I'm a woman

I'm a woman
Photos copyright Laurence Gouault
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Sunday 23 May 2010

Whether it is knobbier in the behind, by stevie haston

Whether it is nobler to blog, or to suffer the slagging of arrows, or work power endurance, is the question. The weather is up and down, mostly down. I don’t know if this has affected my mood, probably, as I do need a lot of bright light, or I get depressed. A meter of snow fell in May and its burden of heavy snow broke thousands of trees locally, a sad thing in deed. My garden suffered, so the roses are late, and we will miss about half our flowers. I felt like crying more than once. To top it all, one of my favourite cockerels drowned in a water bucket, his name was Napoleon, and he was a dwarf, with the spirit of tiger, his little harem miss him awfully.
Anyway that’s not the point, the point is to blog, or not to blog. As a diary a blog s good, it’s good but not private, it takes time, and is a burden, there is little up side. I have been working a lot recently, mainly writing and some working on climbing products, which has meant little time for other stuff and yet I cant help but say, that the people who have written and told me they enjoyed my writing have cheered me up. So I’ll try to blog for them.

There has also been the problem of the month of May itself. May is so blooming pollen crazy that it’s had me ill. I love May, but am allergic to pollen. Here’s a funny one, all my life I wanted a Wisteria, I adore their blossoms, and for two years my Wisteria didn’t blossom and I was sad, but since then its gone mad and pumps out huge quantities of mind numbing, heavy pollen. Every day is a battle not to chop it down, a bit like this blog,

I love the people who enjoy my stuff, after all they must be intelligent, and like-minded, and obviously if you don’t like my stuff you are clearly of an ugly disposition, and are dumb, and do not disserve Tiramisu.


Laurence warming up on an 8a-progress for her!
There is another problem, my climbing is in a hole. My climbing is vacillating, and lacks true direction. And I can’t enjoy it in the way I can a run in the woods, or a bit of caving. I keep wondering if that’s it, it will just decline. I so enjoyed being good a while ago, it was such a rush, I thought it would continue. But it’s very much like my garden I am afraid, it needs mucho work, and the storms will do their damage wont they. While in Italy, I tried a route I would like to do, but of course the problem is that it’s hard, and very much not my style. It’s 28 meters long, power endurance all the way, no rest no shake out, start and go till the chains. It’s magnificent in its simplicity, but it will require a lot of effort from me if I am to be even a serious contender. Still there is a similar route for Laurence on the same cliff at her grade, so it might be interesting for us both. Perhaps she will drag me up out of the little quagmire I have sunk in. I don’t know if any of you have done power endurance, but its weird stuff. If you have done any running I would compare it to running an 8OO meter race, you can give out anywhere in the last half, absolutely anywhere. Its also funny in that old age, or any age other than perfect age, is supposed to affect power endurance. You get vets still good at longer distances but not at the 800. In climbing there are good examples of many older climbers being very capable but not at super power endurance, or comp type routes. So it might be interesting if I knuckle down and try, cos I think it’s a hurting thing, it’s a terribly hard thing to do and train for it. I need courage to start it, and courage to train for twelve weeks, all to then probably fall off just short of the chains. I’ll have to mortgage my soul to the devil, where is the horny red blighter when you need him.