Peace and quiet in the County

Ouch!

The weather forecast was looking good for Saturday, so plans were made to head to Northumberland for the second weekend in a row. Last weekend it was Bowden, this weekend we headed to it's less popular next door neighbour Ravens Crag. Emma, Andrea and I did not have any inclination for any super hard projects and it was Stuarts' first time bouldering on real rock, so it seemed the ideal choice.

On the drive down we enjoyed an 80's fest of music. Well I say we, I really mean just me and Emma, our passengers just had to put up with our choice of tunes and listen to our dodgy singing, but at least they were old enough to remember the tunes!

I was an eager beaver to get started, so decided to climb a very short problem that was basically about 3 moves with a mantle finish. Easy! I had climbed it on a previous trip the year before, so reckoned it would make the perfect warm up, and for once my hands were not blocks of ice. 

I did a little jump to get on the boulder and caught a very sharp edged pocket and pulled a huge flapper on my pinky! Bollocks, what a fool, I had not even started and was injured. Aargh! Never mind, we took the obligatory photo, I sooked away the blood, taped it up, job done. Let the climbing commence.

I am not sure of the names and grades of the problems we did, but we pulled hard and lost some skin with the sun on our backs and had a great wee day out. It is what life is all about. To top off a perfect day I visited my fabulous girlfriends for delicious home made Thai curry, red wine, a gossip and a laugh. Happy days.

Ooh lovely blood.

So as not to feel left out Emma scraped her ankle.

Ringo had a nice day too.

Andrea. Strong as ever.

Emma. Slab fear.

Me.

All photographs by Caroline Harvey (except for the ones with me in which were taken by Emma)