taste of the future?

I had an interview for a place on a maths teacher training course starting in September in Leeds yesterday. Once finished, I headed to Almscliff for the first time in a while and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that one day on from the summer solstace, climbing there wasn't altogether unpleasant. I started off just soloing and repeating stuff and had a moment of realisation whilst on the 5* finish of Great Western that this was a considerably less intense experience than attempting to contribute to the 'group interview' part of the day I'd suffered earlier - I was quite frustrated with myself as when the conch was passed my way I had that feeling of my heart trying to escape out of my chest whilst struggling to keep my voice level. Which was a bit pathetic really. Anyway, if they do decide to offer me a place then North Leeds will be my new domain with Almscliff and the like my local stomping grounds. Which would be good.

Having had a good head-clearing warm up and a short nap, I set about trying to do Crusis (the steep wall on the virgin face) from sitting. I'd done the stand a few times before and repeated that easily enough. The sitter held out for a while though and at one point, feeling a bit powered out and sliding off the slanting Gypsy crack, I thought it was going to get away. I'm sure there're better sequences than the one I used (with no less than 4 cut looses) but there by myself it felt like the best and most fun way to do it. Such a good burly problem.

I was just warming down, messing around on the big detached slab below Wall of Horrors when I saw some lads from Hull turn up for an after work session. So I knocked around with them for a while before heading home, passing on some beta for Underhand and Tea Spoon Cave/Roof though I was too tired to actually get up either of them myself.

Seem to be solid around the 7B mark at the moment - a level I'm happy with for now. The main thing is I'm actually able to enjoy climbing again. Back to the moors I think tomorrow....