Glassy grips/Soft core

Today was the 4th session on Louis Armstrong this year and as with the previous one around 3 weeks ago, it was pretty much abject failure.

To my utter amazement, the first left hand undercut was dry for the first time this year. This led to being able to climb through from the start to slapping the lip 5 times but with a core resembling a bowl of poorly set jelly, I was nowhere near to holding the move.

For the 2nd session in a row, I didn't even do the crux move to finish link, which had become doable every session for the last 10 or more (sometimes 2-3 times in a row).

Although the undercut was finally dry, the rock was so cold, it was glassy and made the feet slide about a bit as well as making skin feel damp from the contrast in temperature between lime and skin. Poor excuses no doubt, but it definitely felt like a few degrees warmer would make things easier (especially being able to rest longer and keep blood in feet and fingers!).

If I'm going to get near to an ascent, I'll have to stop messing around indoors climbing problems and do some core work again... as it has been a long time and it was definitely found to be wanting today.

In better news

Laura and I are getting closer to organising our wedding venue and reception for this summer and it should be amazing if the weather helps out a bit!

I was chuffed that Si agreed to be the best man for the occasion and we all had a great time down on the Lleyn last weekend for Si's birthday bash, with lots of new problems ticked as well as the odd cheeky F.A.

I'm looking forward to getting Si over for some days out scaling and fishing on the coast as well as the other Merseyside lids, once they've finished exploring the esoteria of dubious quality to be found in Lancashire.