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Glue
Picture - Pleasure Dome. Keith Sharples Photography
This last month has been mental, ridiculously busy. I’ve had a weeks holiday in Cornwall, a week coaching in Denmark, Route setting in London and Derby, a few days 1-1 coaching, a weekend in Pembroke, a few days sightseeing in London, some friend visits, a few days at my parents, loads of parties and just basically loads of stuff. It’s been great, even though the weather has been a bit rubbish.
It went rubbish on the 12th July. I remember it pretty well. Up to that point it had been amazing for a very long time, like half a year! Climbing was going well and I was feeling fit and strong and keen. July the 11th was boiling and sunny. July 12th was pissing down and cold and I was at work route setting where I busted my finger ligament. Not totally, but bad enough, enough to make climbing painful and hard stuff out of the question. Good timing I guess with the weather, and the amount of stuff that was about to happen – I couldn’t have climbed much anyway!
So it was a great month, but something was missing, the glue that holds it all together. Climbing is what my life hangs on, with this taken away all the other stuff doesn’t seem to fit together properly and doesn’t stick well.
It seems to be fixing now, but I’m going through that tricky patch of constantly re-injuring myself, as soon as progress is made I mentally jump back to where I used to be and pull as hard as I used to pull. Then I am reminded I have an injury. I need to stick outside, indoors is too much about pulling hard, outside is about movement.
A good weekend in Pembroke, maybe one of my top places in the world, I spent a load of time here in my youth. No expectations at all, maybe a bash at ‘Ghost Train’ and then some recovery plodding. We were in a 3, so a few hours to kill allowed me to abseil down Tim Emmet’s new E10. It looked amazing, and very my style. The gear was better than I thought and a spark seemed to light. An hour later I’d done it on a shunt placing the gear and was ready and prepared for a lead. I needed a rest so we went off to do an E3. It took a while, and darkness was close, but no worries. Tomorrow it would be fine.
Unfortunately tomorrow went from about 15degrees to 25degrees and humidity from low to 100%. Pembroke – August – we had forgotten that it’s a hot place, The conditions we had yesterday were awesome. The route is not to be underestimated. A very long run out with the climbing getting harder and harder leads to some gear. It’s maybe 7c+ to there. The gear is a little fiddly to place. If you fall off clipping it you’ll die! If you place it bad and it comes out you’ll die. Then it’s the crux. The whole route is 8a+/b with 7c+ climbing in a death position. Onsight would be horrendous!
So it will have to wait, annoying as it could have gone in 2 hours and now it will probably take 2 years. But not so annoying as I could feel that glue starting to stick everything back together again.
