Sunday 2 May 2010

April

Just a quick post cos I'm meant to be revising... err so the main climbing thing was doing Sabotage. The next day it got downgraded which was a complete bummer. Yeah, with modern beta it's fine, once I got over the fact that's it's hard it became a lot easier. Will got it on video, and when I watched it back I thought "Haha, Will thanks very much for putting in fast motion, making me look stupid" but turns out I was just climbing fast and I look stupid of my own accord, but I'd guess it helps.

I went lambing. This time I got as far as pulling a lamb out, but still too frightened to go "elbow deep in sheep" like the pro's. I named my pet lamb Buttons.

Had an interesting trip to Dumby. Two nights before, I'd been in the ABC nightclub and had got a donner, chips and cheese with sauce on the way home from a Kebab Palace run by a man called "Bob". The mates I was with were regulars, it was my first time. The Palace was shut, but a polite knock on the door, and it was open again. Nothing has ever tasted so good.

No surprises then that I spent the next few days on the toilet. Before going to Dumby I was sure that my tummy was empty and that I didn't eat or drink anything, hoping that I wouldn't get caught short. I took some toilet paper just in case. Here's the vid of that day. You can tell by the end that I'm tired - it's because I'm dehydrated. I had to stop at the co-op for a juice on the way home... The ticket man on the train said there was no toilet. I was pretty much running up the stairs to my flat!



Been to Dumbuck a few times and did an excellent route called House of Pain, which had (unusually for dumbuck) a vertical section.

I'm going to be slightly controversial and write about something that happened in May, despite this being April's post. Yesterday I finally nailed So Be It. Getting this route in the bag was great because it felt hard. Sometimes when you redpoint something it ends up feeling easy, but on this I felt like I was taking chances and getting lucky, making mistakes, shaking through the crux - it felt like what climbing should. A good end to the project which started, in a wet November I think. Ha ha oh yeh, thanks to Nic who let me borrow his shoes, chalk bag and harness as I forgot all mine. We made a belay harness out of rope which was pretty good.