Wait and See

You'd think they'd make them a bit quieter wouldn't you? MRI machines that is. They are like a cross between a washing machine on spin cycle and a pneumatic drill! The other thing is that unlike x-rays which take about a second to grab the shot, you need to stay still for twenty minutes or so. The trick I found was to think about an itch somewhere other than my leg even if I didn't have an itchy nose to begin with then it certainly was by the end of the scan! Now it's a case of waiting around three weeks for the specialist to review it.

Our water (lack of) saga would finally appear to be over! Our neighbour had noticed a damp patch on his living room wall around 18 months ago. It had slowly got worse and on Thursday the plumber finally turned up and they discovered that there was rather a big leak right next to the wall just at the T-joint in the pipe where our supply spurs off. The flow from the leak was rather bigger than that flowing in to the field tank. While things were wet it probably didn't make much difference but once things began to dry out then it was going to drain the tank rather quickly. With one night's light usage it seems to have filled our header tank. Fingers crossed!

A bit frustrating on the climbing front this week. It has all been very showery so Simon and I ended up at Robin Proctor's Scar on the assumption that since it was exposed it would be quick drying. Unfortunately just as we got to the crag it began to rain! The two teams already there decided to pack in and headed off but after twenty minutes of hiding behind a drystone wall from the light rain we had a look at what might be in nick. The crag was a mixture of dry and wet - all leftward facing rock was wet but that rock facing right or forward was mostly dry. Within ten minutes things were dry enough to give it a go.

Two warm-up routes later and things were looking good :-) I decided to have a go at The Shield, F6c, as it had been on my to-do list for a while. I got the third bolt clipped easily enough then launched out on to the shield itself - a lurch to the big jug then a distinct lack of holds to get stood up. I had a couple of goes but I don't have enough oomph in my shoulders at the moment so reversed back to the deck. Loads of blood! In slipping around on the crux I'd taken a couple of flaps off my fingers with red consequences. Also when down climbing I'd pulled a side hold off and cut my thumb. As it happened another big shower was bearing down on us so we called it a day and headed back to the car.

Since it was still early we went for a look at Low Stoney Bank since we'd been recommended it. Looked a bit poor to be honest so we wandered further upstream to check out the High crag. Simon fancied a route but since we didn't have the update with the sports routes in it was just a guess as to the grade. As it turned out it was a F6b and fairly good, even if some of the bolts were clippable from existing trad routes. All in all not a bad day given the weather.

Actually went for a run today, about an hour or so. Nothing too strenuous with not too much up and down. I was pretty slow though, but then I've hardly done any running, just a couple of 3 mile runs, in the last month. Will have to see how my knee copes.