Grumpy Old Men's Climbing Club 2006
I think that it was Eileen's fault (01) that the whole thing started, our fault for always grumping I suppose but it was the sudden appearance of the T shirts that finally kicked it off. With the aid of Eileen's new T shirt printing software there it was on the front, a silhouette of a climber on a piece of rock on Bamford Edge, coincidently known a Wrinkled Wall, there was no escape. From that day on, an epidemic of T shirts slowly spread amongst us, afflicting the grumpy and the not so grumpy alike, mainly the aged but occasionally youngsters barely out of their 50th year. There was no cure, like leprosy, once infected we were marked men, scarred into our twilight years.
Constitution? Rules? Not really. I suppose that in the unlikely event of a member becoming positive and forward looking there could be a ceremonial defrocking where the guilty would have his T shirt ripped from his body and him sent away in total disgrace to do the honourable thing with his sharpened walking stick.
Just to prove that some of us get out on the crags however, picture 02is a photo sent by Graham Rawcliffe showing us below The Cornice, that overhanging bit of rock opposite Chee Tor in the Derbyshire Wye valley. Left to right, John Robson, Geraldine Taylor (not a GOM) Chris Jackson (me) Nick Longland (behind) and John Jones. The reason Geraldine is grinning is not because I am squeezing her left buttock, honest, Suzy.
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Towards the end of 2006 Suzy decided that as we were approaching our twilight years where we would be confined in our senility to a run down old folks home, we had better get spending some money. Well, OK. Within days, brochures started arriving through the door and Suzy was soon into an exercise of compare and contrast for trips to regions many and varicose. She'd never been to South America and she spotted a tour with SAGA which would take us through 3 countries and on route stop off at the Iguassu Falls and Rio de Janeiro, two places she had always wanted to visit. Not at give-away prices I might add, and the trip was likely to cost us in excess of £6000. We booked for April 2007, paid our deposit and waited for the tickets.
At the end of 2006, a new indoor bouldering wall opened just down the road. For the uninitiated, bouldering walls consist of difficult climbing problems up to about 4m high above a soft cushioned floor and one either jumps off or more likely falls off onto it. It's more of a young man's game and there's always the risk of tendon injury with hard problems but undaunted we trekked along for a go. There were perhaps 6 of us and it was a good session with lots of banter but on one of my harder landings I noticed a nasty twinge in the lower back which I studiously ignored. A week later all was not well, I was gripped by a crippling sciatica which reduced me to a total couch potato for over 3 weeks. An MRI scan reveled a slipped disk, travel insurance for our SA trip was not an option and I was in deep trouble with herself. 'Bloody typical' she said, 'you're too old for that kind of thing, you're always doing something silly, why can't you take up stamp collecting or something', etc etc etc.