The two finest crags in the world

I really love getting to climb with Rupert. Our schedules don't mesh as often as they should. Ru has the excellent reason of having a young and adorable family to raise. I'm not sure what my excuse is. On Saturday Ru organised a full-day pass and we met up to head up climbing somewhere. Given that we didn't think about it too hard, and that we were chatting most of the way out to the peak, it seemed inevitable that my autopilot would kick in and we'd end up at Raven Tor.

After the usual pseudo-competitive warm up (a tie - honest), it became clear that neither of us were firing on all cylinders and so we ditched our plan A's and switched to plan B. Except we didn't have a plan B, so we shuffled back and forwards along the crag looking for a route that wasn't too hard, that we hadn't done, and which was short. There weren't many options. We ended up trying 'The Brazilian'  - a non-existent ex-project which Steve Mac hoovered up, adding a proper finish to give 'Rooster Crossing', and 8c which goes to the top of the crag. The original project took in a hard boulder problem to reach the <sarcasm>breathtakingly perfect line</sarcasm> of Rooster Booster, and finishes along that. Way back in the day, Ru nearly ticked it in an afternoon, so we figured it would be easy pickings, now that we're older, stronger and wiser. Oh the arrogance of old age. We licked our wounds by doing some stamina training - nothing like getting a stopwatch out at the crag to make you feel like a hero.

On Sunday I once again fell foul of my ambitions, and made the questionable decision to visit Malham in the baking sunshine. We arrived after noon, to find an almost empty crag shimmering in the heat. Warming up in the centre of the crag, I felt like Laurence of Arabia, squinting longingly through the heat haze to the shade on the right hand side. Slowly but surely the shade crept round until, just seconds before it got dark, conditions finally became good enough to get off the floor. Jules put a sterling effort in on Thriller, but my own performance is best left undocumented to spare my blushes.

Next weekend I have one day to climb, and then will be forced to stay in a five star hotel in Scotland, eating fine food and talking nonsense for a living.