Back the game!!!

 After having a really wet spring I decided to go back to my other love which is fishing for big carp in lakes and ponds, just to pass the wet weekends but that turned into 5 months solid fishing with no climbing of any sort at all, I really enjoyed it but I have to say it was a big mistake, I started back climbing in the last week of September and was rubbish weighing in at just under 13 stone and very out of shape... I'm now a 6a+/b climber and it's been hard to accept I've fallen so far behind Tommy and Ben. But four or five weeks have past and I'm looking more like a climber again my main issue was and still is stamina in the forearms but it's improving every week now, and to be honest it's given me a chance to clear up some of the routes of lower grades I skipped, it's great to be back climbing and in the company of my climbing Conrad's..
My little sidekick Davina aka "vivi" has got stronger too and this week end my fiancée Lucy came along and manages to top rope onsight a grade 4 having never climbed before and a good day was had at a busy winspit.

Tommy on "I thought you had it"

Ben on "peppercorn rate"

I've ticked a couple of winspit classics such as stonemason (6a+) and unseen ripples (6a+/b) so that was cool and great routes.

Tommy and Ben are doing well ben especially he climbed exuberance (7a) I think 2nd go so that's good going. 

Bens partner Gemma is also making progress she made here 1st lead on "toms patients".

Phil Belcher has also been making his mark with a couple of first accents bolted and kindly given to him by the one and only Pete Oxley, the route I witnessed Phil do Sunday at winspit was a huge link up of the big cave, which involves climbing through the roof then following a slight upwards traverse  rightward, I have to say he made it look easy and named it "new dawn fades" (7c) very inspiring.

 Well I'm training hard and hopefully gonna make gains every week, it's great to be back climbing I'm hopping to be back having a good go at 7a again by Christmas would be great to end the year with a 7a tick which is where I was at in the spring..