London and Sheffield

I arrived on July 9th for a few short days in London at Audrey Seguey's place with Adrian Berry. Since I was still recovering from my ankle sprain the activity was kept to a minimum. We all went bouldering one day.

After four days of doing a lot of work on the net, Adrian Audrey and I drove up to Sheffield on Friday night. Adrian and Audrey were going into the cliffhanger bouldering competition.

We were up early the next day and out the door by 8 AM so Adrian and Audrey could get to the comp in good time. The competition was pretty amazing as there was a lot of people and tons of stalls there selling gear. They even had a snowboard ramp.

The day went by quickly and was helped by the sun shining. Unforetunately, Adrian had a bit of a power down and didn't make the finals but Audrey placed first and so we went out for Indian food to celebrate.

Audrey headed back to London quite early so that she could make work on Monday while Adrian took me out to Stanage for my introduction to Grit Stone climbing. I worked my way through a series of climbs going from Severe, Hard Severe, Very Hard Sever, then E1. After pumping out on the E1 called The Tippler I took a break. Adrian finished leading the route and we packed up as it started to drizzle.

Picture: Stanage Edge, popular section, Sheffield

Picture: Top of Stanage Edge looking back into the fern meadows.

My ankle was not great so I decided to cycle up to the hospital to get it checked out. They X-rayed it and found no breaks then gave me a referral to the hospital physio. The following morning on my way to the crag I called for an appointment and they said they could see me that day at 1PM. I jumped out of the car and walked back to Adrian's.

The physio commented that i was healing faster than he would have expected. The check my ligaments to see if any were torn and said I should do some exercises and stretching but not push it to the point of pain. Since i was going into the Vipassina 10-day course in two days it would be good to know what I should be doing to take care of it and if the sitting would cause further injury.

That night I went into the local bouldering gym called climbing works where I met a woman by the name of Meilee. She reminded me of someone from the gyms back home so I ask her if she had been in Van. It turned out that she was a good friend of Adrian's and they had lived together in Sheffield. We climbed for 4 hours in the gym doing the Font like circuits that they setup there and chatted.

We had a really good connection and since she was good friend with Adrian I invited her over for dinner. We ended up chatting most of the night away and talking climbing. We hung out a little the next day but she had to make her way back down to Bristol where she lives.

The following day I got packed up and readied myself for the Vipassina. I got up at 4:30 AM so that I could make the first bus and catch the train down to Hereford. I slept most of the train ride and caught a taxi to the Inn where the the bus to the course was picking people up.

I was rather early so I waited at the lodge and then two other guys who were going to the retreat turned up. Gaute from Norway and his friend (forgot name) from Liverpool. They offer me a ride and off we went. Next stop, Dhamma Dipa and 10-days of silence.