Catalunya Bound

Yesterday I arrived in the big smoke rested……..well almost. 7hrs sleep and a train at lunch time allowed me to relax. On the way down I caught up with a few outstanding things. Somebody asked me today if at 16 I was told I would be a teacher one day what would my reaction be. Then it would probably have been greeted with a smile and a laugh. But nowadays I suppose I am. I am many things now, a coach, a builder, a setter, an advisor, a hotel manager and last but not least a professional climber. Its great to have many strings to your bow, and slowly those strings are increasing in numbers and thickness. Just to plan my next UK work trip is no simple project. In 15 days I have 2 competitions, 10 days of setting, 4 coaching sessions and 1 team-training day. If you do the maths it adds up to a busy 2 weeks, a lot of travelling and an organisational nightmare. Add to that all my additional work then it leaves me with little sleep time. So you may wonder what my point is? Well 7hrs sleep and a day on the train yesterday was my idea of heaven. A little bit of this does wonders for your motivation, add a few other motivated people into the mix, a session on the Castle Panels and The Wave and I was totally psyched. That psyche carried over to today, a reset of The Pen with Mike and Tricky. I enjoy setting, creating something new, watching peoples pleasure and intrigue as they unlock the secret. One such problem was my yellow on the right wall V3, it took a great scalp, the one and only Johnny Dawes. A child hood hero I must admit. He climbed it second go, buzzing and grinning through the experience, the V3 tag meaningless. The pleasure was the move, for someone so deeply engrained in gritstone pleasure it was fun to see Johnny revel in plastic pleasure though I am not sure the Grindelford café guys would agree, we are all wimps apparently. Think I’d rather be a wind than a pot washer…….again.

Rest is such a fine commodity for me, so much so I have treated myself to a night in a hotel before my 6am flight. The Desalis hotel is about 1 mile from Stanstead. Only £39 for a mint room and worth every penny.



Hopefully my investment will pay off over the next few days, tomorrow I am off to Catalunya. With no misconceptions about what I might be able to climb I am just going for the holiday after all climbing routes is all about resting and climbing 25 meters just to find that move