Hmm, things haven’t quite gone to plan. Chamonix had bad weather and we sat around in the rain and clouds a lot, which was a bit depressing but we did get some weather windows and went up the Aiguille du Midi cable car and the views were as stunning as ever. The queues were massive for the first car, it sounded like the weather had been bad for a couple of weeks, so all the skiers were desperate to get up there in the unusually wintry conditions- there was snow everywhere!
On Monday, unfortunately, I got ‘ashed’!! Everything looked fine for flights to Bristol but then the morning of my flight they cancelled it. Annoying to say the least, so I was stuck in Cham and had to cancel my welsh climbing trip, which I had been looking forward to for ages. Also, poor Alex had taken a week off work, so I was gutted for her too.
Luckily, the Snow and Rock crew (who Tim had been taking pictures for) were driving home the next day, so I hitched a lift with them. It all worked out ok in the end and we got back to stunning weather here- bizarre. It was a real shock to be roasting hot, coming from dreary Cham. Also, my cold had been a little more persistent than I would’ve liked, so lugging heavy bags around at altitude wasn’t ideal but I’m sure it did me some good. It was nice to be over there and be in the mountains, we also went to the Italian side, hunting for some sun, which worked for a morning.
Anyway, I said I had some exciting news at the end of my last blog (no, I’m not pregnant!); I’m going to be in a series on BBC 2 called ‘Scaling Britain’. We’ll be filming for the whole of July and August (again climbing will be on the backburner, that seems to be the way of it this year) and then it will be screened for three weeks in September every night at 6.30pm.
It’s a series looking at UK architecture from around the 11th century through to the modern day. Myself and the presenter (Dr Jonathan Foyle) will be climbing on the buildings and getting a close up view of the development of architecture. I’ve been on some beautiful old buildings through my roped access work, so it will be a nice extension of that. We’ll be going all round the country but I’m really excited about St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament. I’m sure it’s going to be great fun and I’m really looking forward to it. I also think it’ll be very interesting to watch and I’m hoping we have a summer this year, so we don’t get rained off. We’ve got a very tight schedule with not much room for down days, so fingers crossed.
Anyway, I’m off to Millstone soon, to try and find some shade…I was at Stanage on Wednesday and got roasted. It seemed crazily hot, I think I’m just not used to the heat, as I was floundering around. And for me, that’s weird, I love the heat normally.
I also trained at the foundry yesterday and unsurprisingly have lost fitness due to the lack of climbing over the last month. That foundry roof seemed steeper than normal! it’s a little depressing but I’m sure it’ll come back after a bit of effort.
I’m picking Tim up from Liverpool tonight, he’s flying back (ash permitting) from another photo shoot and more packing tomorrow.
My next post will probably be news of how our Pabbay trip went- can’t wait.
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