Blogging and trogging - Recent
Si's general blogs on what's been going on...
Jump to: The father tree , People are Awesome... , Flash Dance , Swallows and... , Power isn't... , Dahab the New... , The 21st Step , Bone Hill,... , Armathwaite, Stone... , Gouther Crag,... , The best breakfast... , Stop drinking -... , New Years Eve , Christmas Day on... , Christmas Eve , Surprisingly... , Unfeasable love of... , Ladybower circuit... , Soul Circus , The day that... , Climbing for... , Stanage struggle , 10 years on... , The Three Peaks of... , The Climbing Academy , Climbing Works , Stephen Venables...
Nov 20th 2010 The father tree
It's not easy being a father, I guess, it was never easy being a father.
I spent seven years waiting to write my dad a poem, and it wasn't until an image came into my head which neatly encapsulated a portrait of the essence of my father's place in the world - that I found the words.
The image of a solitary tree, glowing with a golden warmth in a forest of green evergreens, a maverick tall proud tree, sending seeds of ideas out into the world, unknowlingly inspiring thousands of life changes with gentle and truncated sentences of wisdom.
After seven years of frustration, trying to find words to express deeply supressed feelings, it was only twenty frantic minutes of scribbling to get the picture down in words, sat on a bench in my favorite hotel in the Lake District, at the Old Dungeon Ghyll.
Anyway, feelings released now...
This is for you Dad. I love you.
Si
Nov 6th 2010 People are Awesome on You Tube
People are awesome. This is so inspirational and has wow factor - leaving you speechless.
An awesome You Tube video of people doing awesome things...
Sep 4th 2010 Flash Dance
Dahab, Desert Divers, Egypt.
The Islands, just south of the main area of Dahab.
Myself, Meilee, Karen and Claudia.
A gentle air dive somewhere I had been twice before, somewhere Meilee had been 4-5 times before but somewhere Claudia had been literally hundreds of times. It's 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the desert sun is dropping low and the water is liquid gold.
The entrance to the dive is through a small coral hole which you descend, twist, kick and a turn to enter the Islands pool number 3, and the adventure begins. You have, depending on how heavy you are on breathing, around one hour maximum at these shallow depths.
Ultimately we spent a little longer overall at 71 minutes, and not without good cause.
20 minutes into the dive, having flown like Peter Pan over the Garden of Eden, having hovered weightless in a fantasy garden of the worlds most colourful aquarium and having seen some of the worlds most precious treasures hidden from uncaring eyes we were privileged to one of the most personal and intimate experiences.
Blue, silver and all shades in between a fish ball appeared over the coral rainbow horizon, a choreographed dance as timeless the ocean herself - baby barracuda, each one precisely 70cm long, each one sparkling brilliant silver wrapped and large eyed, calm, elegant and synchronized in harmony with their fish friends.
Claudia, the videographer, found herself centre stage to a swirling mass of infant prodigy, caught up in the flash dance of the playful ball of baby predators. The irony of being watched rather than watching was there and felt, the moment was as special as the effect was brilliant.
Silence befell all those watching in awe, the kind of 'once in a lifetime' quiet that comes as the common bond of nature reaches out and wraps you all up together. The feeling of all the world in one place warms you and all fear is extinguished as all joy is let free.
You are as close to a fish as you will ever be and your friends are as one.
Beautiful.
Jul 15th 2010 Swallows and Grindleford
The Official Grindleford 'Not a Raft Race' race.
Well, the Thursday night club excelled themselves this time. A nearly full turn out saw a multitude of river craft bedraggled down the local river - but not the River Derwent. Inflatable crocodiles, lilos, canoes, dinghies and tractor tyres raced the mile and half to the Calver bridge on a beautiful 'Swallows and Amazons' summer evening. Picture postcard views of Froggatt and Curbar Edge topped with grey skies framed the tranquil not-so-full-of fish waters of the ‘Not the River Derwent’.
Laughter was heard all the way, from racing for the inflatable fiesta of pumped up beauties, to the ‘jumping off the bridge’ for an unfeasibly silly number of times. So many happy faces – so much silt. To top it all our non-organiser – the ‘I’m not really Matt’, who doesn’t run an events company, didn’t fly us all to the Moon afterwards for swift beverages, pies and peas. Happy days. Yes.
Image below: 'Not-the-Official-Picture' but a good idea for next year methinks...
Jul 9th 2010 Power isn't everything
Today I borrowed the world's fastest bike on the road - the BMW S1000RR and laid down a few miles. Awesome was the verdict - to read more go to Planet Power
Jun 19th 2010 Dahab the New Kathmandu in the Desert
19th to 24th June 2010
Image: © Shutterstock
To read more go to Scuba, Egypt.
To read more about Scuba Diving in Dahab, Egypt go to Desert Divers
Jun 12th 2010 The 21st Step
3 Peaks of Yorkshire
The Yorkshire Dales in full Summer attire relented again as tired pins pumped their way around the much trodden course of competition. I shared what was to be a solitary expedition with half of Merseyside who had signed up for a 3 Peaks Challenge Walk day. This was an unexpected bonus - company on the way round and tea and coffee set up at several strategic spots on the way round. Thanks guys.
No competition today though.
It was a personal push against the heat, the dehydration and a frenzy of beautiful photographs presenting themselves one after the other. Joy.
Limestone pavements are such refreshing foreground for the photographer, white crazy stone patterns just jump out, drawing any subject you put above them straight into the picture. Thank you. Add to that dark grey storm clouds that hover over your subject breaking the light into spotlight shafts and you are in photographer's heaven.
The challenge whilst running and taking photographs is to decide which you want most - a time or a picture. As I said today, there was no competition... 7 hrs 53 minutes is not a race time! But some beautiful results on the flash card and a fabulous memory.
Pen-y-ghent (694 metres - 2,276 feet),
Whernside (736 metres - 2,415 feet) and
Ingleborough (723 metres 2,372 feet) all in one circular route.
This qualifies as the 21st step as it was a push after a ridiculously long period of abstinence from any kind of serious exercise. It hurt and was hard for me.
May 15th 2010 Bone Hill, Dartmoor, Devon
Dartmoor - finger ripping great granite
Campervan heaven
Grey skies, gorse and granite.
May 3rd 2010 Armathwaite, Stone and Sand.
Sandstone and the Lakes, Garlic and Bread... the two go together naturally?
250 square miles of the Lake District Nationl Park and you end up at a crag by a river made of Sandstone - what's that all about? Sandstone being a form of rock that actually snaps if you pull on the wrong holds - It's always a good idea to practice testing holds gently - and here's a whole crag made of it... mmm!
Well actually it's all extremely cool - with sandy riverside bays, a nature reserve bursting with wild flowers, rare birds and two of the best eating pubs you could dream up. Add all that to south facing sun warmed rock and you get the picture... family heaven with a few exciting surprises. We weren't however the first to find the place - no surprises there then. Stone carved faces and a poetic extract from The Complete Angler carved in the rock in 1855 were however the most exciting surprises as you traverse round the rocky bays just above the waterline - small giveaway clues to previous expeditions to the area methinks.
May 2nd 2010 Gouther Crag, Swindale, Lakes
Gouther Crag - Crag of the month - no crag of the decade. It's been a good ten years since setting foot on a mountain crag. Well I always say that and it seems like it - but in reality there haver been a few others but this felt like day one of a three year crusade. Meilee dragged her willing accomplice, me, around with angelic patience as we tiptoed our way up some seriously overlooked volcanic solid rock. The Bank Holiday was turning out all right - still no rain but bitterly cold and a wind that pushed its way up garments it shouldn't. Lucy and John did some serious routes HVS to E3 in formidable style as they were photographed by Mr Glasby - nice job.
We all had a great time but in reality it was Kodo's day again. Lord Kodo of the Fells that is.
May 1st 2010 The best breakfast in Britain
After a nights VW van camping under the Bowderstone in the Lakeland Borrowdale we treated ourselves to the best Bank Holiday breakfast in Britain.
The Lodore farm in Borrowdale under Shepherds crag fries up a traditional English in traditional English style with added healthy. Apart from the overwhelming friendliness at the Farm, the position of this small piece of utter Englishness has the view you would probably have were you lucky to go 'up-there' as opposed to 'anywhere else' in the afterlife. The view is over Derwent Water to the mountains on the far side. Oh Joy! All this rustic charm, a charm that hasn't changed at all since the late 1970's when I first visited, combined with the calm, restorative lightness of being in the heart of somewhere totally healing.
We were in sunshine, whereas the rest of the country seemed to be in rain and it seemed to be one of those moments of complete frozen hapiness. Something that didn't go unnoticed by the other normally 'tick hungry' climbers around, whose reluctance to leave the café was only surpassed by their hunger for bacon butties soaked up in the bank holiday sunshine.
Apr 17th 2010 Stop drinking - start living
Oh no not another cliché headline... Yes but its probably noteable
This is 'a big day' on the 42 step programme.
Committing to stop drinking on the day after Ben's wedding 17th April 2010 was not difficult - it meant that every mile I run hereafter is going to count and make a positive contribution to the big effort.
Given the amount that I've been drinking that means some big leaps forward in training now : )
Dec 31st 2009 New Years Eve
Around Kinder Scout at the Southern tip of the Pennines - a frozen wonderland.
Happy New Year !! Max and Si
Dec 25th 2009 Christmas Day on the Ben
At 7:30 am it's dark outside, and still starry - of course.
All packed up for the hill our estranged friends set out with a sharp edge to the air in quickstep trying to raise body temperature from 'far too many' Celcius below zero.
Rather than a load of monlogue - I had a go at some prose - an epiphany on the Ben on the one day we really need to remember the real reason behind Christmas. See Diary 2009 >
Sunrise at the start of the day - GlenNevis
Dec 24th 2009 Christmas Eve
No room at the Inn, but plenty at the bunkhouse on the end of the road...
It's Christmas Eve, it's fifteen degrees (Celcius) below zero and we are at the end of the road. Quite literally we are at the end of the road, it’s the road out of Fort William, Scotland's mountaineering capital, and it ends at a bunkhouse, imaginatively titled the Ben Nevis Inn.
Let's build the picture here, we've driven for two solid days through blizzards, some of the most unspeakable and freakish weather the British Isles has ever thrown down onto the roads, we've slept in the back of the van because we are too exhausted to do anything else and we arrive at roads end having tried every hotel and bed and breakfast along the way - no room at the Inn was the story coming out loud and clear - so it seemed like it was going to be a full camping expedition as close to our target as possible the Big Bad Ben of Nevis - joy - Christmas joy was a little absent.
The picture can build a little more - we aren't very happy, we've waded through a recession with our small business, we are relieved we got through it intact, with a smile and without any infantile banks foreclosing on loans, but we are absolutely exhausted, we are struggling to find the energy to smile at petrol station attendants here at the best if times, but we are still managing to crack some Christmas jokes on the way.
At the back of the Inn - standing there in the starry light is a fellow traveller - all smiles and spontanaeity...
It turns out that my new found friend is also seeking to find peace, love and balance with the world in general after a similarly harrowing year and what better place to do this than the UK's highest and bleakest mountain.
Jan it turned out wasn't from the Orient, but from rather closer to home - Krakow, Poland and more entertaining than the simple oversight forgetting to bring Myhrr or Incence was the fact that he overlooked any Vodka. A Pole without Vodka on Christmas Eve in the middle of nowhere - everything looked set for a positively fun time.
I love bunkhouses. I really love bunkhouses where there is trust, where you are trusted to pay with an honesty box - it makes everything so much warmer inside. The owner on the phone in Manchester trusted us to leave cash for the next few nights and more than that trusted us into his office when like muppets we locked ourselves out with the Yale lock - what an Angel.
As it turned out, Christmas Eve without frills, without anything, as it turned out, but the company of one, was more entertaining that you could imagine - the true meaning of Christmas was all about us. Two individuals, a common sense of humour and not even a heating switch in the manger. Away.
The view across the lake on the road to Glencoe
Dec 21st 2009 Surprisingly Stanage - Sunset and Snow
Today was another good day - a great day for beautiful and magical light all over the Peak District. Fresh snow in the morning, perfect blue skies and warmth throughout the day and clear crisp air into the sunset and evening. It doesn't get more enjoyable than this.
I took the G10 Canon as an exercise in running with a camera - not an easy art form to perfect - you need to be fit, I mean really fit to hold the camera steady with low light. That said there are a couple of OK shots in here, many shots could have been quite good with time, composition and a tripod - really good perhaps but let's not get all 'the one that got away'.
Hey it's all about the moment and this was a really good moment. - just me and some heavy breathing lifting the old legs though the snow in a raced effort to catch the light.
There are a few images in the diary area - Run 02
Dec 10th 2009 Unfeasable love of tarmac and grit - a golden day
START:
It is difficult, but at 7:30am on a cold dark winter's morning, it is possible to fall in love with intangible cold unfeeling tarmac.
She is a harsh mistress the tarmac, never giving more than friction but often taking you to new heart stopping adventures. The Strines takes you through the dales and quiet northern reaches of the Peak District on a relentless twisting adventure of viewpoint to sunken ford. Shady, spooky forests border her kinky lane and iced up seepage teases your fear response.
There is no finer way to travel than a motorbike on one of the worlds greatest twisters, there is no finer view than the rising sun lifting itself and its low light across stoned walled dales and barns and there is no finer experience at 7:30am than the feeling of pleasure at the thought that you are going to work amongst these dales, that this is beautiful and that you never take it for granted - aaaah joy!
END:
3:00pm at work - the day is warm the light is golden and the gritstone beckons. A full day of sat behind a computer, several relentless months of keyboard presses and there is no excuse - go get at it.
I was not alone.
No less than three other photographers, cameras, tripods and digital flash cards were mingling amongst the bouldering boys at the Stanage Plantation, the object of their papping was a cluster of 8a monsters all having a crack at Mr Fawcett's edge of fame - 'Careless Torque'. Cool. There is nothing to compare to grit on a day like this, blue skies, autumnal colours and golden light.
Tarmac and grit - unlikely bed fellows but it's love none the less.
Nov 20th 2009 Ladybower circuit but no port and cigar
Autumn, Aaah what a classic beauty she is.
Ladybower reservoir off the A57 on the Sheffield Manchester Road is always a treat, our very own Lakes in the Peak, but an umber gowned lady she is in the Autumn. Draped in a thousand colours between Gold and Red, the reservoir is merely the side act to the trees' moment to perform on the big stage that is 'our wonderful world'.
Love it. I threw myself round the circuit solo, Richard the Port man had had a night of excessive children, and I had the priviledge of an intimate evening as the light went down and the sun lowered itself into the golden light. Magnificent and unexpected the light hit the colours of the trees to perfection - magical light. The running was steady and the miles fell away as I'm getting fit now, but hey we need to : )
No camera though - doh! The original plan was a Si and Richard rehearsal of the camera piece for the book - so how dumb. Still they say it's about the moment and that wont be forgotten in a hurry but hey no port and no cigar.
Nov 18th 2009 Soul Circus
Just occasionally life throws up a curved ball and you find yourself grinning with delight at the sheer bonkerness of it all.
Ryan and I left the Climbing wall for a bit of tea, driving past Symon Donovans old office we spotted the intriguingly titled restaurant 'The Rude Shipyard' and took the initiative to do something different. Basically it's a bookshop that serves Pie and Peas suppers, perhaps that's not fair, I'm sure they do loads more great food, but that's what we had.
We camped ourselves in the upstairs front room with a bottle of wine. There was only one table and two chairs which we took as there was nobody else around - sweet albeit a little strange. The surreal started in buckets though as dozens of Pie bearing individuals descended for a 'Songs and Whispers' gig from several singer songwriter musicians including some visiting Germans. Dave Roberts Effect played his fabulous unique style of slide guitar and Robert Carl Blank who has put together this great album - Soul Circus got down to some touching vocal and guitar work. It would have been brilliant except that it was better than that - the music and singing were altogether from a bigger stage, quite sublime and of the moment. We all still sat there with big grins on our faces as we were treated to some of the best live intimate gigging we'd been privileged to be a part of. All soul definitely, and on a Wednesday night too!
Nov 17th 2009 The day that mediocrity died
Today was the annual Visit Peak District Conference - basically an excuse to show off and teach everything a tourist board does to all interested parties and official sponsors. Very exciting stuff if that's what you do for a living - and we do.
On a parallel with all the lovely, comfortableness of living in a thoroughly cosy cottage centric National Park we decided - that's Ryan, Ben and myself that Mediocrity died today and that as from today we would recommit even harder and smarter to a career and work output that is soley comprised of producing excellence and that we intend to get paid for it properly. Kind of like reconfirming your marriage vows but at a funeral.
A new name a new way of working.
To cap the day off we came up with the name of the new online business we intend to launch in the Spring of next year, if not before, that will provide the vehicle to allow such a delivery. The new business will have the single focus of online quality - a business that doesn't compromise and intends to be the absolute best it can be - no excuses just hard core brilliance. We blooming well hope : )
4pm Stanage circuit run
7pm Climbing Works session
A good day!
Nov 15th 2009 Climbing for teenagers
Max and I saw a second round at the Climbing Academy in Bristol. He had obviously grown a few more inches in a week, and found a few more kN of pulling power.
13 in a few days time - wow. Unfussed by this rite of passage/landmark event, Max remained coolly focussed on what he was doing with the general conversation on scholarship exams and the job in hand. Oh! how our children teach us.
Thankfully all the every other day climbing and plastic pulling has started to have a positive effect now and I was able to be a dad with some degree of cool for a change - Phew! Nice one Max - your dad's proud of you.
Nov 14th 2009 Stanage struggle
Phil Scarf called round - after a mere 13 years. Phil a former university house mate of mine called round and we compared notes on the last few years. Wow.
Always a sobering experience looking at what you have actually done. But, Hey its all about being positive.
So I was proud I'd set up a business and an arts project, met hundreds of great friends on a fabulously stimulating social journey.
Phil was now still happily married to Jackie. They had met on a famously cringworthy student evening way back in the 80's despite our purile efforts to scupper the whole affair before it started. Not only happily married with a grown up family, but a Professor - how cool, and how old does that make you feel !
A great person now - cracking on with his adventure racing, endurance racing and some really motivating escapades while holding everything else down, Phil just happened to be orienteering for Wales this weekend and had a spare moment to call in.
It was a genuinely heart warming experience catching up. Not so cool he is now classed as a veteran and that our quick sortie upto Stanage was, lovely in its spontaneity, but similarly motivating as it showed me just how much work I am going to have to do to get into this endurance lark.
Nov 10th 2009 10 years on...
Tim and Lucy make 10 years together - happy anniversary guys. I was well chuffed to be invited to an impromptu small gathering of friends at the Arran household in Sheffield. Bang on food from the master of vegetable cooking with plastic meat replica. A series of late nights and early starts married to an unlimited supply of alcohol ensured that the second anniversary was a revisit to captain porcelain. A nauseating cold sweat and a contracting stomach ensured an extremely wobbly motorcycle ride back to the office at midday.
I made some mental notes and some personal commitments to avoid such stupidity again, and more importantly that when we top out in Yosemite spring 2011 we save celebration for afterwards...
Congratulations you two.
Oct 31st 2009 The Three Peaks of Yorkshire
Saturday. After a waking up in a carpark in the Van at Lancaster services on the M1, for some inexplicable reason - probably not unrelated to a stressful and exhausting week at work, I had a go at the Three Peaks today. Rather foolishly this was immediately after the well subscribed 3 Peaks Race which left nothing but 2 feet of mud all the way round. Great stuff if you needed to do Quadriceps exercise, leg lifting was the game for the day - beautiful weather and views despite a rainy misty start meant it wasn't all in vain. - but a good finishing time was not on the cards at all.
A warming chat and full breakfast with the friendly owners of the Horton in Ribblesdale cafe, a new night time Silva compass and a Harveys map meant all started and went well - only leg wrenching terrain underfoot dampened the whole exercise... hard work but well earnt tea at the Fourth Peak and some happy memories to boot.
REVIEW
For additional mental challenge I reviewed the SatMap Active 10 lent to me by my good friends at UKMountain biker. Some simple conclusions in summary: Sat Map device is excellent - best in class - robust - weatherproof and easy to use - love it. Clever tracking allows you to plot routes and keep a track of where you've been BUT a good map and compass are much faster to pull out and put away in a small pocket when your hands are full, covered in cack or required to prevent you from a quagmire drowning.
I look forward to using it on a MTB forest trail where I suspect it will be a fine companion. Thanks Ade.
Oct 25th 2009 The Climbing Academy
The Bristol bouldering wall, the climbing academy is one of the latest additions to the rapidly proliferating armoury of gymnasium walls designed to strengthen those climbing muscles rapidly.
Max and I visited this plywood and resin temple to all things bouncy and coloured on Sunday and had a really fun day. Putting aside it was quite a moving experience taking your son to the wall for the first time in his 13 year life - the wall didn't let us down at all - it was friendly and a really good workout. I'm sure the hard core could find fault with the route setting and the purists could tell you why they couldn't crank out loads of font 8a's but we loved it.
Nice one.
Oct 23rd 2009 Climbing Works
The Climbing Works in Sheffield, apart from being one of best bouldering walls in the world is a great sanctuary for the misplaced bohemians of 1980's Sheffield climbing generations. Lost to the relentless rigours of running small graphic design businesses and web design consultancies for 10 years - I have finally come home to the plastic generation of genetically modified monkey boys. Wicked social scene, cracking exercise - The climbing works represents the very best of life - coffee, mates and exercise all rolled into one sweet package. All we have to do now is get past the aching muscles... Route bagging here we come. Si.
Oct 12th 2009 Stephen Venables Lecture
Higher than the Eagle Soars
Hot foot from New Zealand and en route for the States, Stephen is dropping in to Sheffield with highlights from his Banff award-winning autobiography. The book – and his talk – culminates in a new oxygenless route up Everest, but there are many other adventures along the way, from the Eiger, to Afghanistan, to Snow Lake and Tierra del Fuego.
