Climbing outdoors is my favourite waste of time.

Climbing outdoors is my favourite waste of time. Some people would say that it is completely pointless; you don't "win" or improve your "best time" or "score" and everybody thinks you must be "mad" and have a "death wish"! Most people simply don't understand. I suppose I can't blame them really; F1 is utter rubbish to me. Luckily, we're all different.

Climbing is so great because you get to visit beautiful places for free; meet like-minded, calm people from all round the world; you can get mega fit and it is very relaxing for the soul. An extra bonus is the complete lack of rules and regulations that makes it the perfect antidote to normal, everyday life. Quite simply, it puts everything else into perspective (everything else is just "grains of sand"). All that mindless rushing around we do each day is the real waste of time.

Robin and I went back to La Turbie to while away Tuesday afternoon. We were psyched to hurl ourselves at the unfinished route from the week before. The weather was superb, despite the forecast. Once again the warm up from hell was desperate. Monte Queue is a very polished sand bag 6c+. Robin has it well dialled and he is taller than me, which makes the crux section easier for sure. He despatched it effortlessly, whilst I had to fight and pull out all the stops to hang on (especially as my feet shot off twice!).

Robin demolishing the warm up from hell!

Then it was back to the serious business of trying to finish "Oeuvre Complete" (after the pumped forearms had recovered enough). Robin should have done it. He fell off the last move, due to a dodgy barn door sequence that he had to refine. Me? Well I fell off much lower, but I did make some good progress.

Robin on Oeuvre Complete (he is less than half way up this 50m monster!).

So, we left the crag with our bodies having taken another battering but we'd had another great time, even though we didn't achieve success this time round. We'll be back there again next Tuesday. Who knows, we may just pull it out the bag! That's what makes you keep going back for more.

Elaine and I had a very entertaining afternoon at Jurassic Park last Sunday. It was quite challenging doing my favourite 8a+ in a mega thunder storm! We spent Wednesday afternoon struggling with very humid conditions at Mesa Verde. But it was so much better than just staying at home or going shopping.

We didn't get to Le Discret last Saturday. I had a cold and the weather was too iffy. But we're going tomorrow to have some more fun times. Bon weekend amigos!