belisarius_534

After raiding the cupboards...

2 tins of kidney and other beans
1 tin of coconut milk
Cabbage
Mushrooms
Carrots
1 red chilli
Lots of veg. stock
Salt and pepper
Lashings of oregano

left in the slow cooker for 6hrs and it comes out as a lovely thick Thai style soup...also vegan, but never mind that.

And verily it did snow on Friday night. I was due to pick Chris up from her work xmas do which put me on the road just as the minor blizzard was settling. 15 min journey to Stockton Heath took nearly an hour at 15mph in grim conditions. I took a proper skid at one point and bounced off the kerb, then a couple of other people skidded further into the journey and nearly hit me. After collecting the sozzled one, the road back was closed by the police leading to an entertaining detour in the snow.

This morning we got up not so bright and horribly early to brave the M6 for a day's caving. Most of the way to Ingleton, after a confused series of texts, we discovered the horrid truth. While the email about the trip had said the 18th, the organiser (with the ropes, permits etc) had planned it for the 19th! Oh well, not to be dismayed we headed into Ingleton anyway and set off for a walk up towards Ingleborough. The snow had stopped and we had blue skies to go with the inches for fresh snow and ice. In the end we didn't fancy the peak itself, mainly due to the large amount of ice and biting wind, so walked for a couple of hours to the head of the valley and back. Crampons stayed in the bags despite a few arse over tit moments :)

On the way back we dropped into Chris's most requested destination - Blackpool. It was a bit deserted, but the beach was pleasant for a walk, followed by a return leg via amusement arcades, purchase of seaside rock, hot chocolate and a snowman with boobs.

Good day!

I'm visiting my new employer tomorrow, so have been looking at places to live. We'd picked up 2 areas - Highwoods, north of the town centre or Manningtree near the rive Stour, quite a bit out fo town. Highwoods turned out to be a pleasant enough but pretty soulless 80s-90s estate while Manningtree is a lovely riverside town with loads of interesting pubs, boats on the river, small shops etc. Nice...

Took the La Sportivas back for a refund and got some Mammut Mt Trail XT GTX Boots instead. B1 but hugely more practical for year round use. The good fit is consistent with Mammut having taken over Raichle who made my giant space winter boots. Bit of a palaver, but happy with the final choice.

Seems like a long week already, ready for a really good sleep, before heading south for the weekend.

Astronaut Larry is highly entertaining. Particular insights from today

1. The space shuttle pilots alighn the ship by pointing a sextant out of the window
2. After 2 years training, Larry didn't realise that the shuttle toilet cubicle had a light switch until day 7 of 14.
3. The Russian flights are just as safe as the US ones but with less than 10% of the paperwork. He was explaining that for an experiment he wanted to send up to the ISS, there were 190 safety documents to prepare which amounted to a pile of paper taller than a person...when he went to Russia to send up something similar, they said "Hmm, that bit looks fragile, lets put it in a padded box for launch.."

After over 10 years of faithful service my 3 season Karrimor walking boots have died a death with multiple split stitching and the beginnings of several holes. Its time to buy a new pair but I've been stuck in with several options.

I want to be able to both use them year round in snow-free conditions, but also for winter walking with crampons.

Now, for actual ice climbing I use big, fully rigid plastic boots with step-in (with clips) Grivel G14 crampons. With no bend at all, these are horrible to walk much distance in, so no good for winter walking.

The first option I've been considering is the Scarpa SL, which is a reasonably flexible 3-season boot. The disadvantage would be that they are too bendy for my current crampons, so I'd have to buy a new strap-on pair of those as well at extra cost.

The second, more expensive option is the Scarpa Manta, which is a proper 4 season boot but with just a touch of bend. Initially I'd thought these would be too stiff for year round use, but plenty of people who have done reviews think they are good for summer walking as well. These would fit with my existing crampons, which would make the overall cost about the same as the SLs. Going for these would also mean I could do easier winter climbing without having to wear the plastic monsters.

Hmm...

Now that I'm more or less back in working order, its time to get into shape.

Thursday at the climbing wall went pretty well. In contrast to the previous week where I'd had appalling technique due to trying to protect one leg from any force or twisting, this week was much better. I at least managed to move upwards in an efficient style, if not quite twisting into the wall as I'd like to. Much more to improve on but at least it felt like I'd get it in the end. Feeling pretty weak so time to hit the weights and the pull up bar a bit more regularly.

For running, I got out to Eddisbury Hill at Delamere today. This was nice for two reasons. Firstly, this was the first hill I'd walked up after surgery and it was nice to come back and run up it. Secondly, the uphill part was limited by cardio fitness and not by my knee. Downhill was challenging as that's where the ACL comes into its own, but I managed to run down slowly if not at full pace.

Was hoping to get out for a spot of MTB at Llandegla, but DIY got in the way. Maybe later into he month.

Lunch of chilli salami, olives, feta, Pie D'Angloys, cucumber, tomato and houmous. A nice benefit of working at home between hospital (where I just got discharged by the knee surgeon) and physio this afternoon.

We may just be about to start the experiment, after a 5hr delay. As it turns out, the last 3hrs may have been entirely due to a mis-communication about the settings of the beamline. Oh well...

Off to Switzerland again tomorrow, presuming that the French general strike doesn't bugger up the flight. Shame I have to get up at 4am!