Cave life - its the only life I know...

Ow ow ow! The cave has taken its pound of flesh and spat me out - beaten. But i still love her. The problem with the damn place is that the moves are so good. There are shit problems in the cave (clever cleaver), but your big money lines are all good. Dan and I went back yesterday for a rematch. On paper it should have been a deal sealing mission, but in fact it was a channel surfing haven of failure.

Last time it was wet. Last time I fell off TC going for the shothole. Last time I did Rock Attrocity and three laps on Lou Ferrino. I thought I was the big man. Big things happen to big men, and I thought they were sure to happen to me the next time. Dan nearly did Directors. We talked about whether he would finish up the top like Pete Robins, but neither of us dead cert, sure fire winners were winners in the end. Trigger cut felt well hard. Never even held the undercut. I have skin problems, so perhaps I wasnt trying properly or something, but it just didnt feel on it yesterday. Conditions were good - no complaints about that, and so its doubly frustrating that we werent able to capitalise on them. Hoping it was perhaps a slow warm up day, we continued.

Dan couldnt do Directors either. He kept falling off in Trigger. The frustration was getting to us, so I thought, some success will buoy my spirits, and I set off on Louie. It felt desperate and spat me off before reaching the end of the ramp. I changed shoes and did it, but by god was it a fight. In some ways I wonder if that right foot heel needs to be a bit damp to be sticky or something. I rest up and start trying TC again. It goes nowhere.

I'd never met the mighty Nodder - hero of the cave before, and now I had. Nice man. I wanted something less intense than trigger to get into, and that came in the shape of Cave Life. Nodder showed me how to do it, and soon after I found myself climbing down into left wall having started at the RockAttrocity jug. I thought this was it - you got to stop there, and that was 7c. Jolly pleased with myself I stepped off to a chorus of dismay. Apparently you have to then do LWT. On went the stopwatch, and back to the start went I. Thankfully I managed to do it again, and this time continued to the end. Just the start to add in now. I worked and worked and by the time I forged a sequence I was too tired, but from the arbitrary start in the middle of nowhere I made it to the foot move to connect to LWT. This is possible I thought, but not last night it wasnt - I was whalloped, and the start hold had chewed a hole in my palm.

Meanwhile, at the business end of the cave Constant Variable was rinsing through Clyde getting to the end each time, but in spite of making man barks and snuffling noises he fell off on what I would call jugs. Which isnt to say that getting there wasnt hard - it certainly looked it, and I think the positions looked difficult to hold. Testament to the tenacity of Parry. Say what you want about an overdeveloped ego, but he's something of a cave wad. Some of the moves and things he has done in there...