Matt's Blog: A few hours of the usual!

It was busy

This afternoon i popped up to Almscliff, it was a beautiful day and as nobody was abut I thought a refresher on grit bouldering wouldn't go amiss. I had intended to head up to have a go on Underhand but thinking about a warm up head up to Demon Wall roof area for the usual traverse and hang on holds to get the blood flowing - it was absolutely lovely, sun out t-shirt weather and the blood started to flow as i hung on a few holds and crimps. I decided to see where i was at by having a little go on Demon Wall roof (7a+), the first go i proclaimed a sumer of beer and no body tension was to blame for my apparent lack of ability but then watching somebody do it i realised I had forgot the sequence. I then proceeded to do all the moves and repeatedly throw for the finishing jug, getting closer and closer time after time but no cigar, My fingers were hurting it was pretty hot so for a change of muscle group had a go on Crucifix traverse (7a), Did all the moves got the final hold but flopped off twice, not holding the swing. I called it a day here as my fingers hurt more and more and the sharp pocket on the traverse had taken a little chunk out of my finger and headed over to the traverse on the slabby boulder below Wall of Horrors. I was horrified at first but made some progress before hitting a dead end with no more ideas i packed up and headed home.

Another excuse for getting out was to try my new camera out. i brought a 'bridge' camera last night a Nikon Coolpix L120 - and i have to say I love it... Its got an amazing zoom, image stabilisation for when using that zoom which sounds like a kind of gyroscope. It's a good compromise for me between SLR and compact.. It's better than the old MJU but 14MP compared with 4MP and no dead pixels means no competition. also special thanks to Sian at work for the on the stairs advice about composition. Firmly noted down and I have tried to compose my photos a bit better today!

Getting home realising my fingers were sore but the tendons and muscles not wasted I had a go at a finger board session. I'll post details of that in my next post but suffice to say its not that easy and my skin hurts!