Great Fruit Cake Land, by Stevie Fruity Haston .

Alex not believing that this route is 6b.

 Had a great day at Fruit Cake Land, one of my favourite cliffs in the world. It was really good conditions which does make a difference here. It can be very humid, or the sea can be belting in like a soggy train.

 the abb down the 6b, me thinking is this the F..ing 6b or an 7b?

We warmed up on a perfect 6b, it has only had a few ascents and feels like your own private 7th level of heaven. My fore arms found the wood, John Holmes would have been proud of me.  It might be 6c. But who cares, the price of getting into heaven is a pure heart and nimble footwork.

 The access onto the first belay of Bernd was looking a bit sketchy.

Tried one of  my projects a route called Bernd, its ace to the power of ten. The first tiny pitch is a bit tricky and dangerous. I don't like doing it as its two broken legs minimum, and then a swim with your arms, as your legs will just be grinding around causing you a bit of pain.

 the initial moves off the chockstone belay are piss, I fell off them and had to clear some weird slime off one of the holds.


Forgetting the moves I lurched up with a stupid sequence and plummeted, no probs the friends held. I had a great session, worked some neat ways of robbing gravity until gravity reminded me who was boss. I thought it might have gave in today, conditions were actually perfect, friction was great, temperature cool. I even had luck with the rope drag by some better placements.
  

Fruit Cake Land in all its majesty.


There are 40 routes here now some of them are as good as routes get this side of heaven. Bernd is gonna go, I,ll have to  loose a bit of weight, it will be one of those classic climbs, can't wait.

Animal inside, by Stevie tame Haston.

 Didi, our so called President of Gozo Climbing association.

I will try and put up a page on Gozo climbing Web site in Maltese, it was an over sight, sorry. We Maltese are multilingual, but I realised it was just not right not to have some thing in our own language, please forgive me. My excuse is that my Maltese is very rusty and I also only learnt dialect anyway.

 Didi my East German mate had torn a bicep, and just felt like he had recovered enough to do a few 6a's. So we did Gormengast Crack and Rocket Man, and then did a bit of cleaning. I made a new path to a sector and cleaned a few routes for doing later, they look to be good and mid range.

 A sadly dead Chameleon.

I have to thank Alistair Smith for giving me some money, and Ken for getting me a bit of glue recently. The Donation button at the top of the page is working slowly thanks everybody. I need another bit of time to do the next batch of routes.The last new route I did was 35 meters, a bit of Tufa or collinette climbing, and an overhanging wall on big holds, it's called Master Ken after the You Tube Vids and my mate Ken obviously.

My pigeon on his ring from France, thanks Laurence for sending my exercise rings, bet your glad to see its being put to a good use.


The Chameleon I found injured after a car had knocked it out of a bush, nothing I could do sadly, lovely little animals with fantastic little feet and hands.  The little cliffs don't have much wild life, snakes, lizards, rats, rabbits, frogs, lots of birds which are making a come back since the hunters have moderated some what.
The next step is to get some of the locals into climbing instead of just foreigners enjoying our cliffs. The Gozitans are natural climbers, but the new generation are very much like everywhere else, a bit fat, a bit lethargic. We will see, there always was an interesting gene on this island, it made early Gozitans great seamen, then they immigrated in large numbers to America, Australia and the UK. Hopefully we can get some of them climbing. 

Happy Easter, by Stevie Haston.

Happy Easter.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Seasonal greeting. I guess its spring, even though its been here for ages this year already, the date combined with local religious festivities dictate that we must celebrate, and so celebrate we will by eating huge quantities of icky chocolate.

Ken climbing as he does.

Went climbing with Ken my Maltese mate and one of the local crew who climbs in the high 8s when he can stop eating the local excellent food. He also gave me some glue for which I am very thankful, thanks Ken. We finished the second day climbing at FruitCake Land where Ken led me up Heart of Glass a brilliant 6a+ up overhanging pockets which may be harder for the over weight, the timid, the technically non proficient, the inept, the clumsy etc, perhaps it needs a regrade as even Master Kens huge arms seemed to bulge even more than usual.   

 A very blurred photo of Easter Cristian Cross worship. Either the guy with the cross is moving very fast or my camera is drunk!

The quality of climbing at Fruit Cake Land is ridiculously high. While belaying on a hanging stance, I was reminded of how perfectly genius the new route setter was by a huge series of crashing waves that pummelled underneath and the shot up vertical for 8meters only to miss and then fall back into the sea.  The thus avoided colonic irrigation seemed to tense up parts of my aged body and I was up the route Heart of Glass in seconds. Ken was all smiles at the top and mumbling about pizza. However I took him to see a local project and was treated to Kens eyes bigger than when he sees a big plate of spaghetti. Can we bolt it he asked, no I replied I am afraid it is so perfect we will have to leave it as a traditional route and it will only get 3 ascents in the next 20 years- mysterious indeed are the ways of climbing nearly as mysterious as Easter. Happy Easter and please be understanding of my non religious stance and I love you all anyway, believers, non believers, agnostics, chocolate eaters and climbers.  

Fists of Fury, by Stevie Lee Haston.

Gear like I have used in my own way for 40 years are making the rounds again under new names.


 I was listening to a Pod Cast of Neil Greshem talking about training where he gave me a bit of a mention with helping with his training for a hard Sport route. Strangely even though I was helping him, in listening to the Pod cast I got some thing back, the teacher must always listen, and he must always be his own best pupil. It was funny to be called old school, so as a nod to that, I put on a head band, and an old shirt.

 Pax Mobiscum and "may your god go with you" as a very great British comedian used to say.

There is only one god, and she is called Training.  I was watching my Face book Feed of a few snippets of Bruce eee reee doing some spectacular "stunt" stuff, and there was a bit of him doing a Table Tenis match where he returns shots with Nanchuckies! Well its fake! I like Bruce Lee, and I don't mind emerging myself in that knowledge from time to time, but shit man if a man could do that he could walk on water!

 Back two knuckles.

Bruce Lee weighed about 135 lbs, and was really, really flexible, and fast, thats about it. I don't know if he would have been a good fighter, but I am sure he could have run away fast, "the best defence is not to be there" after all. For sure he would have been a good climber.

I used to train with a Chinese Bouncer in Bradford, he didn't study Wing chung like Bruce, he studied something called Sanda. Sanda is one of those weird things that is tremendously effective, but will never make it into the lime light, a bit like me and my shirt!

 Front two knuckles.

 Finger tip press ups when fat are a bit worrying, even when skinny they can damage joints.

 Planks are good, here I am waiting to go out climbing, and am bored waiting so stupidly am doing planks!

So what's up with the different knuckle stuff, well I think it has a carry over to crack climbing, and you don't have to have cracks. That's about it. There was tons of stuff I used to do that I bring back from time to time, and these press ups are part of it, walking crocodile on fists is good also. It can hurt on a hard floor, don't do them on tiles, do them on plush carpet, or training mats. They give you strong wrists as well, never a bad idea if you actual want to hit some one on the bowling ball. Anyway there you go, old school even for me. 

Extension into press , brill triceps excersise.

These are good, if you can roll onto your knuckles you are real Son of Sanda.  By the way, I took the Chines guy climbing, and even though he was chubby he was great, that was along time ago in a land far away called Bradford.

Gypsy's, tramps, thieves and Conservatives. by Stevie semi tolerant Haston.

 this pigeon does not have a religion.

The new member of the house hold is doing good, so far no religious tendencies at all.

 some exercise stuff  from France.

I do wonder what we were put on this earth for, not just some times, but nearly all the time. Most people seem to think it's about a blind pursuit of money. Others, argument. I just think about the sea the cliffs, a bit of love, and staying fit and well enough to enjoy these things.

 Under the finger board from Mr Crusher Boards is a Zee stone.

The Zee stone as I am sure you know is supposed to be a stone of power, the more eyes it has the more power. You often find climbers who have been to Nepal have one around their necks. I was given this Zee stone because it had too much power for its last owner! He gave it to me because I supposedly have a strong life force. I don't ware this stone anymore, it had a strange affect on me I felt like Crazy horse, I felt invincible. In reality its just a bit of ceramic, the Dalai Lama wears one just like this one.

 A hand exercise device for crushing the scrotum of intolerant people.

Some where along my life I became more tolerant, maybe I trained to be tolerant. There seems to be a lot of people who need training to day in tolerance.

Trepanning devices

I  am offering a Trepanning service for some of my intolerant friends and family, I will do it cheap, or do a few for charity. Perhaps a job lot to get a few hundred over in a short time this week. Any way I will repeat some thing to get things clear, I don't mind Muslims, I don't think being a Muslim increases your chances of being a terrorist. I am personally an agnostic, and in truth I think this might be a good idea considering all the hate flying around. I have Muslim friends, I have Jew friends, I have Christian friends,  and most of them are really tolerant good people. I have a few intolerant Bigot friends and in my family also, but please guys get this straight in aint the religion, it's the person. I won't give up on the intolerant friends, or my family, but you are trying my patience, really you are. Peace. 

The incredible lightness of Bigotry. by Stevie Haston.

1000 pull ups and 1000 press ups, by Stevie Lalanne Haston.

Firstly Id like to thank Elaine Azzopardi for donating to me climbing new routes, and trying to do something for the climbing here. With out peoples help and support, I would still do some routes and maintenance, but it would be less, and the materials would be less good. The heartening thing is that Elaine Azzopardi complimented me on this blog, something I sometimes get complaints about! And because of that compliment which extended to being a training motivator, I extended my training session into a Jack LaLanne special, 1000 pull ups and 1000 press ups.

  

Loz Francomb my old buddy and work mate has just finished on this job, a big one is this. Loz was one of the Manchester group of climbers helped by Brian Cropper who sadly just died. Loz taught me a lot about rigging. Loz is king of the riggers,

 and was a steeple jack as a kid. 

Jack Lalanne was a fitness guru who promoted healthy eating with good excersize. He was famous for doing some pretty whacky stunts on his birthday, to keep himself going and others interested. He did it so well that he hooked me at an early age. Steve Edwards an American buddy who just lost his last battle recently was also a Jack Lalanne fan.  

                                      The last corner panel on this 314 meter high building.

I started the day watching Bill Super foot Wallace on you tube. Bill was a very technical kick boxer from mid 70s and was very flexible into his old age, plus I loved his warm sense of humour and the way he extends his counts. I wasn't so shabby I decided after about 1 hours stretching  but need to get back into it, I was a few inches off side splits which is one way to get me cross! 

I am now aching in every department, but feel very good, beer is on the table, and I will do some work on the climbing this week. I have just used up all my Titanium bolts except for the anchors, so if anybody has some spare cash use the donation button top right. 

Oh and don't rush headlong into the 1000 pull ups, the press ups are so easy compared to the pull ups its almost a joke to think they are half the challenge, they are not. The challenge are the pull ups,  the press ups are just a little slap in the face to keep you conscious. And look up Bill Superfoot Wallace the first real book on stretching to get me motivated other than yoga books, Bill really knew his stuff.