An absolutely mad 48 hours of so of travel, with very little in the way of sleep! I slipped quietly into the swimming pool at 02:30am by the light of the moon in order to wake myself up for the drive back to Malaga airport. We were on one of the first flights out of Spain and were touching down in Liverpool by mid-morning.

Then after returning the students and unpacking the ropes and climbing gear, made it back to The Cottage for a late lunch with Clare.

The weather was almost as warm in Wales as it was as Spain! Perfect climbing conditions. However, I was a bit too tired to be considered safe to climb, so we hiked our local peak to get the views and catch up on each other’s news…

Then it was off to bed, ready for another early start – this time a much more reasonable 06:00am, in order to get to the Peak District for a management meeting as part of a role I hold for the Association of Heads of Outdoor Education Centres. Another blue sky beautiful day – shame it was spent indoors around a boardroom table!

Despite being I doors, was great to meet in person with the management group, rather than online. We were hosted at the Mt Cook Centre near Matlock. A new purpose built centre – amazing facilities and great to be shown around – there’s even a zip wire off the roof!

After the meeting had finished, a few of us took a walk to nearby Black Rocks – where I first went abseiling as a Scout sometime around 1989 with Ken Marlow and Tim Jarvis et al…

I’d taken my climbing gear, but didn’t quite have time for that. Made do with the views instead.

I had to get back on the move to get over to Stockport to meet Pete in the evening for a cuppa and some great climbing reminiscing about when I did my PGCE at Bangor Uni.

Made it to Bangor just in time for a quick ‘hi’ with Tim who was visiting Bangor from Switzerland, then finally made it to meet Clare for a quick dance in the salsa club with Clare around 22:00. Was almost delirious with exhaustion by the time I got to bed…