A Day of two halves

Dark Clouds and heavy rain greeted me on the drive to Portland today and there were many times when i thought of just driving back home, hanging the climbing shoes and chalk bag up and venturing out on the mountain bike instead.
I eventually arrived at reap land where i was greeted by Paul, he was sipping tea with the look of disappointment on his face, he probably felt the same way as me... pchysed to climb but unable to due to it pissing down with rain. anyway after a little chat we decided to head down to the rock face and see what things were like, it was only faintly spitting by now so we could at least get on some easy grades and get something done. We headed into a newly bolted area called the Veranda, All the routes here were pretty easy grade 5's other than a 6b+, but they were all pretty dry compared to the rest of the walls, we warmed up on them before I decided to have a go at a 6b+ called "When you were little you dreamed you were big". The climbing was really nice with a mono halfway up the route which linked the crux section, after this easy climbing lead to and awkward lower off, I pushed on through and managed to clip for the onsight. Paul then had a little play on toprope before deciding to save energy for his intended routes.With the main cliff still wet we moved onto another new area called the balcony, there was an interesting 7a there called "Jurassic Bark" which I liked the look off, we started by ticking off some of the easy grade 5's and 6's before i decided to give it a go. the climbing was fairly simple up until the over hang where the crux section began, a powerful undercut into a huge slap would see me to the top, anyway many attempts at working it finally unlocked the sequence for me to use, I was just about to give up and go home due to the stamina running out when Paul encouraged me to have one last go, after a few hard moves and groans I was finally happily ticking the lower off to get my redpoint. I accidently knocked a hold off to on the way down when stripping the route, not sure if it has affected the grade at all though.
Overall another good day out climbing with lots of snapping holds and cranking from Paul, lots of rain and sun and also lots of fun, being only two of us out today I was unable to get any photos, I did go and watch my Sarah dancing in the carnival though and that was pretty cool so here's a photo of her and her SJ dancers... well done today babe you were amazing.

SJ Dance studios Bournemoth carnival 2011