Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Fed up with the lack of water, we decided to relocate ourselves from my place to Alice's house down by the river where the electrics might be in an uncertain state but at least we wouldn't have to keep melting snow to flush the loo.

Walking through town, we found the main roads still closed but there were quite a lot of people wandering around on foot. Much to our good fortune, Marks and Spenser in town was open, enabling us to stock up. Possibly unsurprisingly, there was no great shortage of stock; rather, the staff were going through, frantically stickering perishable items that were clearly about to hit there sell-by dates. As a result, we picked up a lot of stuff — including a big pile of sandwiches for lunch for the next few days and a number of meal-deals — for almost nothing.

Arriving at the riverside, we found the house in a good state, with relatively little disruption from the re-wiring work. The damage to the plaster seems to have been limited to a series of discrete holes — mostly around lightswitches and plugs — with most things working as expected. C&J joined us, both of them having been in to work as normal, and we got the fire going and had a really lovely evening enjoying the intermittantly falling snow...

Waking up to a light dusting of snow this morning, I immediately took a photo of it and dashed in to the bedroom to show it to A, who'd been lamenting Exeter's lack of snow for quite some time. We were both excited by it, but my reaction was somewhat dampened when I noticed that, once again, our water pressure was low, suggesting that the building inlet had frozen. We had a slightly leisurely breakfast watching the snow coming down in swirls and I went in to the office where I discovered only DJM was in and was about to leave before conditions became too severe.

During the morning, there were a series of announcements about the impending snowpocalypse and the closing times for the various eateries at work were updated. I had a meeting with a colleague, rescheduled from the day before, and ate lunch early before returning to my desk. At around 1320Z, we were all asked to leave and told not to come in tomorrow. I took a few photos, caught the last bus into town, and took a few more pictures of Exeter in the snow. By this point, the blizzard had started in earnest and id din't really let up until the end of the day.

Arriving home, I was greeted by a curiously lovely smell in the hallway. It was stronger in the flat and, when I went through into the kitchen, I realised what it was: A had baked a lemon drizzle cake! Sadly we were still without water — A had had a number of conversations with the neighbour from the basement — but we had some big bottles of water from Tuesday and we put on some big saucepans of snow to flush the loo.

After tea and cake, we went for a walk in Belmont Park, where the entire community had turned out to enjoy the snow. We were particularly impressed by an enterprising group of students who were attempting to sledge using a large ABS suitcase — we felt they'd've been more successful had they opened it up and used the two halves together rather than leaving it closed. We walked back the long way round and went round by the dry ski slope — very much covered in snow — and put down footsteps in the pristine snow.

Down to the river mid-morning for the second of this weekend's runs. Unlike yesterday's parkrun, today's was a gentle 1.5 mile jog up to Miller's Crossing and back for a charity santa run. Getting there with time to spare, I stopped off at D&P's place to suit up. When I arrived, I discovered that someone was already dressed up and looking forward to his run:

( A mighty funny looking reindeer... )

I pulled on my fancy dress while the others got ready. D tried to put some Christmas socks on little Dasher but she was not best pleased and pulled them off again just as quickly as they were put on her. Finally, all prepared, we went round the corner to the start where our santa suits suddenly went from fancy dress to total blend-in anonymity.

We started somewhere at the back and allowed H, our non-runner, to set the pace. All was going well until we reached Exe bridges, where the spaniels put on a sudden burst of speed — Dash, for all that's only 12 weeks old, is pretty quick and she ran a good part of the distance without needing to be carried. Our average pace was 7:37 a kilometre and we finished in 19 minutes and change, with a couple of slowdowns and a couple of surges when the dogs decided to step on the gas.

After the fun we picked up some rather classy medals and went back to the house for some lunch which definitely wasn't anything to do with my forthcoming birthday — as ever, all celebrations of my natal day are strictly off-limits but I find that I'm OK with having a not-birthday instead.

( Dasher has a snooze... )

My afternoon was spent lazing around at home and catching up on things I'd put off during the week. I'd half-intended to go climbing, but the thought of going out in the cold put my off and I decided to treat today as a semi-rest and go tomorrow instead.

Walking into town to go to the supermarket, I noticed a definite smell of smoke in the air. Trying to cut through the cathedral close, I discovered the cause: a huge fire that was in the process of spreading through the Royal Clarence. Avoiding all the closed roads, I went round Musgrave Row to the Guildhall. In the perhaps ten minutes it took me to do my shopping, the view from Queen Street had changed with the smoke suddenly much darker and flames pouring up from the buildings to the south.

The news reports say that everyone was evacuated in good time, but it looks like the buildings are going to be badly damaged. It's all very sad...

Second day of Exeter's third Deep Water Solo competition at the Quay, with some very hard problems quickly separating out six finalists in each category.

This gives a pretty decent impression of the wall and of the three different semi-final problems, with the difficulties increasing from left to right. The green routes were climbed by the U16 girls, the red by the U16 boys and by the women, with the men climbing on blue. The problems were graded very hard, extremely hard, and outright impossible by the setters, with even the strongest of competitors struggling and a very limited number of tops; indeed nobody manage to send the final route, although two of the men managed to touch the last hold.

The semi-final problems in all their glory. Note the umbrella on the far left, positioned to keep the rain off the finishing hold of the first problem.

With the morning taken up with the under sixteens, the open competition started with the women at around 12:30 and it quickly became apparent just how hard the problems were.

Rhoslyn Frughniet tops the first problem under the watchful eyes of the route setters...

The second problem featured an early dyno which threw a few of the competitors, a powerful move to a taijitu volume, with slopers on the head wall:

Eugenie Lee going up to some truly terrible slopers on the second problem.

The final move off the spiderweb hold called for careful balance and a big commit. Rhos did the move extremely dynamically:

Rhos Frughniet matches the final hold with a dyno

While Eugenia went more statically, also topping the route.

The weather by this point was rather wet, as can be seen from the water running off the front of the awning which, thankfully, extended several feet out in front of the wall keeping the climbers dry. Kudos to whoever decided to rig the tarpaulins up in advance — last year the women's semis had to be put on hold for an hour or two while a roof was rigged up to keep the rain off; I suspect the extremely cold and unpleasant conditions experienced by some of last years semi-finalists might explain why more than few of them chose not to enter this year.

Having arrived in bright sun, I'd managed to slip into a shadey spot which also turned out to be out of the rain, when it arrived in earnest.

Tom, on the cherry picker on the other side of the dock, was slightly more exposed than the the rest of us.

Fortunately the showers soon passed and the competition was not badly impacted thanks the careful deployment of an umbrella. Emma Twyford, one of the first to make it on the top section of the route, reported some problems with wet holds and the route setters sprung into action, drying them with chalk and scrubbling off the residue.

Emma was obviously pleased to have made it to the top!

Rhos also making it three for three in the semi-finals.

And with the women's finals decided, we moved straight into the men's semi-finals...

Gentle day with an early lunch at BTP and a wander around town. Seeing the huge crowd waiting for the shuttle buses to Radio 1's Big Weekend at Powderham — by 11am they'd extended all the way down Paris Street — made me rather glad I wasn't leaving town.

After a long, lazy lunch we went for a ramble down by the river, foraging for the elderflowers which have just started coming into season. Collecing a bumper crop, we brewed up a batch of cordial before retiring to the roof terrace for the rest of the afternoon.


The weather was beautiful: mid-twenties with fairly high humidity but enough wind to keep it bearable. Despite slathering myself in sunscreen — a rather good children's sort that shows up green until you've rubbed it in — I'm worried that I may have caught the sun in places, even though I hope it might just be wind burn, I rather suspect it's not...

As with the women's final, the format of the men's competition was also a speed elimination, with top six going head to head on the same problem with the fastest three going through to the second round. The problem, set in the middle of wall and featuring the wrecking ball, featured a number of dynos, including one across a big star of volumes in the middle of the upper section.

The problem starts on the volume and then up to a couple of footholds:

Vincent Boucher at the very start.

...a move on to the wrecking ball...

Max Ayrton moves onto the wrecking ball

...out again with a move to a mono pocket...

Nathan Phillips makes easy work of the pocket

...down to a volume...

Matt Cousins moves down to the volume

...and the first real dyno...


...round the overhang using the crack created by the two volumes immediately above...

Wiz Fineron moves past the overhang

...a little campus onto the star...

Matt Varela-Christie campuses

...ready for another dyno...


...across the face of star...


...on to a couple of tiny crimps...


...with a last throw for the big ledge...


...and the bell and the finish!


The times for all this were nothing short of astonishing: Matt Cousins set the pace in the first round, flashing the problem in the staggeringly quick time of 38.06 seconds! After a rest to allow the second round of the women's final, the top three men — Cousins, Matt Varela-Christie, and Vincent Bouchet — returned to duel it out.

On his second attempt Varela-Christie managed to get his time down to 28.56 seconds. So with Bouchet on 35.69, it all came down to Cousins' final run which was superbly quick right up to the point where a slip on the final crimp cost him valuable points thanks to a premature splashdown, giving victory to Matt Varela-Christie and second place to Vincent Bouchet.

In line with the forecast, the morning was every bit as a cold and wet as predicted, so I took a while to get going and didn't get down to the river until eleven or so, just in time to see Jenna on her last problem. Conditions were pretty grim and the wall was quite wet despite an improvised awning of umbrellas along the top, and eventually a hour's halt was called to allow the setters to rig up a shelter out of planks and tarpaulins.

By the time the women's semis resumed at one, the new canopy was in place and the weather was starting to break but sadly it was still too drizzly for photos. Emma Twyford completed her series of top-outs, Rhos Frugtniet was on very strong form much to everyone's delight, and soon we were into the men's semis.

All the semi-final problems were extremely tricky, with few of even the very best of the competitors making it up to the middle sections of the final problem. Steve McClure was on particularly good form — the setting rewarded his more static style of climbing over the dynamism of some of the others — but only a very small number completing the problem, although Matt Varela-Christie came very close but was unable to quite match both hands on the final hold for the required two seconds.

Running behind schedule after the break for rain, the setters were coming down to start stripping off as soon as the last competitors were through, with the wall swung back into the dock almost immediately to allow them to reset ready for the finals.

A fun first day at this year's Exeter Deep Water Solo competition, with the morning dedicated to the women's comp with the afternoon focusing on the men. Unlike last year, where the sponsored team climbers joined at a later stage, this year's format required everyone to climb in each round — a response to the large numbers of very strong climbers who did so well that they ended up in the semi-finals.

Emma Twyford jumps in after her final problem. The wall is designed such that competitors can't top out even if they succeed in sending the most difficult problem, guaranteeing that even the very best have to get wet at some point!

The first of the women's comp problem looked relatively straight-forward and everyone seemed to cruise up it with ease:

Eve topping out on the first problem. It was an extremely slick performance and she positively breezed up it.

The second problem was far harder, with a ball a couple of feet in diameter and featuring a couple a handholds dangling from a chain in the middle of the set. The official beta involved hooking a heel on one of the holds below the overhang and before sitting on the wrecking ball — as it inevitably got called by the commentators!

Izzy Bentley makes easy work of the EP wrecking ball...

The whole section was extremely unforgiven to anyone who inadvertently cut loose, with recovery only possible by building up enough momentum to swing back on to the wall:

Andrea Kovacs-Simon campuses on the wrecking ball. (ETA: Monday's Express and Echo features a very similar photo on the cover!)

The final problem was extremely hard, with small crimps from the start and a pull up over the first overhang using the orange volume:

Izzy Bentley on the third and final qualifiers problem.

Once past the overhang, the next move was up to a sloper and a couple more crimps before an extremely delicate move to the final hold:

Jessie Tucker on the upper section of the last problem. I have a feeling she didn't quite send it, but she came very, very close.

Christine Lowry was one of the few to complete the problem:


As was Emma Twyford, who obviously wasn't enthusiastic about the state of the water in the dock:

Early appointment with the haematologist this morning, with blood count numbers low but not catastrophically bad, so nothing much to do but keep an eye on things.

On the way in to work around mid-morning, I got caught up in the disruption triggered by the discovery of a couple of suspicious packages in Sidwell Street. It all seemed extremely efficient and organised, with the buses directed to take a circuitous route along the High Street and in order to avoid the road closures.

Eventually arriving in the office, I learnt some bad news — but fortunately not the worst — which rather dampened the effects of the good news from the hospital...