It's all about the kids and not the money, honest

I've been at work again for the last 3 days. Monday was spent teaching outside with a family of 5. The weather was ok, apart from at lunch, just as I'd gone to change where our rope was the heavens opened, and where was I? Stuck at the top. Where were my waterproofs? At the bottom, as a result I got a trifle soggy!
Tuesday was spent indoors, luckily as the weather was fowl, with a interesting group of kids. There were 14 from London here on holiday, they were inner city kids, and were so so loud, everything was done at a shout. It's unbelievable how that level of noise wears you out if you're trying to teach. There was also the weird kid who couldn't stop saying sorry, for everything even if it's not his fault. I walk in to him because I'm not looking where I'm going, kid says sorry. I ask kid if he's enjoying himself because he doesn't seem very happy, kid apologises for being miserable..... by the end of the day I was ready to wring his sorry little neck!

Today was meant to be spent catching up with all my neglected tasks, like going to the bank, and maybe actually getting prepared for my PGCE, however at 7pm last night I got a phone call asking me if I could do some climbing instruction. The group was meant to go out yesterday but the weather was so bad they couldn't. The instructor was booked up for today, so they needed a different person. Now as I have no money turning down £100 to go to the bank didn't seem very wise! Unfortunately the weather today wasn't very good either, so I spent all day indoors, which was a little wearing as effectively I did the same thing 4 times in 6 hours. However the girls had a great time so that's all that really matters.

Anyway, the main reason I thought I'd better write a post was to say I'm off on holiday for a week with no internet access. I'm off to Pembrokeshire with my family, so Lex will be left to fend for himself for a week.

where have all the climbers gone?

The previous post with this title was changed after I errrrr, rather embarrassingly realised that I'd written a post with no real reference to climbing! ooops, obviously this work thing killed my brain cells.

Anyway, Friday night, after a long week at work I went out climbing with a guy from work (Mark), and a rather brilliant climber who I helped teach to climb (Hannah), and is now a rather good climber. She came 6th at the recent UK junior indoor bouldering championships at Cliffhanger, and 4th at the Junior British Leading championships. If you're not a climber just trust me when I say she's good!

We went to a place called Hen Cloud, which is just 10 minutes away from where I used to live, despite that I've only ever climbed there once before, we did one of the routes that I've done once before, that is supposedly a classic at its grade, i'd say it's alright, and has one desperately hard move if you're under 5'5", even Hannah said so, so it's not me being rubbish! The other 2 routes were also good, though from one I am now sporting a huge number of cuts and bruises after making the novice mistake of thinking that wedging myself in a crack would make things easier!
One notable thing, both at Hen Cloud, which has never been that popular, and at The Roaches, which always is, was the lack of other climbers. It's fair to say that this year has been a bit of a wash out, after a good April June and May were wet, very wet! August however has been a little better, so why on a sunny Friday evening, with a previous week of dry weather, so no wet excuses were there only 6 cars in the lay-by? When I think back to my childhood my Dad used to rush home from work so we could get out there and be able to park!

This weekend has been less adventurous, cooking, cleaning and tidying have been on the agenda, along with a well earned laze about!