Wednesday 27 June 2007

Contracts and climbing

Got a new contract! Woohoo! And it's a rockingly perfect one too. Good money. I'll be on call quite a bit over the weekend but hey - it's all good. It means that I'll be earning consistently and have enough money to save and live a happy life as well as having enough time to go climbing and snowboarding and also be flexible enough to work when I want to.

I'm so, so stoked.

I've been climbing at the indoor wall in Les Houches a few times with Chris, Crampons, Brian (who I still believe got bitten by a radioactive spider sometime in his youth judging by what he can climb!), Louise, Abi and many others. It's getting much better there and am finding it's a great place to train for specific areas of weakness as well as strnegth and technique.

Last Sunday Chris and I went out for our adventure and ended up going to Le Joux (The Wood in Savoyarde - the local dialect). The rock was a slippery technical variety of gneiss and we had a great time monkeying around it with the company of Lousie showing us some new stuff to do. I had an absolute blast and am starting to get the hang of the different holds and techniques to use when and where and really enjoying climbing the different pitches.

It's really good to be feeling like I'm getting better technically, and also finding what type of climbing I'm better at (strength climbing - overhangs, starting to use hand/fist jams properly, heel hooks, etc) whereas not as strong at friction and delicate balance climbing. Luckily Chris is almost entirely the opposite so we compliment each other very well - he can go up the fiddly balancy stuff which he breezes up, and I'll do the bits where you hang around upside down by one hand. Perfect!

Wardo's parents pitched up in the valley today too so we've had a frantic period of cleaning this morning. The house looks mint now too. Unfortunately the cooker was a bit beyond us and we were a bit nervy until we realised it had a flip-top hood. Good mojo - flip the lid and hey presto! a perfectly clean cooker to all appearances.

At least the house is looking and smelling nice now.