Lacking in inspiration

Much like this blog, my mind has been lacking in inspiration for the last few weeks.

I've been working all of the hours under the sun (or lack of) in Llanberis as it's the busiest time of the year for us. The one week of perfect cold and sunny weather passed by outside as I was in every day until after 6 and the motivation to get out with lamps into the hills in the dark was lacking!

This has led to being a bit knackered, not helped by the dog waking me up barking around 4.30-5.30am most days, and I've managed to pick up a grim cold which currently lingers at just over a week.

A rare day out

I attempted to get outside a last Sunday with Paul and Matty D. The warm ups on roadside face felt ok but then I got utterly spanked by the Sting and ripped a fingertip wide open. A bit of taping to stem the tide and we headed over to Gallt yr Ogof.

Split fingertip aside, I got back on problems I thought should go down with 6 years more climbing under the belt (and a bit of improvement in strength/movement skills) but every single problem on this boulder is still hideously desperate! I failed miserably on regeneration and smackhead, so didn't even bother looking at Sway On. (Paul later linked a video which helped lift the gloom of abject failure, showing I was starting on the wrong holds/in the wrong place, making them harder than necessary, so I'll return again in 6 years time)

Indoor stasis

Although getting outside has been a bit tougher, I've managed to retain a tiny bit of motivation for indoors, as the setting down at the Indy wall is excellent. Although I don't feel like I have gotten any stronger, the lure of not getting too far behind in the aggregate and trying to hang on to the coat-tails of Pete Robins and Ducko has kept me going back and trying hard to drag my out of shape withered corpse up some of the harder stuff.

I'll hopefully post about amazing days out on the next blog and be a bit less depressive. I had a laugh with Matt the other day about moving closer to decent climbing and sacking off climbing, much like in his Sheffield days, but it won't come to that... There is still some unfinished business in a certain polished limestone cave :)