Training with Mates, by stevie antisocial haston.

Satan gets a little help from his friends

 Trained with Laurence today, she didn’t want to, but I made her, cos I needed it. Yesterday I ran up my hill in the rain, which turned to snow in a strong unhelpful gale. The hill is steep rugged and dangerous, it is 1200 meters of up, I say this not to impress but to underline how much I didn’t want to do it. It would have been a lot easier in some sunshine with a buddy. I put it off for hours, hoping the weather would get better, it got worse, Just before I went out, I grabbed three plastic bags, and an extra gel. Two bags went over my hands and one down the front of my underpants. It was awful; but it needed to be done.

Thanks Mum

Anyway today I climbed at the cave of justice and was nice to Laurence so she had to chum me along with some training. The training went a lot easier than it did on Monday, when I did it  by myself. So thanks Laurence. But thanks Jeff too, and Al for phoning me up( hope your bike injury gets better), basically thanks to a bunch of people recently for helping me.
I am of the opinion that a problem shared is a problem doubled, but with true mates who want to help, the Gift of small things becomes possible, and these small gifts turn into something big. So mates keep on laying it on me, man,  I will shoot for the Moon this season. If I climb like today and a few other times in the last two months it will be easy. In between is just hard work.
Anyway you could go and listen to ‘With a little help from my friends’ written by McCartney, or perhaps the version by Joe Cocker, and its true, it is easier.
So on Saturday I couldn’t do a front lever, today it was there, it was easy, everything was a ton easier.

Thanks Adam

Training reality check by stevie the slouch haston.

What I have been doing....

Yesterday I had a bad day, I did three 8’s. What's so bad about that, well lots of things, I am running our of time and money, and my body is getting old, and worn out. I need two small operations

I have just finished a 10 week climbing trip and am weaker than when I started! I don’t like feeling weak. One of my old projects humiliated me, it kinda always does that but yesterday it was smirking, it was just laughing, you’re too weak, you’re too weak.  And it is right, I am too bloody weak.

When we arrived home Laurence went and rested on the sofa with the cats, a phone call to Mark confirmed my suspicions that he was tossing off, which left me by my lonesome, staring at my fingerboards, empty, no gas!

...and what I should have been doing!

Music on loud, chalk everywhere, an hour later I felt righteous. I am weak though, just capable of a one arm, failed to do front levers, reasonable crimp, open hand strength down, flexibility high, bicep pathetic, shoulder appalling, well it’s the same as it ever was, back to some basic stuff.

So, the worst of all is that I have a mountain race coming up, a 100 mile up and down rough nightmare, and have done only one run! The race is in 5 weeks! The outcome will surely be humiliating at best, hospital at worst. I have to get out of the house and into the rain and walk up the little mountain in front of the house. There is no bright side to this one, its even forecast for a storm, maybe the Brightside is that I will be electrocuted! More power Igor.

Paradise regained. By Stevie Dante Haston.

Underworld, Stevie on Satan's love child

Got home, at two in the morning, checked out my garden, the flowers and the veggies, a barn owl checked me out, on its way to terrorise mice. It was raining, and it felt good on my dried up skin after ten weeks in Malta. I breathed in the mountain air, listened to the complete silence, went in the house and hung a few holds on my fingerboard.  Not bad I thought, zee finger strength is high, zee life force seems strong, I cranked out a few pull-ups and bumped by thick skull on zee ceiling. I took a turn in the back garden with my cats; they wanted to show me something important, a big dead bird! They took turns rubbing against, me and a big barbell which was quietly rusting away. I absently picked it up thinking I’d curl it easily, and got a shock; I had to use a lotta body English to get it up. So, notso good, score low on zee bicep curl.

Satan on Stevie's love child

I lay next to my friend and tried to get to sleep and did my version of counting sheep, I went thru the moves on the last route I couldn’t do. No good, sleep evaded me, and so I decided to go thru bits of a tough 100 mile race I will most likely fail on. Well that worked. ZZZZZZed

In the morning I checked out my blog, as Laurence has been sorting it out, while I had my climbing sabbatical going on. Lots of nice stuff like the photo of the wave that probably broke the Azure window arch on Gozo. The blog can get very heavy traffic, so thanks you’all, hope you appreciate the hard work that sometimes goes on.

Rael and Jeff

The blog is a weird thing, but it has been nice seeing the photos of the Underworld cliff, and the odd photo has brought a little memory flicking back thru the rusty brain. There’s a photo of Rael half asleep, and Jeff wanting to climb that I remember taking, Rael was working weird night shifts, but was still coming out, Jeff and Rael were doing Super Furry and Vampire Lats that day, and I was taking a run on Satan’s Love Child, verily it was a good day, a climbing day, the fellowship of the cave.

Satan

When you hit my advanced years you can become a bit grumpy, when you are just intelligent enough to know that the world is fucked, but too stupid and powerless to help, you can get a bit sad, if you dwell on those things beware, its time to discover a cliff and get overhung, it’s the cure, its Paradise, its Odins Hall.

I used to take chances, sometimes big ones, and on the last climbing trip I did a bit of that, and it was very good, hanging off your finger tips, just friction between you and your life blipping out. It was nice. Life is not sacred, it’s the way that you live life that can be sacred.

So what is life like outside my private vision? Television seems to be full of big cleavages and buttox lips and discussion programs about silly things. This was Italian TV between Vaginal cream and verruca cream adverts, some political corruption and lots of hysteria about an absurd ball game played by young men who seem over-fond of each other. Maltese TV was the same minus the vaginal cream adverts. I watched a test card thingy which reported humidity and temperature and most importantly wind and sea conditions. There were no reports on how much pollution it takes to seriously make you ill and how much toxin is getting into our food! Cigarettes were on sale everywhere, despite killing more people than Kadhafi, Hussein, Bin Laden, and the American government put together!!! There you go stick that in your crack pipe and smoke it.

Jeff on Super Furry Animal

King of Kings,by Stevie formally known as Prince Haston

Top pitches of the Underworld &  King of Kings
Photos can't be used without permission

This trip has been epic, forty new pitches, lots of new climbing buddies, but there is one thing that shines, The King of Kings, fifty five meters roof, best new route, totally world class.that I have done apart from maybe some ice routes. He was done on Easter Sunday hence the name, the biggest roof in the world..... Usual politics going on here which is getting on my nervous, want and need bolts. For more news&details about King of Kings contact us....

Some of King of Kings...a 55 meters roof at 55 years old....
Photo can't be used without permission

Visiting ze husband on Malta, by Laurence Gouault.Haston

35 meters splash of sea

 Running around like a blue ass fly, I forgot the joy of being with the husband…! Big cliffs, gorgeous rock, gorgeous routes, massive exposure, surprising amount of wind and big waves. I had a very pleasant week on the little island of Gozo, one horrible hunter threatened us which was the only sad moment of the week. Nice days with two local climbers Jeffrey&Simon. 

Flowers and rock

But the high point was visiting Stevie’s cave, when the equipping finishes it will be a world class venue. Made we wish I’ve been doing more training than yoga, although Stevie seems  to be doing both at the moment lucky him.

The island is green and full of flowers and not too crowed with tourists, even a few climbers because the hunters are having more restrictions nowadays, which is a good thing. Enjoyed seeing stevie’s family, which does have that Mediterranean thing going in on, like  Toni Ann who comes from New York, is really Sicilian, and so reminds me how different we all are and yet how we are all the same.

hungry cave trolls

The aquamarine of the sea, the greens and yellows, from the grass and flowers, and the colourful personality of the Maltese is a powerful mix.

Visiting the churches is more interesting than before as I am now conscious of the praying aspect in the churches due to following mantras and yoga, they are in fact  pretty similar. It was very good to practice yoga on top of the cliff, it added an other dimension. The yellows of the limestone and the mellow vibes from the stone seems to be conducive to a neutral mind. Equally concentrating on where the horizon and the sea meet it is very easy to feel a greater part of the universe. I’m seriously thinking of coming back just to do a yoga week in Gozo.

Oh, such a perfect day. By Stevie Haston

Jeffrey on dinosaur's balls

Been some good days recently, some close as this humanoid ever gets to earthly paradise. Some days approached  that zenith of humanoid enjoyment only to be kiboshed by nasty hunters trying to physically intimidate us, one day we were attacked by a knife wielding moron of extreme girth whose fly was undone and  who seemed covered in slime. It would and could have been funny but his two mates picking large rocks up and hemming us in.

Anyway today was great but yesterday we had some nutters trying to intimidate us. Nothing can dampen our spirits though cos the cliffs are so great, Gothic and grandiose.

Jeff came across from the big island to help and we felt a bit wimpy because we were trashed already by the time he got here. We put Jeff on Elephant Balls which he loved, its high exposure is sublime joy. ++++ 

Next up was another arrete that pierces the sky, Dinosaur's Balls. You need pretty big balls to lead either route but there is a weird ball like hold on the latter which you really fondle and then squeeze like buggery. It’s a bit of a joke route but you wont be laughing that much, its only difficult for two and a half bolts, but they are way up there in the sky  on the edge of extinction.  We cant grade this route, its got a V9 crux and a difficult clip which leaves you plonging sea ward. Its either 8a+ or 8b, or something else, but its definitely ballsy.

Perfect days we have had, one in particular I am not going to talk about because it is a secrete , but this secrete will be shared with you soon, it’s a beaut. So much beauty here, I am glad to be alive, and share the good times with my friends, let the good times roll. But then again in Odin's Hall……

We escaped from the underworld tonight at sunset, big sacs, double ropes drill, lots of tackle and a ton of climbing done, man were we drained, the escape route has never felt harder, full body throws and desperate slaps with torn hands, oh it was grand. Beer, beans on toast, all repeated till bellies complaine. My core feels like its been run over by a truck, good night, good luck, and may you have great days like today. 

Hard equiping, soft routes, by Stevie Softy Haston.

Don’t know which is harder, equipping the routes or finnaly doing them. Don’t know which is more enjoyable, I guess doing them, but sometimes its just that first glimmer, when I know that there is a jem there waiting to be birthed. Its like an act of creation at the beginning of the world, bet you think I am being poncy, but I’ am not, it’s a big wow opening routes for others. The escape route from my big cliff, I have done about 25 times and it is still ace, its steep and pumpy, and I normaly do it in trainers with a sac. Mark  loved getting pumped on the escape route carrying the drill, a big sac, and  worn out trainers! Jeffrey  came up the escape route the first time and was impressed, it was getting dark and he had a head-torch on, the last time he had walking boots on and the obligatory sac, his fore arms had huge sepents like veins, and were bigger than his head.

Today was supposed to be a rest day, so I put in about 8 bolts in a really steep bit of cliff! I was goosed man, my core was twisted and wrung out like a wet towel. I really hurt, I ran out of glue, had to go back up, and back down, it is like childbirth, I need gas for the pain. Yes I am joking! Its piss its easy, its like falling off a log, drunk. No it’s a double joke, Its desperate. I like the bit where I am gripped cos I’ave swung in and am hanging off my big butchers hook, and it is slowly pulling through the cheese like rock, and that’s when I whack in a peg , but first of course I whack my thumb. All my fingers are now thinner, so I should be able to do some thin finger cracks, that have been beyond me.

We have done some great grade 5s, some great 6s, some joyous rightuos 7s, and a few tough 8s, I think they are some of the best routes I have done in over 40 years of opening routes. Today I was very happy.

At the end of the day I went down some fishermans chipped routes, way down a big cliff, a couple of hundred feet, and soloed out up a big jug covered wall, just an other new route!

Flowers, fossils, and furry rabbits.