Catching up and new Horizons

Its currently Thursday afternoon I'm sat in my car wind howling again as i write this in my "lunch break" ;) so i had no Internet for a while and lots has happened almost too much to catch up on but ill have a go... sent peppercorn yay.. me and my pal Tommy Harris who also previously failed on it also wanted to send and it went first lead for us both so that was cool.
Had day out with the young and very strong Phil Belcher at blacknor north..I flashed "hysterical solitude" (6c) which is my best to date.. so that was cool.
played on a couple of 7a routes with Ben (10) Jones the following week, but didn't send nothing.

Ive had a bit of a shoulder/neck injury for a while which was work related and I've been getting treatment for that still niggles a bit but not too much hopefully will heal soon, should probably rest it but who does that ?! besides i do monitor it and take care not to pull it too much and its definitely better so fingers crossed there.

This week end just gone a last min decision was made to go to do some traditional climbing something which I've not done yet so was mega psyched to do that, i met Tommy at the Durlston car park and we set off to abseil into cattle troughs a section ideal for beginner's like myself.. i was excited having never having to "ab" into a crag before and of the adventure involved in placing my own piece's for protection from a fall.. the climbing would be much easier than I'm used to so just a head game of placing good gear along the way was all that was needed. I climbed 4 lines in total two on second and two on lead the first was for me to second and was called "chockney" VDiff 4a the next line was my 1st ever lead line called "Resurrection" HS 4b... Tommy then decided he wanted to solo "resurrection" which was pretty cool, while i sat on a ledge taking pics. The 3rd route was "old lags corner" VS 4c which Tommy led, my second lead was "Bunneys wall" at VS 5a which i really enjoyed was great fun and good climbing. so it was a good start to my trad , well i was happy anyway nice easy climbing trying to spot gear placements along the way, something I'm definitely going to do a lot more of as its more adventurous and i got massive satisfaction in actually topping out and standing on top of what id just climbed to then build an anchor system to bring up the second... fantastic, my world has been opened up mahoosivly, another feather in the cap.. would like to thank Tommy for taking me out showing me the ropes and of course keeping me safe...

Here's a few pics from the trips..

A glorious wallsend
 

swanage trad

me and Tommy



Blacknor North sunset

War wounds...