Day 285 - Jumping Frog

Freddy

I met this little chap when out mowing the verge today, and he was kind enough to pose for a short photo session.

He's a common frog (rara temporaria for the ecology geeks (cough...Anna...cough)), and he was hiding in the long, wet grass of the verge...he was fortunate not to be mowed down (literally), as I found him hopping around where I'd just passed through with the mower...

The grass was overdue being cut, and it had rained overnight, so it was quite heavy work...but I felt better for it, after a few days of inactivity. 

I had to stop when I saw Freddy here, of course, but I was eager to get on with it, so shooed him back into the safety of the ditch...




As long as he doesn't venture onto the road, he should be ok...and the verge is nicely mowed now, so that's a good job jobbed...

It won't last, of course, but still the physical activity was helpful (if not much fun).  

Climbing tomorrow, I think!

:-)

Day 257 - Smear Test 101

stride

A day out at Cratcliffe and 'the Stride today...Robin Hood's Stride that is, in North Derbyshire, in the south eastern corner of the Peak District.

It's a beautiful place, a jumble of rocks and trees and boulders and cows on a hill in the middle of nowhere...lovely!

style

We have some good memories there...it's the first place we climbed outdoors, as it has lots of easy bouldering (a rarity in the UK)...it's also where I broke my leg on one of these easy boulders in May 2012, not 5m away from where the photo below was taken.  

sun dappled

Of some significance, it's also where we started to really get a feel for climbing on gritstone, the hard, abrasive rock that is largely confined to the Peak District, and is heavily symbolic of what Peak climbing is all about. 

Gritstone is generally rounded and weather worn, which means many of the cracks and edges have been smoothed off.

When first trying to climb on grit, it just seems impossible - there's no holds for hands and nothing to stand on with your feet either!  And it feels very abrasive, so cuts your hands and arms to ribbons, whilst at the same time being slippery and polished to get a grip on. 

A critical skill on gritstone is smearing, which means placing the toe or ball of your foot flat on steep rock, pushing some weight through it, and ultimately standing on it.  

Not only is this physically very difficult, involving fine control of body weight and a significant test of balance, but it's also quite challenging psychologically.

You just don't believe that you can put any weight on that foot without slipping off and scraping yourself down the rock...and this mindset makes you hesitant, which makes you not weight the foot much, which makes you slip off.  

But if you trust that it will hold, and really positively put some weight on it, some sort of mystic magic happens and you can stand, and even push on what seems to be nothing. 

Here's Anna taking her smear test...

delicate

The prescribed challenge here is to smear along this slab of smooth rock from right to left, relying almost solely on the friction you can create between your shoe and the rock, and a carefully controlled state of balance.

easy does it...

The gritstone does feel slippery and damp (not helped by sporadic rain from the turbulent grey sky), and whilst this may look like a simple problem, it really isn't...what it does is force you to pay attention to detail, to climb carefully, and most importantly, to trust your feet.

Here Anna reaches the left arete, and escapes upwards with relief.

phew

Meanwhile, there is a classic climb at Cratcliffe called The Egg Arete, on the Egg Boulder, which I've been battling with for two years now.

As its name implies, the boulder is like a huge, oval egg, and there are climbs of varying difficulty on all sides of it.  As it happens, this is the very same boulder that I broke my leg falling off of!

The Egg Arete is a blunt, smooth corner of this big boulder...it's a V3 problem, which makes it sound easy-ish, but it really isn't.   Just getting on the rock is very difficult...the first time I tried to do this problem, in late 2012, this is about as far as I got:

almost off the ground

During 2013, I tried it 2 or 3 times, and managed to consistently get here:

solid step up

Today I made some more good progress, but still nowhere near getting up the thing...this is about as far as I got:

push/pull/etc

We took loads of videos of each other failing to get up climbs...fortunately (for you!) I haven't had time to upload any. 

Usually, of late, we've looked to do as many problems as possible...but today, we just felt like working a few harder climbs.   We didn't actually complete any of them, but we made bits of progress here and there, and feel as though given the right conditions (cold and dry - basically the opposite of today) we might get up a few things. 

And we wanted to spend a little time on actual rock before Font in two weeks time...

A good day out...and I'm officially very tired indeed!

)-zzzz

Day 236 - The Mighty Tree Sparrow

case to rest

I don't know about you, but I thought I detected a hint of scepticism in Andy's comments on a recent post about local birds.

I'd mentioned that we have tree sparrows in the garden, but had failed to provide documentary evidence, and so apparently had not done enough to offload the burden of proof. 

Tree sparrows are much less common than house sparrows, and so I suppose it was fair to demand photographic evidence of my evidently bold claim.

Well, it's taken a while, but as I was getting dressed for work this morning, I spotted this little chap sitting high in the hedgerow just a few metres from our bedroom window.  

"I'm sure that's a tree sparrow!", I exclaimed, immediately failing to grasp the significance and rushing to grab the DSLR...fortunately Anna was there to point this out to me, so I dashed downstairs to get the camera and rattled off a few shots.

It seems I still had a reasonable dose of the usual morning fuzzy-headedness, as I completely forgot to adjust anything at all on the camera...so the pictures aren't great, to be honest...

...but that is definitely a tree sparrow!

cheeky chappy

This is a juvenile, but still you can clearly see the brown cap and the tell-tale dark dot on the cheek.

Thanks Andy, I accept your apology!  ;-)

Moving on...our walk down the lane this evening was notable in a variety of ways.

Firstly, it was distinct from our usual walks in that we hardly walked, instead deciding to travel by skateboard (or is it technically a long board...or both?).

This was good fun, despite getting a slightly scary wobble on at the steepest, fastest part of the lane, trying to avoid random stones thrown all over the road by recent harvesting traffic. 

Down at the bottom of the valley (sans decent camera, of course), we came across the beautiful sight of a pair of deer wandering across the stubble in the evening sunshine. 

At least I had my phone with me, so I got the proof (cough, Andy...) although pretty much failed to capture any hint of the atmosphere...

not too dear

Finally, I got my first 'boarding injury!!

ouch stings

As it happened, this wasn't from careering (or is it careening? Actually, both!!) down the hill, out of control...it was from doing tricks outside the front door...or trying to, at least.

Ok, ok, I was failing to do tricks outside the front door...or is it the back door?  That's a matter of some controversy! 

"What on earth are you doing skateboarding?!" I hear you cry...

Well, I'm not really sure, but I think it has something to do with my age...and a hefty dollop of denial thereof. 

Bah humbug!

B-/

Day 228 - Tai Chi Yang Style

that's a big beachball

I took a sort of duvet day from work today...I'm owed over 30 hours so I felt it was reasonable to take a day for myself.  

I spent the day at home, tidying up and finishing off those videos (see Day 228b), dozing with a cat on my lap, and practising a little Tai Chi Yang style.

Really, I have no idea what I'm doing...I learnt a little from an Xbox fitness game that uses the Kinect to tell you when you're doing it correctly, and some of it has stayed with me.  I find it really helps with balance and control.

Since mentioning it in a blog post the other day, it's been on my mind again, and I thought I might try to take it up a little more seriously.

I enjoy the peaceful, meditative aspect of it, as well as the balance and control.  It's supposed to be very good for your health, and it's surprisingly tiring, despite the apparent lack of activity. 

Also, it looks really cool...when done properly!

reasonable form

And I'm really not suggesting that I'm doing it at all properly - I'm an absolute beginner with no real experience.

So I found an instructional video on Youtube, and spent half an hour learning the first few moves.  They're really hard to remember, as well as being hard to do (or hard to do well, at least)!   

It seems that it's important to be in full control and awareness of all four limbs, your core, your centre of gravity, and the orientation of various body parts (knees, feet, hands, elbows, head, torso)...then add constant planes of motion and the interactions between all of the above, and it becomes quite the multitasking challenge!

Consequently, I think there's a fairly steep learning curve.

go away

I took a short video of myself so that I could check my form, and sure enough I can see a whole number of things I'm doing wrong...although overall, I'm reasonably happy for a first try... 

And it did give me the opportunity to snip these stills, giving me some interesting and different (if poor quality) photo's for the day.

you dancin'?

I'm going to try to be diligent and practise for a few minutes daily...you should feel free to regularly ask me how I'm getting on with it!

I think it will help me to remain spiritually, psychologically and emotionally centred, balanced and grounded, which is my preferred mode of existence...

More simply put, it helps me to retain my inner peace, no matter how crazy and chaotic the world around me might become...(tho' it doesn't, most of the time, to be fair)...

I guess you can be the judge of that, dear readers...you can decide whether my life appears chaotic or stressful, and how calm I seem in relation to it...if I can persist with the Tai Chi, then it will be interesting to discover what impact, if any, it has on my blogging. 

But no, you're not seeing the video at this point!

It's feasible that the stills are giving the lie to the level of form I have attained...so we'll keep that video firmly locked away, thanks...

;-)

Day 227 - Summer Harvest

in need of tlc

Well, I remembered, even if none of you did (despite me specifically asking you to)...

It's late July, and so time for Part Three of my four part Hole in the Hedgerow series.

Part One was taken in late January, on a lovely crisp morning, and it was one of the earliest photo's that I was really pleased with.

That directly inspired the Spring edition in Part Two, late April, which again I found full of life and vibrancy.

This time, we've turned from the verdant green of spring, to the duller, dustier green of Summer.   The plants are almost starting to wilt a little in the dry heat, and the wheat in the field has faded from green to a pale yellowy-brown, and is ready to harvest.

In fact, they've just started harvesting today - every 15 minutes or so another huge tractor, towing a humongous trailer filled with grain, goes hurrying past in a roar of diesel and dust. 

They'll be back and forth to the grain store for all of the evening and much of the night. 

It's the busiest it ever gets down our quiet lane, which goes pretty much nowhere...just to one farmhouse, and a few hundred acres of arable and pasture land. 

I'd better not go 'boarding tonight then!

B-)

Day 225 - Those About To Rock

we salute you

As we weren't tired and aching enough from yesterdays skateboarding, today we went up to the Peak District to do some Fontainebleau preparation. 

Anna, Jezz and I are going to spend a week in Font in September, so it's time to start getting mentally and physically prepared. 

pad hogs

Set in the southern end of the Burbage Valley, amongst the bracken (head height in parts, at this time of year) you will find a scattering of large, coarse gritstone boulders strewn across the hillside below Burbage South Edge.

There are lots of easy (and I use that word with a single, slightly raised eyebrow) problems here, and in many ways it's like spending a day in Font. 

We spent most of the day padding up friction slabs...

trust your feet

This involves standing on vague bumps and pea-sized pebbles, and trying to believe that your foot won't slip off, should you pluck up the nerve to attempt to stand on it!

faith in friction

On one particular climb, for no apparent or agreed reason, we all decided to do animal impersonations...

stork

Jezz going for the classic left hand and foot close together - right hand and foot far, far apart Stork Pose (I think it might be a yoga thing)...

gecko

...whilst Anna uses opposing hands and feet as she performs The Gecko...

crab

...nobody can explain whatever it is I'm doing...and Jezz had to bomb, natch...

bomber

But despite all of that, it was a successful day of climbing easy (there's that word again) problems, ripping our skin up, catching the sun, and generally having a good time out in the bright, warm breeze.  

We hope it will be the start of a period of progress and improvement in the 6 or 7 weeks until we go to Fontainebleau.

We'll be looking for gains in strength, stamina, flexibility (in my case) and finger skin resilience (Jezz and Anna)...and good losses in body fat (Jezz and I)!

into battle

This large boulder is known as The Tank, for fairly obvious reasons...this afternoon, we couldn't resist the opportunity to climb aboard before we left, and get some photos as we urged the great battleship forward.

It seemed like a fitting cry as we head towards Font...

Onward!

B-)

Day 222 - Raven Rocks

big black blob

No, the title of this post hasn't been used before...not quite! :-p

For some reason, I feel strangely wordless today, so this might be a short entry!

I suppose it had to happen eventually...I just wasn't expecting eventually to be Day 222...hadn't really crossed my mind when it might be, to be honest.

So anyway...

Walking down the lane this evening, I spied this big fellow across the field.  Well, given my slightly failing long distance eyesight, I could just see a big black blob on top of the gatepost, where there shouldn't be a big black blob. 

Even on full zoom I couldn't get a great photo, and unusually, I had difficulty holding the camera steady.  

So all the photo's turned out a bit blurry, although at least it's clear that he's a raven...look at the height of him, compared to the 3 bar wooden gate that he's perched next to.

big black bird

His tail is partially hidden too, making him look a little smaller than he actually is. 

Even Anna agrees that he's a raven - because that's just how big he is!

We also saw a sparrowhawk circling in around our hedgerow, dropping on some poor bird...by the sound of it, it was a successful kill.

The incident took place about 7-8m from our lounge window - I saw him drop in from sitting in my chair at the desk where I am now!

Anna hissed a whisper telling me to grab the camera, but by the time I got there with it, he was out of sight around the back of the hedgerow, and all we caught was the awful noise of excited and distressed birds.

So that was pleasant...

Oh no, wait a minute...no, no it wasn't!

:-/

Day 221 - Catwalk

divas

Since losing Jazz, I've become aware that I'm as conditioned into the daily routines of dog-life as he was.

An obvious manifestation of this occurs around early evening each day, when I consistently experience a strong urge to go for a walk.

For 13 years I've been tied to the dogs (both figuratively, and literally at times)...it no longer felt like a chore, but I sometimes wondered what it would be like not to have to get home for 6pm every day...I thought there might be a sense of liberation, but there really hasn't been.

Well, there is an occasional realisation that I don't have to rush home, but it seems like something of a surreal notion, so I ignore it!

I feel institutionalised...like the man who's been in prison for 20 years, shut in a little cell...when he reaches the end of his sentence, the door is opened, and the guard pronounces that he's free to go...but the outside world seems big and scary, and it turns out he prefers to stay where he is, where he knows the routine and therefore feels safe. 

That's how I feel - I'm free of the commitment of having a dog...but I don't want to be!

Anyway, luckily the weather has been beautiful, so we had a lovely warm wander down the lane. 

As would often happen, Loz chose to follow us, so I got this lovely photo of Anna and Loz on their catwalk, in the hazy evening sun.

Entertainingly, a yellowhammer followed us up the lane, all the way stridently alarm calling about the presence of Loz...

disappointingly, no bananas

It really sounded as though it were actually saying, "Cat! Cat!!"...

Anyway, enough of all that, I must get off - it's time for my after dinner treat!

:-)

PS See below for a special bonus post on steep bouldering...you know you want to!

Day 215 - Rejuvenation

jesus christ pose

Our spectacularly inept drainage contractors reached a magnificent new high (or a suicidally depressing low, depending on your mindset) today...

The day started badly...their first action was to start randomly chopping off major branches from the lilac tree that we'd been faithfully promised, by all concerned, would not be damaged. 

When I confronted them about it, they claimed not to have been told...

By lunchtime, they had surpassed even this world class incompetence...

Chatting to our neighbours last night about how they were going to be cutting and digging through the hedge today, Dave (next door, a builder) predicted that they would probably cut through the power supply to our houses, which fairly obviously runs along the line of hedgerow they're going through...

Sure enough, I arrived home this evening to find a legion of Electricity Board cars and vans out on the verge, and a garden full of a new lot of contractors, digging furiously into the hedgerow.

It turns out the idiot farm labourers (which I'm sure is what they are - definitely farm labourers anyway) cut through the main cables (in accordance with Prophecy), so a fairly lengthy and involved repair process was under way.  

typical garden scene

At this point we don't know whether to laugh or cry (probably hysterically in either case!).

To escape, we went over to the meadow with Jazz, which we were pleased to find void of tractor for the first time in days...so in we went to play with hay stuff!!

First, we found this giant hamster wheel, which I think is used, on its base, to house hay for sheep...but it was much more fun sideways on!

I tried running in it, but found I really needed a hill to do it justice...

rat race

The next obvious thing to try was to climb it (natch)...

blithe and elephant

Of course, Anna always looks so much more lithe and elegant than me (which I think might be down to the fact that's she's just way more lithe and elegant than me? Just a theory...).

lithe and elegant

Then I had to go for a second upside down shot for my ongoing 2 part (so far) series of me being upside down, which has been, of course, a solid and timeless tradition (in that I've spent no time on it) around these parts since mid-summer night...

upside down #2

It's quite entertaining to play on - being basically a huge wheel, you have to be really careful with weight distribution, as it can start to roll at any movement...which doesn't always end quite so elegantly...

french dismount?

...and I have the bruises to prove it!

But if you are careful you can get into some interesting climbing positions;

bat hang attempt

Looks like I'm on a bit of a roll here, leftwards...this might be the one that ended up in cuts and bruises...cool, adventuring injuries!!

Anna has to do it backwards of course, just to be different...

pro bat hang attempt

And then finally Anna wins the whole day by skipping up on top of the bales of hay that were stacked in the meadow, and performing a serene, calming (and ingeniously appropriate) yoga position...

Tree Pose

After such fun and nonsense in the field, we were both smiling and laughing, and the crazy irritation of the drainage debacle had melted away.

My advice to you, good reader, is therefore...next time you are frustrated, angry or upset, first play hamsters and bats, and then climb the nearest haystack and do yoga on top of it.

Works wonders, trust me...

B-)

Day 214 - Neuro-Synchronicity

jiminy?

Oddly, it was only this morning that Jiminy Cricket hopped and skipped his way through my mind, and then this evening whilst walking Jazz down the lane we met this little fellow.

I was on a management and leadership course (I know, right?), and following a discussion on Values, we were asked to spend a few minutes thinking about our own personal values.  The idea was that in order to lead, you need to know yourself, be firm and considered in your values, and understand how they correlate (or not) with the values of the organisation within which you're leading.

Really, it's not as dull as it sounds! 

Ok, maybe it is - but I found it interesting...and as I pondered my values, I considered how the concept of following my conscience is a fundamental value of my life, (and the idea of which brought with it Jiminy Cricket, tripping along my neurological pathways...).   

Everyone else was talking about values in brief, abstract phrases, such as honesty, caring, and respect.

Some seemed nonsensical to me, such as loyalty (you may value it, but it's not a value - it's a characteristic, isn't it?).

Or the even odder timekeeping (the basis for which seemed to be "I hate it when people are late, it makes me so angry"...which I translates to me as "I hate it when people don't understand that I'm considerably more important than their own insignificant agenda's and life challenges!").

But my values were all more concrete and specific, and I suppose more philosophical:

- Always let your conscience be your guide...

- Treat others as you would be treated...

- Everyone has the right to be who they are (although not necessarily to impose themselves on anyone else)...

- People are more important than money...and more broadly,

- Living beings are more important than inanimate objects...

So anyway, apparently I'm still pondering these notions...I'm not sure the above is a complete set, but I'm comfortable that what's there are all solid aspirations/values of mine.

Consequently, when we heard the familiar chirrup of crickets down the lane this evening, it seemed opportunistically pertinent, like a little reminder of my earlier musings...and made for some obvious blog fodder, of course!

This is a Roesel's Bush-cricket, quite common across Europe...but still, not something you see every day, and a nice addition to my species collection (insect department)!

On the course this morning, the Trainer commented that she got the impression that I'm more reflective than most...which seemed a polite way of putting it - and I suppose it's true.

I can live with that...

:-)

Day 208 - Summertime

umm, a butterfly?

Having met so many caterpillars in recent weeks, the season appears to have turned...and the butterflies are coming out in force.

Wandering down the lane tonight, one of the first really warm, summery evenings we've had, I was ruing a missed opportunity a couple of days ago.  I'd got the snail photo early in the morning, so didn't bother taking the camera on our evening stroll.   

Typically, we were then treated to a brilliant display of a pair of crows pestering and generally annoying a large buzzard.   This has been a common sight over recent months, but rarely so close and never when I've been free to take a photo. 

As it was, if I'd had the camera in my hand as I usually do these days, I would have had a great chance of getting an interesting action shot.

But then we started to notice the butterflies...

red admiral

We soon realised they were all out...red admirals sunning themselves on broad bramble leaves, others collecting nectar from flowers, or courting, as with this white (there were several of these, circling and spinning around each other in the warm, hazy sunlght).  

white, of some description

I've no idea what this last one is, and unfortunately I haven't got the time or energy to go researching...

erm, a brown?

Perhaps one of you friendly readers might chip in, in the comments section below?

Go on, you know you want to! ;-)

Anyway, I was struck by how the presence of so many butterflies within a few metres of each other really brought home the feeling that Summer is here...and we should all spend more time basking, and flitting, and flirting...spend more time living, and less time working!

After all, we all know that Winter is Coming, a time for struggle and work and huddling indoors...

So we should make the most of this season, for all the warmth and life that it brings, and be thankful that we're here to live through it.

:-)