Fingina

I wonder how easy it is to get into crown green bowling? Any ability I ever had for Rock Climbing has been absent of late. In fairness to me, I havent actually been doing so badly, its just my terrible skin stopping me doing as well as I want. I said to Ned the other day 'oooooh soldier, theres just nothing worse than skinjuries' and of course he set me right - of course there is. Almost everything is worse than a skinjury, so stop whinging. Its just frustrating when you want to do hard things and keep slipping off or being unable to engage full crimp due to pad splits. And its all Dave Mason's fault.

I wonder if I can sue him for bad advice? negligence? "Anti Hydral that split" he said, "get right in there with the stump creme, then sand it in the morning". My instincts said no, and this contradicted every bit of advice I have ever heard regarding the magical stumpenhausen, but I thought no - I will give him the benefit of the doubt and try this advice out. And what has it lead to? the deepest, longest lasting, most reoccurring split I have ever had! in fact, to call it a split doesnt do it justice - more like a finger canyon. Perhaps this is revenge for my dubbing him Dave the Racist (which was actually Dylan by the way).

Met up with Folog at the Tor on Saturday - we were shit. I couldnt even do the powerband. Shed loads of people turned up, including, but not limited to : MC Hammer JNR, Ru and Stu, Masonic Dave, Stone (!), Simon Lee, Tall man from the Foundry and Emma Twyford. Down our end there was nothing but flailing going on. Shook through staminaband start like a nervous comedian on the stage for the first time with the words of the guardian of the Orme in my mind - "the cave is only really any good for the cave". It felt like the first time I had been to the tor in months. What we can learn from this children, is that singleminded focus and dedication towards any one end leads to specialism in that specific goal. But to do these hard things you have either to be talented and strong or dedicated and keen. So if you lack talent then you must be dedicated, and that leads to specialism. Is it such a bad thing? no, not necesarilly, not unless you desperately need to do well everywhere you go, and feel like the big hero all the time.

One man who finished the weekend a big hero is Steely fingered legal eagled downgrading midget Rupert Davies, who managed to climb Keen Roof at the tor. I couldnt believe reading Stu's blog that Ru hadnt climbed 8B before to be honest. I suppose he's more of a routes wad than a bouldering specialist, but to see how strong he is you would certainly have thought him a signed up member of the club from years ago. There are plenty of these about - people who have the ability but never seem to have made it happen. Lots of this will come from time limitations. And of conditions in this country, other commitments etc etc. Ed Robinson is another one. If he lived in america all we would hear about is this 8b and that 8b+ that had fallen to his mighty hand, only of course that would never happen because theres no public transport and he hasnt got a car. Poor ed.

I have managed to continue the deepening trough of specialism by arranging another mid week cave raid on wednesday. Constance Variable is keen again, and I am not suprised. He really looked like he could do directors cut last time, so with fresh beans etc etc. I am focussed on trigger cut, with my secondary goal being the wire. Its a bit longer without super hard moves, so a perfect after you've blown your wad on the Trigger goal. There is also the possibility that the weather will be nice and we could go to the mountains. However, its a bit further, and when I think the cave is on the limit of range for a midweek afternoon raid...

Finally, I leave you with the wishes of happy birthday to Nedwin, whose birthday it was yesterday, and who is now 32. They went for a carvery last night because their mate bet them he could eat a full carvery and 15 roast potatoes (ned was allowed to pick the potatoes), apparently he pissed it. Good effort!