Thursday 3 December 2009

Bloody weather...

Seems like its been an ages since I last got out and did some good climbing. I think the last time was probably with Andy going to Gogarth... and that was ages ago! This isn't going to turn into a weather rant (I'm probably due to write one) but the weather has been pretty abismal recently. I'm surprised that I'm not in a fouler moo to be honest, but I've been filling my time with loads of indoor climbing, and finding other things to do like enjoy the German Market in B'ham. I'll put something up proper about it later.

This is actually about the alps of all things, well specifically the french in the alps. I went to an SUMC meet the other night and tested out my old old old harness, actually passed down to me from Doyley. It's similar to Doyley's magic Ronhills, but without the magic and without the belay loop!!! Its an old BD alpine bod but I couldn't resist telling people that I had to cut the loop during an epic (I put them straight afterwards).

I was talking to Sid about the harness and I mentioned the lack of belay loop. Puzzeled he asked the reason why. My explaination was along the lines of

"Its an alpine harness so you don't need one to save weight and you're probably going to be moving together and not belaying so you can usually get away without having one. Plus if your french you don't need one anyway because you can teleport"
"teleport?"
"yeah...errr... teleport... you know like move through space and time to get from one place to another"
"but why?" (this was followed by laughter when he realised what I ment)
"well the french are so quick the only realistic explanation we British can come up with is that you must be able to teleport. I mean its not like your going to be better climbers that us is it?"

Thus followed much laughter at the point I was making. Clearly the french are better at alpining than us on the whole, but we're never going to admit it. I'm glad Sid saw the humourous side to all this.

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