. A few plates aligned to the heavy load points turns it into a bolt in bolt out feature.

After that, there's curtains and trimming the foam and then its ready. I really want to fit an underseat sub and an ipod lead but talking to various ICE shops it seems more money than I want to spend.

Hmmm

Furry Fingers

This weekend was spent almost entirely inside the caddy with carpet and glue. Lots of glue.
First the wiring was done, then removal of the panels. Then finally carpeting of the metalwork, panels and headlining (with the installation of four LED spots).

Results (which I'm proud of and spent most of this evenings sessions showing off):

I spent most of Sunday evening picking carpet fur from my fingernails which had been stuck with high temperature contact adhesive.

Tommorrow I am going to discuss a bed/platform options for the back. Get the rear tinted and visit a few audio specialists to discuss my 'needs'.

Tonight I went to the works, it'd taken about a week for my finger swelling to go down so the muggy heat worked to my advantage keeping me off anything vaguely tricky. It was boring and sweat but with my finger mummified in tape it was also pain free.

Nat and I decided that we'd sort the van as quickly as possible to save missing the summer. So far thats going well and now its in a completely usable state. Can't wait to finish it off.

A different kind of Tor

How many more times will I have to run out of gear for me to realise/admit that my trad rack is woefully inadequate and go and spend some cash?

One more it would seem. Tonight, at High Tor. Not only did I run out of wires that would fit, I was using my Petzl spirits which gave little confidence in the wires I placed not lifting out the second I was above them. Oh and the core of my rope seems badly damaged about 10cm from the middle.

This weekend Nat wanted to see some of her old school mates and I took that opportunity to totally abuse her parents hospitality and the vast array of tools and DIY equipment her dad hoards.

To good effect I might add. Vinyl floor fitted, B pillar trim cut out of old bulkhead (tricky). New panels cut. Vinyl inserts cut for trays etc.











Next up is lighting, headlining, carpetting and flashing tape. Lots of it...

Still can't find a non switched non timed live in the back of the van though.

Burnt Out

Last weekend we both burnt out (I did quite literally setting my arm on fire at Neds). Getting out every evening possible and putting off chores for another day caught up with us (Nat especially) and we just didn't want to do anything. Except drink, mainly at Neds birthday bash.

Recently we've aquired another van. This one isn't too big nor is it too small. Its juuussst right, a VW Caddy C20 104, BEHOLD:



Pretty happy with how the shot turned out, its been a while since I played with my strobist kit and I believe that was the first shot of that nature taken with the 550d (which I love).
The van itself is essentially a Golf GT Tdi with a box on the back. This one packs the appearance pack, the electrics pack, climate control and cruise control. Can you say 'fully loaded'?

Reading Stu's blog I have to say I'm very envious. I've always wanted to try Mandela after being up there on a previously wet day with various equipment that I've never seen before (resembling stirrups), the only rose like moves I'm doing at the minute however is crossing my hands between the two different temperature bowls of water in front of myself. In an act of blind stupidity and to erase the guilty feeling for not climbing at the weekend I went down the works and clearly went mental. Pushing the cod finger far past its comfort zone and I'm now paying the price. Its worse than it ever was and ice isn't doing much to comfort it. I felt strangely strong but I guess thats easy to do swinging around on jugs?

This weekend we're committed to a trip down south (to the almost in-laws). I'm intending to make full use of a non climbing weekend by starting to fit out the rear of the caddy using her Dads extensive tool collection and DIY fetish. The whole point of the van is to allow weekend raids without the need to stay in a tent (which I have to say isn't my bag these days) or finding somewhere else (£££). Its essential that the project doesn't escalate to the point at which I finish with little of the summer remaining.

In another bid to save some cash this year and not having immediate enthusiasm to go back to a specific part of Europe (without a little more time for Nat to improve and get more out of it [her words]), we intend to do a mini UK tour at some point (time of year?). Taking in many of the places and routes at an ammeanable grade that really I ought to have done by now.

Back to switches, carpet, plywood, screws, cabling, steel and glue, lots and lots of spray glue.

Ominous Froth

This weekend we'd managed to get ourselves a little more organised which meant a quick and efficient start to the weekend.
Saturday we drove down to LPT after being tipped off by Mini-pick that the tides were right. We spotted an alarmed Doylo as our little Punto casually passed the cave. After Natalie faffed around for what seemed like an age we were trundling back along the road towards the LPT descent. A quick stop and chat in the cave to assure Father Doyle that I hadn't come all the way for Parisella's and then I pointed Nat down the death slope approach.
The crag seemed fairly popular and given the lack of sun and a strong breeze it threatened to be painfully cold. We warmed up on Kaffee something which wasn't the best of choices at which point the sun turned the corner and turned the crag into a great place to be. I know LPT can be a little funny with conditions but things didn't feel too bad. A little soapy in places but nothing to moan about. Anyway back to the climbing; God knows what it was but I climbed the warmup in terrible style. My feet felt like planks and I just wasn't moving nicely. On return to sea level I realised why; having cut my monsterous toe nails the night before and being lazy with my laceups my toes were nowhere near the end of the boots.
Nat had a tussle but inevitably found it hard and again the wrong choice for a warmup. We moved rightwards onto the other easy lines and picked them off one by one. All nicer and all with just enough clips to keep you happy (or one too few for my better half). I gave her a nudge in the right direction and got her back on the sharp end, after that she seemed to get more confident with the runouts and showed a glimmer of the determination she pulled out now and again on her best efforts.
At this point I noticed the crag emptying. I'd only finished warming up and I was damned if a minor thing like the sea was going to stop me climbing more. We both did one more route at which point the sole remaning team left. The ominous froth deposited by the incoming tide was perilously close but once again I decided there was time for one more. The crag was now empty, all other climbers were long gone, even the peeking heads from the cave had disappeared. One more? why not, after all its only a 7a+ and I've done it before. Nightglue it was (what a fantastic route). The start was wet, so too was the undercut seam but that didn't detract from what is a fine set of moves. A quick blast up to the angular jug before a shake out of Spanish proportions. A quick move right which highlighted just how weak I was. Its not a massive move or a terrible hold but I had to try worringly hard. Again a stupendous shakout at the next jug (as I did so I tried not to take in just how close the sea was. All that remained was the final spring up the headwall where the last small hold threatened to re-tweak my finger. Above this are three strikingly similar moves and a lower off.
Back on the floor we made our exit in a wild scrabble vowing never to do "one more" again.
Sat night we had a B&B in Llanberis (twas my birthday after all).
Sun we awoke and drove up the pass to see the sunshine hitting Dinas Mot. The original plan had been the cromlech but the sun hitting the north side quickly changed our minds and we ran up Direct Route or something similarily easy. It again became evident that my rack is too small as I fished around on stances for placements that fit my remaning gear rather than the other way round. We abbed back down the western gullly and then spent 20 mins tugging on a stuck line. Nat had misinterpreted my "when you come down just move the knot out of that channel", inevitably lots of bickering ensued.
Back in Llanberis we had a rushed late lunch (chip butty) whilst weighing up whether or not we had time to find Rainbow Slab from the bus stop parking or whether we'd just walk around for hours getting lost until dusk.
I really wanted to find it, Nat was knackered and had little psych. This time I won (twas my birthday the day before) and rather painlessly I found myself at the top of the rainbow staring at one of the most hilarious bolts in the world. It was place in a block the size of which dictated that it can't weight more than 30kg, in the bottom of a collapsed building. I didn't want to ab the cystitis line as with the minimal rack I really did want a look at what was on offer (Fail).
Abbing down the rainbow slab is an atmospheric experience. The slab itself is so blank on your right and above all you can see is tier upon tier of destruction caused by man. Behind, a more natural view and inbetween a power station offering a mild hum broken only by the sound of clattering slate.
We were both glad to have bothered at the end of a long weekend, the climbing on Pull my Daisy (a lowly E2) is stunning. Nat flew up it like a rat up a drainpipe and told me she'd found her calling: Slate. I think she might change her mind when I pass over the wires (or lack thereof).
Yesterday, I (or we) bought a caddy. I still stand by the decision to sell the T4, its far too big. But this isn't much bigger than a golf, you can sleep in the back and comes with the same (if not more) creature comforts up front. Add to that the stunning R32 rims and I couldn't ressist.

Unfortunately this now means the Punto must go.

This blog has recently been turned on its head. Over the last few years in Sheffield I had definitely become lost, training for no particluar goal apart for the trip that I was almoste sure, would happen, some time, maybe. Thankfully it did and as they say, its all money in the bank.
Since coming back I've struggled (which is encouraging) to slip back into the training mentality and the quest for power for powers sake. Instead I've been getting out. Loads. At this point I'd like to say that its been a long time since I've enjoyed climbing in Britain this much. This weekend was no exception:

Learning from our mistakes we went where the weather dictated. Saturday was spent at Kilnsey with Nat becoming re-familiarised with the prospect of sport climbing and I became more accustomed to having to do more than a few moves in a row and finding my forearms to swell rapidly. Nothing special was achieved by either of us and for myself 4 routes (nothing of note) in, I went for a fifth whereby I curled up and died by the second bolt with chilly fingers and solid forearms. Despite this, I can't wait to get back. Nat's very keen to tick a few things and thus it begins!



Sunday we made a rash decision to go to North Wales. LPT looked bon, until we checked the tides (or Doyle did on our behalf) and found that the sea had other plans. A quick re-evaluation, Gogarth was mentioned but Nat wasn't too keen for seconding classic traverse pitches above the sea and instead we settled on the slate. Where I would have to quickly become happier with runouts and serious situations.
That I did as it soon became apparent that my rack (bought around 10 years ago and having nothing added since) is wholly inadequate for most trad routes. Take a trad route that only eats very small gear and I had one or two pieces at best. Not the ideal situation.
Nonetheless the day was spent ticking classics in Vivian quarry, Serengetti and then finally to finish at California with Looning the tube, which I fully expected Nat to hate. She loved it.

Monday we'd planned to do a route up the Nose on Dinas Mot. Like usual though we'd left it too late and after a few up and downs of the pass decided we'd rather climb than wait for a parking space. Therefore, we went straight back to the quarries. More california, a bit of Australia and then the tiers above looning. Not a bad day out, if a little busy for my liking.
The journey back took a little over four hours which was mildly eased by Radio 1's DnB takeover. Mildly.

Tonight I went to the works. A warm heat and strange conditions left my hands feeling glassy on everything. The board spat me off in disgust which has left an undesired pain in my neck. Currently I have an old Umbro sock, filled with brown rice and a few dashes of olbas oil (to hide the smell) draped over my neck after spending a few minutes in the microwave.

At the minute I'm juggling too many lists in my head an invariably I will forget one. Its come the time to put virtual pen to virtual paper and commit them to print.

Grit Omissions:

• Purple Haze
• Velvet Crab (although after my warm scrittle attempt I'm not so psyched)

Unfinished Business:

• Monsterosity - my biggest redpoint glitch to date. I just can't finish this one
• Hot Fun Closing - should be a formality later on in the summer season

Get Fit:

• Comedy
• Ground Effect
• Sticky Wicket
• 50 for 5
• Dominatrix
• Biological
• Frankie
• Sideshow
• I'd also love to try Mandela, I'm not such a pussy these days and Nat is happy to play belay bunny so it should be on. Kristian always said it was only worth 7c+ you just got the grade for finding it in condition and digging mud out of the holds!

Destinations:

• Pembroke
• Lundy
• -Devils Slide
• Fair Head
• -Wall of Prey
• The Pass
• -Lorraine
• -Cenotaph
• -Left Wall
• -Cemetary
• Tremadog
• -Vector
• North Wales Slate
• -Pull my daisy
• -Collosus
• -Mau Mau
• -Dervish
• LPT
• -Anything, its all great
• Gogarth (yes I did just type that)
• -Dream of white
• -anything on yellow walls that Nat agrees to.

There's f*cking loads to climb on this Isle.

The Nature of the Beast

For the last two weeks I've been comparing my data, to that of my predecessor's (both lab and simulated) without too much success.
If I do a bit of a rewind here, my Phd revolves mainly of modelling pollutant travel through urban drainage volumes. Think Manholes; Tanks Zzzzzzz.
I've got data from a scale model, a CFD model and some fancy PIV data (cameras that work out magnitude and direction of particles within flow!) for verification against what is meant to be my new and improved model to be used in more realistic (i.e. changing) conditions.
The fit was appalling and today I found out why. I traced it all back to particles going missing. Numerically vanishing. At first it seemed completely random but after a LOT of coding and analysing of data. Think 1e+9 lines of data per particle for 80,000 particles. I found out where they were coming from and where they were vanishing.
I've been convinced that I'm a dim wit and got something massively wrong in the setup of all my models.
I've been chasing a numerical glitch in a commercial code for at least the last month. The thing is; during the past month I've cursed my work, my supervisor, my project and a lot of other things yet today I have an almighy grin on my face as I've triumph'd, this is the nature of the beast. Problems challenge you to devlop mentally, examine things you might otherwise ignore and learn new skills to bust the problem wide open.

BOOM

Motoring with Arm rests

I did indeed manage to get out on Tues evening; to Burbage North. Bannana finger area for warmups (Nat ticked) then straight along to the far end to try Velvet 'hot as hell scrittle' crab, Nicotine Stain, Cleo's arete and then finally Remergence. A nice potter but not much beyond that.

Wed morning I picked up Mr S (as he will be referred to) from Hathersage and hammered the little blue italian North up the M1. We arrived around 11am and turning the corner onto my parents drive my heart was in my mouth. I'm always worried when selling cars that I've got it wrong and maybe oversold somethings quality/condition. I was relieved to see the van glinting in the sun light, bumpers as black as the day it rolled out of the factory. Phew.

God I love that van.

After a coffee Mr S checked the van over. Straight for the engine. Started first turn of the key. Then the bodywork, interior and finally the roof.

He asked me to take him for a spin, naturally I agreed and lept in. Arm rests down, window open just a crack, fallin right back into trip mode. Oh how I love that torquey big engine. It may be a van but its a joy to drive.
By this time I was wearing a large grin with a furrowed brow. Why oh why was I selling the van? Its like taking an old faithful pet to be put down. It just doesn't feel good.
Anyway the sale went through very quickly (sold pretty much for what I paid) and Mr S set off back down to London.
The van is gone and I have to say I'm pretty sad to see it go. I may have cursed it a few times on the trip but I couldn't have asked for more. Hopefully I'll never see it again.
I once owned one of the last Mini Coopers ever to be manufactured. It was fantastic and I would spend hours polishing all of the chrome parts. When I finally came to sell it, it went to someone I knew. He had a modified focus and really I should have known better.
The exhaust developed a small hole so he replaced it with an ugly aftermarket wide bore system. Then, only a matter of months later he part-ex'd it (the stupidity) for a Seat Leon Diesel. FFS, that was a travesty. I never want to see that happen again.
To cheer myself up I spent the rest of the day detailing the Italian. Nat took it to work this morning and didn't notice.

All Wrong

This weekend we got it all wrong. Approaching the weekend there were two options:

1) Finish off random 'never got around to' grit boulder problems
or
2) Take Nat out for some not so Hard Grit trad action.

At the last minute on Friday night we realised we were out of chalk. No problem as we live next to Sheffields premier climbing wall... the Foundry. Two minutes later we had super chalk and another option. Yorkshire Lime?

I've never been that fussed in driving for what seems like an eternity (I know team Tenacity have this one wired), up to the Yorkshire lime as I used to live just over an hours spirited drive north. I spent most of my younger summers at Kilnsey and getting there from Sheffield seems a little too much like hard work. However, I haven't lived their for around 6 years and truth be told, I miss the place.

I was sold, Nat wasn't. She had her heart set on tradding and that is where we ended up. At High Neb, with the punters and the tw*tty IT consultants moaning about their income (you don't get a rise, its a recession you fool [unless you're a banker]). It was warm, sweaty and very irritating. I'm not a people person at the best of times but the boreal joker wearing lemming brigade really got to me.
Back at the car I had a minor hissy fit about a wasted day, we set off back home for a BBQ which would have been great if Waitrose didn't refuse to sell us alcohol. 24 years old and with ID they wouldn't sell it to me as Nat couldn't provide any (despite her not paying). I asked how they were then selling it to the Middle aged (no doubt tory) lady with her 12 year old son next to me and got an answer that could have been delivered by a disabled parrot 'its policy'. Oh yeah? Its f*cking idiotic policy and you were happy to sell me BBQ lighter fuel without any ID. To add insult to injury the manager said if I rejoined the que by myself they'd happily serve me. So your policy protects against what exactly?
Sunday we failed yet again and arrived at a BBG west as the heavens opened. We retreated.

Tonight we were going to head out. Not to Yorkshire, this time it was either
1) Random grit
2) Cheedale

Quick calcs showed that Cheedale wasn't going to happen as time would be just too limiting. Warm grit seemed better than warm plastic so we decided to target another problem off my list. Unfortunately I got stuck with my Matlab code and anyone who's used this will know that half-way through a botch it coding operation isn't a good time to call it a day. We retreated to the works.

Given the amount of rest I've had over the last few days I felt it was time for the board and myself to do battle (thoroughly expecting a spanking). Ned, Katie, Tom and the almighty Dense stood guard and mocked me about my Rocky esque comebacks to strength.
I was amazed by the performance I put in (despite my finger complaining a little). I felt strong, light and powerful. An hours board session was enough so I finished with some touches (I always lack lock), a set of repeaters and then just for Omar15 a round of one armers.

I might try and pop out tomorrow night as Wed I'm busy playing dell-boy with the van. Thurs nat is stealing the car and next weekend, well I want to get it RIGHT!

The Golden Hour

"Many climbers move to Sheffield with dreams of training hard and making it big, only to find an almighty reality check awaiting. You might have been the best climber in Bingley, but in the Steel City, whether you go to the wall or the crag, there's always someone stronger than you, better than you, or both. A lot of healthy sized fish in a not enormous pond. A fair few folk simply drop out, others sink into competitive training, but the majority put their ambitions to one side and just get on with their climbing."
Quoted from Adam Long UKC Article

A fairly good summation I'd say. Over the past few weeks I've been getting out with a regularity that surprises even myself and quite frankly its been great. Last night, after an evenings pottering along Burbage South edge, finally getting around to trying/ticking a few more from the glaring omissions list I wondered to myself; "why on earth don't I do this more often?". The simple fact is that from now on I will try to.

The weather is getting warmer, its time to get out the rack that I've neglected since coming to Sheffield and see what's what.

Ego

Climbers with large ego's, I'd advise you avoid the climbing works until team Mammut have left.

Last night the works was a truly dismaying place to climb. On the one hand you have Sheffields stongest bouncing up the board like they eat a diet of low fat helium and on the other you've got a few blokes that look like Euro waddage, and some guy who looks a bit like David Lama swinging around and generally throwing some crazy shapes.

I have to say I'm struggling a lot at the minute. I'm climbing 'nicely' outside which is what should matter but I have to admit I struggle not to beat myself up when indoors I'm getting burnt off left right and center. In all honesty I thought I was above it all but when everyone is stronger than you and cruising things that you're failing on it all gets a bit much.
Viewed objectively last nights sessions wasn't all that bad, given I left work late and didn't get to the wall until 8.15. I put to bed a couple of problems that had been frustrating me, floated up a couple of crimpy numbers (which leaves me even more confused about the state of my RH A2). However what sticks in my mind is the amateurish approach I had to the session. Not resting, missing sequences and generally doing far too much volume before getting frustrated that I can't tick yet another of the frustrating (big lock) moves at the end of a session.
I think a lot of us judge our own performance by looking at those around you. If the pack are all behind then you're undoubtedly going well, if one person speeds away then he/she is on good form. If everyone else has seemingly lept forward a huge amount and left you trailing? I just don't know. 6 Months of routes is good for one thing, but when you go for Stamina the moves become so ridiculously easy that all of your power just flows away.
One thing I know for certain is that it'd be good to have someone to bounce off during a session. A few weeks ago I bumped into Stu at the Foundry (before the juggy big move problems came along) and had a great session. At the works I tend to arrive with Nat, warm up and then we both head our seperate ways. Its hard to ensure you take an objective look at problems and the necessary rest without anything else to do other than stand around a look like a lemon.
Hoepfully I'll soon be able to definitively say whether or not my A2 is a real problem. If it isn't then I think its time to start trying just a little harder.