Wanted: Day meet organisers

Like all of us - I'm entirely up to my wallnuts in lockdown.

I've long since given up watching the toupéed Mr Blobby gently deflate behind a pedestal of unintelligible mumblings, so the first I knew about light being at the end of the tunnel was our last committee meeting. That's right - a mythical roadmap had supposedly been released - and with it the vague promise of peeking through the cataracts of weeknight binge drinking (a working from home staple) at what might constitute a climbing partner. Well... somewhere underneath a thick veneer of poor hygeine (at least car sharing is banned) and a newly discovered agrophobia, having not travelled more than thirty yards to the end of their garden, there might be a climbing partner anyway, waiting to pupate.

We have the opportunity to come together soon, in groups of up to six people or [insert regularly changing COVID advice as necessary]. I would imagine (again, having given up on the briefings), that the chosen six would still need to keep enough room around them to swing a cam. So for now the classic 'WMC squeeze' - ten club members hanging off a rusty piton on a 2ft wide sloping ledge - might have to wait. Likewise routes that involve a second mercilessly grabbing every which appendage of their leader in their fight against a horrific sloping gritstone top-out (is that a big-bro in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?), are also something to look forward to later in this year. In fact, it doesn't even need to be climbing - we're just looking to get back outside, be it biking, walking, whatever. Hopefully we can also show a particular welcome to some of our clubs new prospects that have reached out to us during lockdown.

So for now, we're simply putting out the feelers.

If you:

a) are interested in getting outside for whatever local activity (bike, walk, boulder, climb)

b) have vague notions of a plan that could involve others tagging along, and/or

c) can reduce your blood alcohol volume long enough to at least get to said outdoor activity (after which point you can happily resume slinging back tequilas - yay!)

THEN leave a comment either on here (paid up WMC members only I'm afraid!) or on the WMC facebook page (open for all).

Of course these plans are still dependent on COVID, the weather (remember when talking about the weather was a thing??) and being able to tear ourselves away from the latest period drama on Netflix for more than a few hours, but hey - we can only try.

Stay safe, stay sharp and remember to skip the warm-ups. After an entire year of sofa slobbing you might injure yourself before you get to the good part.

Tom