EASTER FUN =]

It’s been so nice to be home these last few weeks. Got back from El Chorro and flopped for two days, went to church Sunday morning and evening and went to David Atwater’s later and. Was good to see Mikul Wallbank and danced around church with me standing on his feet just like old times. Was pretty tired by the time I got to David’s and nearly fell asleep on Andy. Helped Jenny at the climbing wall on Monday night and Met up with Rach, Andy and VJ in Liverpool on Wednesday afternoon and went out for lunch. Went out that night and got in at some silly hour in the morning ... about 4ish ... ordered pizza and watched friends and fell asleep. Went to the gym with Emma on Friday in her new car!!!

Went to Awesome walls on Saturday with Vicky, Andy, Adam and Amy before meeting Vicky in town for lunch and chatting to Tom. Warmed up by doing some bouldering then taught Andy how to tie in and belay. Top-roped some harder stuff then attempted to lead some 6a’s but got freaked out two thirds of the way up ... I don’t like indoor walls. Got home and went out to Bella Italia with mum dad and Vicky and had a right laugh with more Mr and Mrs jokes ... the less said about this the better for everyone I think!

Sung at church Sunday morning then out to Chiquitoes for Eddy’s birthday later picking up Rach and his cake on the way! Was a great night with everyone back together again and me and Emma planned going to Canada next year!! Helped at the climbing wall again on Monday then had my Motorway driving lesson Tuesday which went great!!! Now I can drive to the lakes and go adventuring no problem!! Saw Andy in the afternoon for a drink and a walk around town and the park resulting in blisters for me and Andy getting cramps in his legs and a drive to ... somewhere spontaneous. Was supposed to be going climbing to Wilton quarry with Struggles on Wednesday but the shooting was on and the weather was dreadful ... or supposed to be. Ended up watching films at Andy’s instead than night.

Went to a comedy night at the Mount on Thursday then back to claries to get ready for a night/morning out in Southport. Got into town at 11ish and met up with Andy, Mike and a few others. Saw loads of friends from college I haven’t seen for aaaaaaaages and had a Jaegarbomb (?spelling?). danced the night away in Starskeys etc ... got in about 4ish after pizza in town and fell asleep in claries living room. Woke up 5mins before we had to leave for churchy things if we wanted time to go home first ... jumped in Emma’s car without getting dressed properly and still half asleep.

Went for a walk with friends from church down the beach on Friday ... which may not have been the best idea was it was ... damp. Went to the cinema with Andy on Saturday then went to the worship session at church that evening. Went to church on Easter Sunday and wore a dress =] spent the afternoon in the garden and chatted to Rach on the phone. Gran and Grandad came over in the afternoon and we had an early tea before church in the evening. Me and Jenny were getting baptised so we arrived early ... in swimming gear under our clothes! Peter, Ban and Ally talked us through the procedure again to calm us down. Jon, Rach, Emma, Bex, Adam, David, Hannah, Adam, Lucy, Kathryn, oh gosh I could go on forever ... were there. Did a few songs first ... and Andy dropped his bass making Peter laugh. I and Jenny gave our testomy and Rachel and Tabz did a reading. Finally it came to the ‘dunking!!!!’ It was Sooooooooo c c c c cccold!!! Peter and Ally ‘dunked’ me and I came up gasping, then felt strangely calm and I could certainly feel something happening and the Holy Spirit over me as Peter finished things. Jenny went under too ... and now we were both standing completely drenched in the middle of church, got changed in the back. Got loads of nice presses from everyone and a bear hug off Angela!! Went to drop Emma’s car off at mine and all went into town for a meal in Bex’s car meeting up with everyone else who had walked there. Had a nice ... but spicy meal at fuego’s then headed back to mine to watch ‘Angus thongs and perfect snogging’ and me and Rach fell asleep on the couch ... and I woke up on the floor ... AGAIN!!!!

Monday ... ive been looking forward to this day for Sooooooooo long!!! Mike had come back from teaching in Uganda after months and months!!! Angela and Ian had planned a surprise party for him. It was a great night with everyone back together again =] me Andy, Tabz and Jenny went on facebook ... and did devious things and facebook raped many people. As the night drew in we all gathered round the cinema with blankets, beer and tea!!!

Tuesday!!! Got to Rachel’s at 7:15am!!! We were driving up to Penrith to meet up with Andy, Rach’s flatmate at uni who ive met before. Had a rave on the mway on the way up and arrived in seathwaite many hours later. Went up Great Gable and Green Gable in an interesting misty-fog. Had an immense chat all the way up and down and we’ve planned many more Lake District adventures for the summer months. Got home at 10:30 after going out for a meal with Andy’s friends from home, one of which goes to Lancaster!!

Wednesday, met Anyd, Mkie, Vicky, Kathryn, Becky and Jenny and Mikul at the cinema to see 'The Boat That Rocked' which was amazing! back to mine after while me and Andy went to Tesco to get pizza. Ended up going back for a second load of pizza with Mike and Jon too!! played manhunt in the garden after ... resulting in Andy breaking his elbow jumping off a wall (i did not push him, just to clear up any stories!! lol). Drove Andy to Ians to look at his elbow and took Mike and Kathryn home. Drove Andy home then got back and went to bed while Andy went to A&E.

I drove up to Lancaster on Thursday morning to dump my stuff then home, and then Dad drove us all up to Scotland for the annual caravan trip to Hoddam Castle in Dumfries!!! Spent Friday revising and moseying around the grounds of the castle, the river, the gold course and surrounding fields. Watched Pirates of the carribean at worlds end after tea and ate an enormous amount of Easter egg and felt sick. Saturday mum and dad left early to do one of the wainwright fells in the lakes, me and Vicky did some revision in the morning then walked up repentance tower, over the fields and to the old ruined house with a humungous rope swing where we spend most of the day. Sunday we just walked round the grounds again and did bits of revision sitting out on the caravan deck in the sun! Also found time to play draughts down in the courtyard (there huge drafts on the floor) sitting here in the caravan while finishing my blog ... it’s been a great Easter =] (Pics to come soon!!)

EL CHORRO CLIMBING ADVENTURE!!!!

El CHORRO – DAY ONE
Ok, so, up at 5:30 sharpish, had a huge breakfast and a shower and packed last few bits, met Jojo and jumped in the taxi with the others for Liverpool airport and promptly fell asleep, which was for the best as according to Heather, the drivers driving skills were questionable. Got stopped at security as Heather had a fork in her bag! Got on the plane and touched down in Malaga a few hours later. Had fun using the ticket machines for the trains, but managed and got two trains to Malaga and then El Chorro after having an interesting luggage storage experience in the train station and food shopping at the local supermarket which had HUGE vegetables! Was pretty late when we got to the cottages, so we cooked tea, and then went to the bigger cottage for a chat and to plan the week together. Emma and I left earlier as we were shattered.

EL CHORRO - DAY TWO
Had a late start the first morning and left at about 10:30 to do the ‘Via Ferrata’ King’s Walkway. We weren’t too impressed with the weather so far as it way mighty cold and windy especially in the gorge. The sun made an appearance after lunch when we were trekking through the gorge and getting across the river heading for Los Cotos for some climbing. I invented a new form of climbing called ‘shallow water bouldering’ crossing the river. Got to the crag and threw myself in at the deep end and decided to lead my first climb which was a 4+, followed by Jojo who decided to scrape all the skin off her knees slipping down the horrendously polished few meters just before the last bolt. Lead two grade 5’s after that and learned what it felt like to find a huge jug at the top of about 3 meters of smearing on ‘Bitchios on the Wailers’ which certainly lives up to it’s name! I and Jojo coiled the rope with me holding it and Jojo passing through my hands as my hands are too small to hold all the rope! Made our way back through the gorge along the ‘via Ferrata’ and then abseiled into the dark off the top. Got back and had ‘pasta and red’ for tea. We couldn’t to the ‘no red food’ challenge, so we went for ‘red food’ every day.

EL CHORRO DAY THREE
Today was our first full day of climbing, headed down to the bottom of the fontales with high expectations and allot of sun cream. Lead a few 4’s and 4+ to get into the flow, then we moved up the crags and had a crack at some harder routed on top rope.

EL CHORRO – DAY FOUR
Me, Jojo, Emma, Heather, Lizzie, Toby, Ben and Rob had decided the night before to go further up the crags to Sector Sergio. Took about an hour and a half trek up the road carrying ropes and quick draws and we were all a bit tired. The weather was looking questionable as Toby and Ben split off from us to go and do a multi pitch while the rest of us carried on up. Did a few climbs in slightly damp conditions and me and Jojo both had a bit of a scare on ‘kiwi’ and both took a bit of a fall dynoing for a jug that wasn’t really there! We decided we had had enough of leading for the day and went round the corner to join the others to second and top rope some harder 6a’s and 6b’s. One of which was the scrappiest rock I’ve ever climbed on and I took a chunk of my leg off and left blood all over the rock face. For the last climb of the day me and Jojo lead an easy 4 ... which gave us allot more trouble than was anticipated ... as Jojo got stuck and couldn’t undo the screw gate on the sling at the top. Lucky Toby was around and climbed to while Lizzie belayed him, however, Toby couldn’t undo it either!! He came back down and went to get my penknife, climbed back up and did a ‘vertical limit’ style cut though the sling. We were slightly worried when the rope started smoking as the friction from both Jogo’s and Toby’s rope going through the same bolt at the top was too much. I managed to film most of this and by the time Toby had rescued Jojo it was getting dark, and we wanted our chilli we were cooking that night. Got back and Heather and Emma had cooked the chilli and we all sat down round the table like a family =] and chatted about the day ... and ‘The Great Rescue’!!! After tea, ma Toby, Jojo and Lizzie went and star gazing on deck chairs by the pool with blankets, and found the alphabet and numbers 1 – 20 in the stars.

EL CHORRO DAY FIVE
Our last day of climbing was interesting for me and Jojo ... we detached from the group and went down to the fontanels with the plan to work our way up filling in the gaps of climbs we had previously missed. Started off with a few easier climbs and a few 5’s, laughed at a guy wearing a ‘hankie’ on his head and packed up to move on up. It was a bit further than we reaslied, and as we only had a 50m rope we were slightly limited in what we could do. We were getting hot, Hungary, and tired ... so tired I didn’t bother to duck for a tree, shut my eyes and walked through it. Hours and hours, up and up, round and round later we finally found the others and collapsed. Me Toby and Jojo decided we had had enough and walked back to the pool where Al chased me in wearing a ‘man-kini’. We also found a cat. The others got back soon and me, Jojo and Toby cooked tea for everyone and we sat down to our last ‘family tea’. Went to the pub later where a parrot and Heather and Ben fighting over beer amused us (not the parrot fighting over beer). Staggered back, took blankets out to the pool and we all fell asleep under the stars.

EL CHORRO DAY SIX
Got up late and we all decided to make pancakes so we wondered down to the ‘shop’ and I bought some flour. Spent our last few hours making pancakes and lying around the pool then packed up and headed for the station, said goodbye to El Chorro and hopped on the train to Malaga. Had a pizza out in Malaga and I was the only one who finished it!!! It was amazing ... with tomato, cheese, onion, chicken, pepper and a fried egg!!! Anyway, we got to the airport eventually, and I fell asleep on the cafe floor. Got on the plain a while later and got a shock when we got back to ‘tropical England!!!’
All in all, had a fab time with some great people I know better now. Did some amazing climbs and feel so much more confident. All pictures up on http://picasaweb.google.com/Emmmmmmmmmmmma