A warm Sunday out west
Jun. 5th, 2016 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylAfter a busy morning, we decided to go to the Barn. The idea had been to go there for IB's birthday, but she decided that the weather was better suited to paddleboarding and went off to do that instead. The journey wasn't too bad on the A30, although the jack-knifed caravan with its car face on to traffic in the fast lane provided a sober warning about the dangers of end-of-holiday driving.
The weather was warn but not unbearable when we arrived and we had an enjoyable time, despite a noticeable lack of friction. The Barn team were busy stripping the boulder ready for the start of the summer league, but they were working on Si's Wave and the Shield, so there was still plenty left to finish from their last reset. I finally finished the blue sloper problem I'd been trying to nail at the tail-end of our last session there, and we all tried and failed to send a particularly difficult 6a/+ on the Vert Wall — definitely a hard one for its grade.
With a few hours of daylight left to us and a no pressing reason to return to town, we stopped off at Brentor and went for a walk around the tor. On the way up we saw a number of wheatears — I initially thought they might be stonechats until I realised they had grey heads — flitting around, singing and showing off to each other.
As we came round the hill, we heard the small congregation of St Michael's Church singing hymns outdoors. What they may have lacked in fidelity to the tune, they more than made up for in carrying power and they were clearly audible from the base of the hill. We stopped for supper in our local — where I noticed our former CE sitting with a group of friends — and talked things over before it was time to make our way back to Exeter.
The weather was warn but not unbearable when we arrived and we had an enjoyable time, despite a noticeable lack of friction. The Barn team were busy stripping the boulder ready for the start of the summer league, but they were working on Si's Wave and the Shield, so there was still plenty left to finish from their last reset. I finally finished the blue sloper problem I'd been trying to nail at the tail-end of our last session there, and we all tried and failed to send a particularly difficult 6a/+ on the Vert Wall — definitely a hard one for its grade.
With a few hours of daylight left to us and a no pressing reason to return to town, we stopped off at Brentor and went for a walk around the tor. On the way up we saw a number of wheatears — I initially thought they might be stonechats until I realised they had grey heads — flitting around, singing and showing off to each other.
As we came round the hill, we heard the small congregation of St Michael's Church singing hymns outdoors. What they may have lacked in fidelity to the tune, they more than made up for in carrying power and they were clearly audible from the base of the hill. We stopped for supper in our local — where I noticed our former CE sitting with a group of friends — and talked things over before it was time to make our way back to Exeter.
