50 shades of Grey, or should that be Gray. I opened a route the other day that climbs to an eyelet, and thought it might be easy, and then of course it was not. We are not talking 9a here, we are talking like 7a, or something lowly like that. Anyway I couldn't work out whether it was me in my new seal skin clothes for the terribly fridgid waters of Malta, or whether it was actually hard. it gently overhangs, and starts off greyish, which is good -strong rock. Then it deepens into a lighter gray-which is bad, as it becomes more like weak pumice stone. Then it goes into a sponge like yellow, and how can I put this, it's as weak as a frozen sponge at this point. Em. The route is called Gay Matter, and is brilliant, beware however as it's malevolent nature seems to be controlled by the climbers' equanimity, or lack there of.
Colours are not restricted to gray. The sea is 20°, and is ok if you have a little neoprene layer like me. Climbing is good, but it's a bit clammy when the wind is from Africa.
I am going slowly black, or is it a reddish brown. I am not sure of these racist colour groupings we use. I am only sure of the colour of rock, and the colour of the sea. And possibly the colour of happiness, is not the chalk like gray of my last few new routes, which are like Goethe badly translated into Chinese, you know "hard to read", or as they might say with London accent "hard to leed". A very nice Canadian boy was climbing on the cliff recently, Marc asked me what kinnda rock it was, "Chalk and rice cake", I said. He gave me a polite quizzical look. He should be in Chamonix now, caressing that lovely golden, very solid, caressed by the dying embers, of a rose tinted sunset, granit.
Oh yes the colour of happiness is …...