Bandit Country

It's a well-known fact that I don't get out much. It's not for lack of enthusiasm, you understand, just my condition in life. Wednesday evenings are reserved for the wall, which in itself is a pretty damning state of affairs, it being widely recognised for its debilitating atmosphere. So one Wednesday in the middle of May I called Mark and said, 'How about Buckmore Park?' 'Too far', said he, 'How about Stone Farm Rocks?'

'Oh hell! Bandit country!' I thought. 'Rain', I thought. 'Foot and Mouth', I thought. 'Good idea!' I said.

Now there is something you should know about Mark. Some people have a supermarket or a petrol station just down the road from where they live. Mark has Stone Farm Rocks. In consequence, nothing is just as it seems. Good holds are slopers. Sharp little incuts are slopers. Big jugs are slopers. Unless, of course, you know to hold it just so, with your foot like that, and your shoulders this way and not the other.

So I drove like a lunatic to get there (see paragraph 1, re condition in life and bath time for small people). The black clouds of Surrey gave way to the blue sky of Sussex and the lay-by was all but empty. So far so good: no red and white tape to say 'foot and mouth woz here' either. I walked up the path (no bicycle like at Harrisons, and so no danger of falling off into the nettles again either).

The cows looked concerned: gum inspector or climber? I had never been scrutinised and deemed harmless before by a herd of cows before. Put me in my place, that did.

Still, there was Mark. 23 years old and 8¾ stone, and looking strong, flexible and all that sort of discouraging stuff: double his age and take away the weight and you're not far off my age – that's my excuse and I'll stick to it until I think of a better one.

His route of choice (a warm up, you understand) had one of those useless-until-you've-fallen-off-it-five-times holds that slope in every direction except the least probable. 'You've been here before', I thought (I pick these things up quickly, you see). 'It was nice down here on Monday', he said. 'QED', I muttered to myself.

At this point the competitive urges began to stir. 'I'm taller than him, I've got a bigger reach, I was climbing when he was still wearing three-cornered trousers.'

Competitive urges or not, every other hold is still a sloper and every hold that isn't a sloper is damp, which sort of evened things out. So we came out about even (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Which is to say that we had a blast, and got up some things and fell off others – well actually we fell off everything but got up some of them after the obligatory five manipulations of each hold. There were four other people at the crag, and it didn't rain and the view is nice and MAFF didn't shoot us or the cows, and so I might just go back again.

Adrian