3rd January 2008 It's snowing - sort of. There's at least 5mm of the stuff on the lawn, the 4x4s are poncing up and down the roads and there's a severe weather warning out. Sigh! I seem to remember that in ages past we had loads of the stuff, we had to hack our way through it to get to school and college week after week, cars were lost and buried for months, villages were cut off until the spring and no-one batted an eye lid.
January 22nd 2008. Suzy has gone skiing in Courchevel with the local ski club leaving me at home to defend the fort. I had planned on joining them but having spent £**** on new computers and things I thought to save a few pennies and take the campervan up to the Lakes for a bit of fell walking. Hmph! The weather was attrocious and I didn't go anywhere, Suzy however had a wonderful time on skis. The only Grumpies representative there was Roy who also happened to have a 54th birthday, pic 01. The ski company baked him a cake, only 9 candles; that figures.
March 3rd 2008. What? March already and spring well on it's way? No, it's snowing outside, well more like slushing not to mention blowing a bit of a hooley and most of the Grumpies are still only active down at the climbing wall, see left, though we did snatch a cold but sunny day at Horseshoe Quarry a couple of weeks ago.
Wednesdsay 19th March. A notable date for Marilyn Small, Roy's delightful wife who was an unbelievable 60. We were invited to an amazingly sumptious do at the Norfolk Arms at Ringinglow, where Roy had prepared a quiz that stumped most of us and the caterers provided a splendid meal and a seemingly endless supply of wine.
Picture 02, Marilyn giving her thank you speech and right, picture 03 Roy master of ceremonies demonstrating how to play Rule Britannia using a just a Guinness glass and a table fork. Why wasn't he wearing his grumpy T shirt?
April/May 2008. Well, a bit of a gap since the last Grumpies report but we've not been sleeping in our bath chairs, oh no. Some of us have had two trips away in Kalymnos and Riglos, namely Nick and myself, Gerry would probably have joined us for the Riglos trip too but he couldn't get permission as it was his 65th Birthday and Eileen was planning something special. No not that though it might have been included in the 65 presents that she bought him. The mind boggles. Picture 04 Gerry playing his playing the pensioner card with a delightful young lady that we met at Casteli crag on Kalymnos. The baby had to walk. Picture 05, dinner time in Kalymnos.
On our trip to Riglos, an area of towering conglomerate rocks in northern Spain we were a 5, all of us Grumpies though after a couple of bottles of wine it seemed apparent that John Robson was making a serious bid for the cherished Grumpiest T shirt currently held by Bill Wintrip, see picture 06. Here he is in full flow. He may just have been playing Agent Provocateur but if so it was a pretty good act. The intelligent discussion that we had on illegal immigrants and our coloured bretheren has had to be censored out. Is it possible that the Grumpiest T shirt could become an annual award. See gallery for a readable version.
Here's a little story with a moral to it. When the Grumpies were on Kalymnos last, we visited a small fish restaurant on the sea front for a beer or two, see picture 10. The beers arrived with some nibbles, olives and cheese and things and Adey, in his eagerness to reach for them knocked over his beer which poured across the nice clean table cloth onto my feet. Could happen to anyone. Later in the holiday, same restaurant, same table and within minutes of the beer arriving there was a perfect re-enactment of the spilling of the beer. Coincidence? Hmm. Hold hard mes braves. Back home, after visiting the climbing wall on a Thursday evening Adey and the Bills went to a pub. Yes, you guessed, while reaching for the crisps his pint went over. There's a moral in there somewhere even if it's only be sure to wear the right glasses when raching for the nibbles.
Thursday 29/5/08. This is John Jones last daytime outing with the Grumpies for as from next monday he will be gainfully employed checking poles for a power company. No no, not our east European friends but those wooden upright things supporting cables. Well, what can he expect, he's only got a PhD and donkey's years experience in IT and databases, pictures 07 and 08.
Clockwise, John Robson - contender for the cherished 'Grumpiest' T shirt, Dick Turnbull of Outside fame, John Jones and Nick Longland. As always, discussion drifted towards the cerebral and here is Dick describing Marjory Mortimers simple technique for assessing the readiness of her pedigree bull. Photos by Gordon Macnair.
July/August 2008, the weather has been Horrible and many of the grumpies are away in disparate locations. However, during this interregnum there was a significant development, and not before time too, some would say after his stirling performance in Riglos. John Robson has won the GOMCC grump-off for the grumpiest in 2008 T shirt. Once he can be caught wearing it I'm sure that he will want to be pictured in the column.
Nick has recently returned from Chamonix where his son Tom had a sudden and unexplainable urge to climb Mont Blanc. Many people believe that this at 4808m is the highest peak in Europe. Wrong, it's Mount Elbrus at 5642m in the Caucuses. Apparently, Nick is concealing this information from Tom.
Nick writes: My son Tom on numerous ski trips to the French Alps had noticed that, on clear days,there always seemed to be this big white lump in the background. "Come on Dad, you know about mountains, get me up Mont Blanc." And so, late in August we assembled in Chamonix. Time was short (Tom did n't know about acclimatization & his idea of training was to fall off his mountain bike above Les Houches & bugger his cruciate ligament again). So Tom & his wife Debbie's first experience of crampons, ice axe & ropework was to teeter down the Midi arete (well we were short of time) the same day that a serac collapsed at 3.00 am on the Tacul face wiping out 8 climbers & injuring a further 8. So it was a fairly subdued party at the Cosmiques & that learnt about crevasses on the Vallee Blanche the next morning.
Two days later we dodged rocks coming down the Grand Couloir (a dangerous place, I thought) en route to the crowded delights of the Gouter Hut and somewhat under-acclimatized,reached the top early next morning, with me basically crawling up the last 300m and the young gambolling along behind wondering what all the fuss was about. And my alpine boots, which I'd bought off Dave Jones for £40 ten years ago comprehensively fell apart on the descent. What a rip-off. See pictures 09 and 10.
December 22nd 2008 Bah Humbug! Yes it's Christmas, well to be more precise its nearly Christmas and today is my birthday. I'm not admitting to my age just suffice to say that its a prime number somewhere between 19 and 71, but nearer the latter. I anticipate however, that when I go down to the wall tomorrow, the lads will be showering me with cards and prezzies and that I'll get a kiss from Monica. Talking of cards, 16 shows the card from my wife perhaps showing the Grumpies in their dotage, though some would say that one or two may have already arrived. John Jones with the stick? Gerry with the white hair? Too much hair, must be me. Monica serving capuccinos? She's put a bit of weght on. See the Gallery page.
So why wasn't I at the Grumpies booze-up last week? Well, absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the venue was presented as something of a fait accompli, it was rather late in the day and I would have had to walk two miles to get home and that I had promised to see my aging mother. Oh no, it was none of these just an overriding grumpiness that comes on at Christmas time and with an approaching birthday which was to be a large prime number. Still, I believe that it was a good do with a good turn-out of Grumpies though I am still waiting for some photos.
Gerry turned up later to the Do but is currently not climbing; he is injured at the shoulder level. Last time I saw him he was complaining of tingling it his fingers and I told him not to worry it was probably just a heart attack. Wrong arm though so it might be something serious. Fingers crossed for Gerry.
Still, today when I logged onto the computer I got a birthday greeting from microsoft. I don't remember giving Bill Gates my details, I assume that the cheque is in the post.
Stop Press. Suzy took me out for a birthday meal, for the first time ever. That's the good bit, the bad bit is that she forgot to take any money and I had to pay the bill. Grrrump!
Grumpy Christmas and may all your presents be socks.