a weekend in Wales...

Last saturday with



we went climbing here:



We had to wait for the tide to receede. The



didn't make as much noise as the



And the music from the



added to the atmosphere: quite sureal really. Here i am stretching my arms half way up a hard climb. Only managed to fall at the final move. Oh well!



We camped at a site run by a farm and Louise couldn't resist the local pets:



Not much climbing on sunday morning due to the weather



but in the afternoon we climbed this



going up the north ridge (on the picture, the right hand side of the mountain) and walking down the heather ledge. From the top, we could see



on one side and



on the other. We didn't stay long!

On the way down i took pictures of these beasties



but Louise was more interested into this one

Archery

One team needed a bit more help during the archery session today:



Here's a little game: guess the order in which the teams finished the session...

On s'est bien battu...

Ca fait tres longtemps que je passe devant "flying buttress direct" a Stanage en me disant: Un jour...



Avant d'attaquer le surplomb, je place un bon coinceur et un gros "friend":



Et c'est parti:



Precieuse protection:



Ca ne rigole plus !



Va falloir se battre! Les spectateurs sont a fond derriere moi...



Louise est une photographe tres gentille, elle n'a pas pris de photo de moi en train de pendouiller a mon fil!

Matt to the rescue:





La, on ne fait plus les malins: on est creve et il nous faut recuperer le matos puisque personne n'a reussi a sortir la voie



En second, c'etait bien trop facile! Ne plus avoir toute cette quincaillerie sur le baudrier, quelle difference!



J'ai essaye, j'ai vu, j'ai pas vaincu. Mais je reviendrais...!

PS: Mike, if you read this, i've got to come back and do it properly this summer...
PPS: Those of you who paid attention must have spotted that Matt wore a bright helmet!!!

The Rise of the Machines

Like John Connor, i have defeated a major computer rebellion this week. And i'm sure i'll have to face them again in an uncertain future...

But i'm smilling as i got my first digital camera!!!

I'd promised myself a decent digital SLR with my first real paycheck. That was 2 years ago!! Not sure if a consulting fee is a proper paycheck, i restricted myself to an older model bought on ebay that is compatible with my collection of lenses. Here is one of the first pictures i took:

Homage d'Axelis

Je devrais etre en train de faire du SQL pour le boulot, non pas re-re-re-installer linux sur l'ordinateur #3 ! Mais de voir cette annimation de moi (!!!) faite par Axelis, je lache tout pour la mettre en lien sur mon blog!

I was work avoiding re-installing ubuntu on a very unco-operative computer when i stumbled upon this amazing animation of me (!!) done by Axelis !



Click here to see me move !!

Si ca vous a plu, allez mettre un commentaire chez lui, il sera tout content...

If you liked it, leave him a comment on his blog. Even if you write it in English, he'll be well chuffed...

Ca vous a plut?

Vous en voulez encore?

Alors, apres le paillasson, la voiture:



Et Louise qui pensait que sa voiture allait secher cet ete...

Il pleut...

... tellement qu'un champignon a eclot sur le paillasson de Louise ce matin!

Back in action

Mike "the living guidebook" was back in action on Sunday. He demonstrated that 2 months of revising had not dented his flair for finding decent gear where most would run it out after catching disco leg.

He usually combine two nuts or friends, turning two poor placement into a (half) decent combination:



I also lead my first overhang on natural gear:



Robin Hood's Cave Innominate, harding super direct finish, at Stanage

PS1: I did catch disco leg latter that day, running it up on Mississippi's buttress "Variant" rising hand traverse. That's what HVS on grit does to me...

PPS: For those reading this south of the channel, just have a laugh on "Ze Hinglish" and their weird games!

PPPS: or just try to spot the moss on one of Britain's most famous cliff while sunning yourself on glorious bolted limestone...

## Correction: As i'm checking the spelling of various route names, using an old guidebook courtesy of Matt, it seems that the variant is harder than HVS. How, well, i got sand bagged then!

PPPPS: Sandbagging means givign a lower grade to a climbing route in order to lure an unsuspecting climber into providing entertainment for the watching crowd by catching disco leg. As Mike entertained a lot longer seconding that route that i did leading it, i can't blame him then ;)

Work Avoiding

At the moment, i have to read things like this for work:



From the book Survey of Text Mining . I have 2 more similar books, then one on regular expression and an -easier - one on SQL to digest. Bon appetit!

So it's not surprising that i get easily distracted, when i surf the web looking for help understanding the gobbledygook above. Here is a French page that takes me back to my childhood:

This carton was a lot more popular in France than in England... Click on the pictures to find the site that uses English style humour to describe this important piece of French 70s popular culture!

Louise

Alien

The tangerine i had this morning had a surprise inside!



I'd never seen that before, not in an orange!!

Champagne !!!

Celebrating having 2 new jobs, and a girlfriend:

That was in a campsite in South Wales on a climbing trip with friends from Loughborough.

As a bonus, spot the error in that picture of Russ eating a barbecued sausage:

Campfire

Today, i got paid to run a treasure hunt, a murder mystery and to light a campfire on which i cooked a soup for 40 kids:




I was quite pleased, it was the first time i had a real fire in England, one you start with wood and paper, one with real flames. Over here, barbecues run on charcoal that has to be doused in petrol to ignite - when they don't run on gaz...

Il est interdit de prendre des photos!

Pour un weekend dans les pyrenees, me voila de passage chez Guilhem et Isabelle. Rendez-vous a la gare de escalquens, pres de toulouse. Une gare minuscule, en brique rouge bien sur, avec un passage pieton: Une de plus pour ma collection! Je sors l'apareil photo, un vieux reflex nikon meme pas digital. Je n'ai meme pas le temps de prendre une premiere photo que la chef de gare sort de sa boite et me dit:

• Il est interdit de prendre des photos de la gare ! vous etes journaliste ?
  
• Non, je suis en vacance, je trouvais cette gare jolie... Comment ca c'est interdit?
  
• Vous n'avez pas le droit, c'est comme ca, ce n'est pas ma faute, mais c'est comme ca...
  

Donc, on interdit, on ne donne pas d'explication, bref nous voila au temps des soviets. J'ai range le nikon, sorti le telephone et pris une photo a peu pres presentable tout en maudissant la SNCF, ce bastion de dialogue et de transparence. Quand meme, au 21ieme siecle, ils ont peur de quoi?



Et le lundi matin, de retour, on s'est pris en photo, moi et mon sac, Guigou et Isa avec leurs velos:

The Hag

Second afternoon of climbing instructing today - my new part time "keep the wolf out of the door" job. I was with a group of year 4s, 24 of them, outside on a small rock outcrop in a wood. The other instructor today, Clive, is a little bit more seasoned and doesn't take any crap from silly people.

Her -friendly- dog was preceding her. The look on her face suggested that she woke up on the wrong foot today, so she took it on us:

The Hag: Why do they (the kids) have to be so noisy?
Clive: They're children, they're enjoying themselves...
The Hag: Well, i'm coming here for peace and quiet!
Clive: Go somewhere else then!

Well done Clive!

Here's a picture of the group approaching the rock face:

Different styles of climbing

I went climbing to Wintour's Leap in the Wye Valley yesterday. It's mostly multi pitch climbing on reasonably good limestone, steep and often airy. There's not much below VS so it's not for beginners.

To warm up, a very nice route, zelda. Seen from the top of our last route of the day, with other climbers half way up:



We had lunch. Left to right, Heather, Scott and Jamie:



I couldn't resist a bit of French style climbing up that desperate corner, with 3 shiny new bolts and a bolted belay. First, delicate, balancy moves up a featureless corner:



Then the resting on bolt, scratching of head, marking of foothold with chalk trying to decipher the move:



That didn't prevent me from having to pull on the gear, desperately growing my arm to clip the next one...



Funny how the hand traverse - no foothold whatsoever - felt easy after the corner



That was yeeeaaah!, an E2 6b - strange grade, i should have guessed! To recover, i had this classic easter English delicacy: a creme egg - and a cup of tea:



Heather had brought everybody some chocolate egg, how nice! Thanks...

Moving on to a classic multi pitch English VS, cheetah. Classic because the second pitch has no gear placement in the last 2 thirds, only one old peg between the tree next to Scott and the one on the right. What a buzz!



Here is Scott at the final belay



A brilliant day then! Thanks to Nick for driving and Hazel for the pictures on yeeeaaah!

La gare de Reignier

Ces derniers temps, j'ai decouverts les petits trains des Alpes. Disons que les liaisons entre les aeroports et certains villages qui m'interessent sont plutot... Instructives!

Cette fois, il s'agit d'aller de Sallanches a Geneve. 40 minutes de voiture, 2h30 de train avec un arret a la gare de Reignier:



On n'en voit plus souvent des comme ca:



Le poste d'aiguillage est le petit batiment a droite de la gare:



J'aime bien les signaux pour indiquer aux pietons qu'ils peuvent traverser:



J'en ai profite pour m'aventurer entre les deux voies - il faut dire que j'etais seul!