Finger Woes

Good day to all,

Another long break since the last post, but no excuses for me except for laziness.

I have been very busy though - Having started my job, and successfully avoided being fired for 5(?) weeks - I can say that I really feel very happy with where I am at the moment.

I work in the chemistry department at Cranleigh school, which is the same place that I went to school. Fortunately for me though, they have built a shiny new centre for sciences and modern languages and this means that I do not have to work in the old, dingy, draughty and dusty department :-)

Added to that, is the fact that the girl I replaced has done a stirling job of setting up the department, such that my only real requirement is to keep things moving in the right direction. I haven't burnt down the department yet, but we have been exploding some hydrogen balloons to great effect.

I am also heavily involved with the sporting side of things - both on my own, and with the students.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to compete with my old fives partner, Phil Roper, in the U25 Fives Nationals. Despite having a 3 year hiatus from playing fives, Phil was still as good as he ever was and we settled into a groove by the end of the tournament that saw us walk out with the 'A plate'.

Phil and Myself with the overall winners trophy (there was no plate available for photos)

Phil, Myself and the Cambridge based Illingworth Brothers

I have to give full credit to the runners up, who were good sports throughout the match. We came very close to losing after we let a close first game slip away, and then proceeded to gift 6 points at the start of the second.
Fortunately after that I found the right state of mind for cut returning and our service games became very competitive. Eventually we came from behind to win another close game and go into the deciding game at 1-1.
My good form with returning continued and we really dominated the final game, running out 12-2 victors at the end.

I have also been playing a lot of fives with the school, as I am in charge of running two sessions on both Tuesday and Thursday with a single session on Wednesday for the new students at the school.
Last night was our first fixture of the season against a roving fives club made up of grey haired, cunning men. Overall, I think that our team looks quite strong at the moment, with potential for some real competition at the school nationals if I can convince them to come down for some training.

Climbing is still taking a bit of a backseat until my finger is where it needs to be for me to pull on it properly. I think this may mean that I will have to miss the first SIBL round to ensure that I can perform properly at the remaining rounds, but so be it.
I did manage to get out to Stone Farm during the recent spell of delightful weather we have been treated too. Unfortunately, the blazing sun also reduced friction horribly and I walked away from a 3 hour session having only achieved a  an obscenely hard '6b+' - difficult to tell given the conditions, but given that both myself and my mate (who has climbed multiple 7b problems) thought that it was nails, it perhaps needs looking at. Video to come.

Anyways, it is about time for lunch now - so toodleoo.