Paradise Regained.....

Ahhhhhhh Sunshine and warmth!!

Normal service has been resumed and Kalymnos is basking in sunshine again. Has been ever since Easter Sunday. Climbers have begun looking for the shade and some hardy souls are even swimming!

It's been really great to see some old friends here from Scotland and renew some old acquaintances with people I've met here before. I'd always intended to be here for most of April to catch up with the Glasgow wall posse, but seeing a few old Aberdeen friends here too has been a very pleasant surprise.

Entertainment Kalymnos style today was provided by a half decent cup of coffee at Soul on the main drag after a quick and free dental check to see if my broken crown and remaining route was ok. Then we watched a coast guard vessel being lifted into dry dock after a crash during a chase. This drew a fair crowd... but we had a far more important appointment, my first non UK hair cut! As my hair thins with age its vitally important that the hairdresser knows how to hide the empty spaces as much as possible with the remaining locks, so I was a little nervous when I sat down and tried to convey what was needed in my pigeon Greek. 10 euros later and I'm relived to say that all is well and I survived in tact. :)

       Coffee at Soul bar.

    Crowds at the harbour.

          Hair!!!

The new plan for the elbow had begun to show good signs, real progress had been made with the mind following suit and I was beginning to feel more confident on the rock again as the elbow felt like it was getting better and I begin to get a touch fitter too.

The Theraband has been very useful and I'm certain the sunshine has helped keep things warm and moving a little more freely, along with the exercises and stretching.

I enjoyed 4 nice easy gentle days climbing in a row, the elbow has been supported, while the urge to climb harder had been fairly easily resisted until a couple of days ago at Secret Garden. I still 'felt' the tendonitus so I was aware that it's far from fixed and up to now, this had helped me to reign in my urge to get on harder things and ruin the good work we'd done so far!

As for the climbing, I had a good day at Ghost (Seaside) Kitchen with Ben Hicks, and another with Themi when I climbed the excellent Resista again. This is a wonderful route and remains one of the nicest soft 6c's on the island. While it's intimidating in appearance, the holds and the moves are utterly brilliant. I managed to on sight the 7a to the left of it with no problems and felt much happier in myself to see that I didn't break but managed to hang in there and make the moves fairly easily, even though I didn't actually find the best pockets to pull on but just founds things I could use and cranked.

Ben and I had another good day at Ivory Tower and we both enjoyed the excellent Aypa. We did Happiness too, for me the second time I'd been up the fine lower wall on those lovely cauliflower edges to be stopped by the ridiculous final moves to clip the lower off on the lip of the roof! Not one I'll choose to do a third time, unless the extension needs a tick :)

          Ben Hicks on Happiness at Ivory Tower. 6c

Then we had a rest day, sort of........... and went up to Symplegades to do a couple of routes, just to keep things moving. After a good Theraband warm up and a nice easy romp up the first pitch, Climbers Nest Extension went ok and was very good indeed, as was Kamari up the steep pocketed wall away to the right and I felt really pleased to climb both of these well with little complaint from the elbow. Two routes was enough and once back at the store some stretching in the afternoon sunshine and some good chat with passers by followed by dinner out with friends made a very fine day indeed.

Then came Secret Garden. It was Ben's first visit here so we joined Lloyd and Christina for the day. After warming up, and queing up, we climbed the excellent and easy Frapogalo, followed by the equally fine Melodrama, and then I decided to try Trick Katy.... The final steep and crimpy moves to the jugs made the elbow sing a little so I stopped and didn't climb any more. A nice easy day with Themi, Steve and Selina at Noufarou followed, Themi climbed 3 routes in borrowed shoes while Steve and I did a rather tricky 6b+ which made my elbow feel even more tender.

       Lloyd starting Tricky Katy 7a+

       Themi climbing Jive at Noufarou.

       Mr Golley checking routes for the Kalymnos Climbing App.

I really should have seen the warning signs.... The final straw though was getting off route at Iannis while trying Bepikoko and accidentally trying some hard moves (La Manna, apparently..) on the wrong route after getting confused by new bolts to the left and totally missing the ones I actually wanted. This has made the elbow feel pretty sore and deflated my hopes that we were heading in the right direction. As I type now it feel like it's burning and I get sore twinges every now and then. Hey ho. Rest tomorrow and see how it feels after that, I guess its back to the slabs again and maybe apply a little more patience!! Bugger!!!

I'll be leaving again soon. I may have been a little premature as I thought the injury was progressing nicely when I booked the flights.....  It was a hard decision anyway as life here is good and I feel very lucky to have found Themi, and pretty much everything else a man needs here, but I have to sort out the van and decide whether to journey on, if so where to go and where the weather might be best for some more climbing, or whether to just slowly head back to the UK, see the family and make plans to sell the van and bring all my worldly goods here somehow? Time will tell.

What I do know is that it will be hard to leave.

Elbows and Easter

I've had 3 sessions with Karin, the German Osteo/physio and felt able to get out and climb. That coupled with the encouragement of Themi to stop sulking and try to get fit again, has lead to a change in diet, work pattern and a plan to climb, or at least get up the hillside everyday in an effort to regain the fitness I've lost feeling sorry for myself. Regular stretching, therabar and theraband are also being used, so far to reasonably good affect and I feel like at long last, progress is being made, in the right direction. Its been a long time coming.

I'm not fixed of course......It takes time and while I'm feeling ok about the elbows progress, its very fragile and could easily go backwards so I have to be careful and patient still. I could feel the elbow during the climbing, but no pain, and nothing that felt like I'd made it worse. Relief. I have been amazed at just how many climbers have had epicondylitis or golfers elbow... and just how many are carrying it. There are so many tales of how to cure it that it blows my mind, but all bar none say it takes ages and never goes away. Fan-bloody-tastic!!

                      At North Cape.

The 7th of April was a good day. Mark it down.
I climbed my hardest route since the day I fell off in Chulilla today, in fact 2 6c's were dispatched in quick succession and I felt good. The 8th was not quite so good. I did 6 easy routes with Ben Hicks at Ghost Kitchen. Nothing hard and nothing steep but I felt it after. Maybe I'm silly but I need to go for a climb! I would dearly love to get on steeper stuff now though.... Hmmm. Yes, patience...!!

We had dinner at Miltos with Ruth Dawson, Simon and Miriam, and Briggite to celebrate Ruth's birthday. The chocolate cake was tasty and I scoffed 2 slices. Diet going well :)

           Little miss Montmeroy :)

It feels like things are coming alive here in Kalymnos with so many nationalities and languages floating through the air as people walk past the store. The bright colours of the climbers clothes are as wonderful as the sunsets which grace this island most evenings. A curious mix of shorts and flip-flops can be seen in equal measure with duvet jackets and beanies as this long Kalymnian winter maintains its grip and summer tries hard to fight its way in. As the sun set this evening the temperature plummeted and I went from a T-shirt while at the store, to a 4 layer duvet combo, hat, gloves and snood for the scooter ride home.

I'm enjoying chatting with customers and helping with their choices, both of shopping and routes. I like that having spent a lot of time here I can pass on some useful beta about crags, weather and sometimes routes if I'm asked about them. I can even manage to do the till and some basic arithmetic on a good day :)

Its Easter here and a big week in the Kalymnian calendar. We delivered to St Nicholas some fabulously decorated waving palm leaves that Themis made over the preceding days and weeks leading up to palm Sunday, and the noise of dynamite explosions and fire crackers can be heard regularly now in rehearsal for the big day on Sunday coming, when all will gather in Pothia to be deafened by the massive and at times just bloody dangerous bomb fights either side of the town. Yes its a local custom and something Kalymnos is known for, but for me, once is enough. However, I dare say I'll be there to see it, and hear it again, but maybe this time I'll take ear plugs!

After all my years raised in a religious family, my knowledge and understanding of Easter is not good and I can't remember it being a particularly big day in the calendar, though I do know that the death of Jesus was recognised at passover, rather than his resurrection. To be honest, as a child I wasn't really interested in our religion at all, other than the fact that it made me 'different' from all my friends at school. The story of Jesus last days and his death and resurrection have meant nothing to me other than chocolate eggs, the bread and wine used to represent the blood and body of Jesus, and the fact that I wasn't allowed to have anything to do with it. Same with Xmas, and birthdays, school assemblies.... The works.

Being brought up in what I believe now to be almost a cult religion, without a choice, has made me very negative toward religion in general. I've closed my mind to it. Children should not be force fed a diet of religion or made to feel outcast. My mom, my sister and I left the religion when I was 15. My Father I believe is still a member, as are many family members. However normal Mom tried to make us feel, the powers that be meant that the main rules of the religion were abided by.

I feel very strongly that baptising babies is wrong and my kids have not been baptised. Everyone should be allowed to find God in their own way as they grow up and understand more. That's if they want to! While every member of that religion I know or remember have been basically good honest thoughtful people, I can't imaging life in a strict religion again and one day I hope they can see the pain they put their children through, the heartless way they separate families if one member should be brave enough to have independent thoughts and see a different way.

The Greeks take Easter very seriously and my upbringing and subsequent rebellion made me have agnostic, bordering atheist views all of my adult life. I do have an open mind though and I'm more than happy to accept that others have, or maybe need to follow God and have faith in a greater being. What I do object to is people trying to force their opinion on others, be it peacefully or violently. I believe we are all entitled to our opinion, but not entitled to belittle or abuse someone else's.

While I don't believe in God as such, I happily sat and watched the beautiful version of the story of Jesus as seen in the glossy 'Jesus of Nazareth' starring Robert Powell. Having watched this Themi told me of her beliefs, and the interpretation of the story that she has learned. I was fascinated to listen to her talk about Jesus and God and I found myself thinking a little more about it. More than I ever have in fact.

It reminded me of my old English teacher, Mr White and how he could bring Shakespeare to life for me. He could dig into the words, peel back the layers to reveal meanings and hidden depths that I had never dreamt of and he made plays like Macbeth and Hamlet actually come alive and I could understand the meanings and sub-plots held within those funky olde English words. It's like when I watch TV, I rarely see below the surface and take it as pure entertainment rather than thinking deeply about any 'message'. It's like something washing over me, and that's how I feel about religion, and perhaps many other things too. I skim them. Don't let things sink in. Deep down I recognise that I've always had a great deal of respect and admiration for people that can think and see inner meanings and hidden depths. I wish I could understand more and decide a little more wisely about the things I do choose to think deeply about!

Now bear with me here and assume for the next few lines that I'm a believer ok......

And so with the story of Jesus, there seems to be more to it than I had ever thought, especially around how much he suffered for 'mankind'. Yesterday I watched Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of The Christ', a far more powerful and bloody realistic version of the last 12 hours of Jesus life, and perhaps a far more realistic portrayal of the actual physical suffering this man called 'Jesus' went through before finally dying on the crucifix at the hand of his fellow Jews and Roman governors.

The beating and torture he went through....I never realised. Twice he asked God to spare him from the pain. I'd never understood that this was the human side, the weak side of the 'man' breaking through as it battled with his powerful, miracle performing spiritual, son of God side. The taunts as to why he couldn't save himself.... I'd never thought much about these things but with a little more digging and helpful explanations, its clearer.

Maybe the story of Jesus is just that. A story. A really good one mind you... But, what if it was true? What would we do if someone arrived today who was a little bit weird, a little bit magical, out of the ordinary and declared himself to be here to save us all....? Would we listen? Would we laugh and ridicule? I'm sure we would, just as it happened then. If it happened?

       Moon over Pothia