Baby Steps...

Day in the Lakes, at Swirl Crag. Unlike last time in the Lakes, I didn't wreck a tyre on a fallen rock, didn't waste 3 hours and £170 getting it sorted out, and didn't wreck my sanity by failing on an easy warm-up route and doing fuck all else. Okay, this time I did fail on the easy warm-up route, well it was a bit tricky but as usual I was a bit fucking rubbish, got sloppy with my feet, and pinged off the sort of move that is normally utterly familiar to me. So starting the day with the usual bollox. But I managed to salvage something by getting up a couple of other easy warm-up routes for mileage (pretty much the sort of routes I wouldn't have even bothered getting on two months ago).

Crap climber does easy routes - not noteworthy in itself, BUT for a change I actually enjoyed them. They were good climbs - a steep powerful thin crack on one, a bold balancy thin crack on the other (above) with good climbing, on a new-to-me crag that I'd fancied visiting, and I was a bit more focused on trying to do them well. Focus that I wouldn't normally need, but focus that got me involved in appreciating the routes and hinting at the possibilty of progressing slowly by using and pushing that focus. A small step for punterkind....