Happy New year, Bonne Annee.
Due to this blog,/golb being publicized on UKC forum I was offered over £1000 by two kind people , they know who they are, and thanks, but no thanks. My new year’s resolution is to pack in my job, and crank de stein, to crush, to pulverize, to seek and destroy. Don’t know how to do this as I am skint. The normal state of things is for someone like me to fade into obscurity and become just another old geezer. It’s happened to people younger than me, and it’s happened to people better than me. The climbing community is now used to paying either no money, or just a few bits of gear, why should they pay when desperate people will do it for free and their promotion for nothing. The best climbers in Britain have often given up climbing and entered more normal employment because they weren’t able to balance things out. This is a shame as some of them have been at the very top of the game. When I have seen these lads give up I have often felt terrible for them, where would our sport be without them, how sad that they didn’t realize their dreams and push climbing a little bit further. Wake up Britain, they didn’t climb E2, they were good on a world scale, and they gave up because of lack of support.
Due to this blog,/golb being publicized on UKC forum I was offered over £1000 by two kind people , they know who they are, and thanks, but no thanks. My new year’s resolution is to pack in my job, and crank de stein, to crush, to pulverize, to seek and destroy. Don’t know how to do this as I am skint. The normal state of things is for someone like me to fade into obscurity and become just another old geezer. It’s happened to people younger than me, and it’s happened to people better than me. The climbing community is now used to paying either no money, or just a few bits of gear, why should they pay when desperate people will do it for free and their promotion for nothing. The best climbers in Britain have often given up climbing and entered more normal employment because they weren’t able to balance things out. This is a shame as some of them have been at the very top of the game. When I have seen these lads give up I have often felt terrible for them, where would our sport be without them, how sad that they didn’t realize their dreams and push climbing a little bit further. Wake up Britain, they didn’t climb E2, they were good on a world scale, and they gave up because of lack of support.
Anyway a new year, wow, 365 days, of stuff. Well it won’t be sun if you live in Britain, and there won’t be much climbing, and if you are a womble, or a builder, it won’t be a superb standard. So my resolution is to sell my house, and move even further south, and live on nuts and berries. Sound a bit far fetched, well I have an acquaintance, who is going to move from stressful Ariege, to the hills of Laos. Goodluck Momo. My own personal thing was to climb harder on more taxing climbs because that’s how I see one aspect of climbing and my continuing struggle with just being human. Trying harder, getting stronger, and doing it all with more snap and flick, is way more fantastic than failing on lesser climbs. This probably won’t be possible for a while as I am working in a different profession. I look on these periods when I am not doing reasonable stuff like climbing, caving, as death. Another less imposing word might be hibernation, but assuredly I will die soon, and then what of my own particular possibility of a unique life. Some people’s lives are, commuting in a car to work, then working, commuting back, television, sleep with tablets /drugs, alarm clock, repeat, add effing nauseaum. My life such as it is with its hiccups and failures, highs and lows, has at least been interesting, and I don’t want to take Prozac.
This morning there was another litter of baby rabbits, the big buck father died the other day, Borrat was his name, my wife buried him. But some continuation is happening, a little joy. I hope if you read this, you will have some joy in 2010, get out climb in the sun, stare at a big mountain, smell the coffee, run thru the flowers, swim with the fishes off Madagascar. Oh, and if there are any Manic depressives out there, a word from our sponsor, ‘Enjoy the manic bits, cos the depression isn’t that jolly. Are you looking forward to the daffodils? We have a few brave snowdrops tinkling their white little heads in the frosty white grass.