Messy climbing

I read a post of Dave Mac's a while ago relating to how atheletes try to keep their lives 'clean' so they can focus on training/competing. The mess is the every day stuff that gets in the way and stops you either getting out for fun or achieveing goals. I've had 2 weeks of mess and have hardly climbed. My planned rest week was going great until it got extended and when i should have been hitting targets at my peak i was drinking beer and having pub lunches. However child free weekends don't come along that often so we grabbed it when Grandma Biscuit made the offer.

When i look at what i have to do to get my climbing time in it's amazing i get out at all. My kids are both adopted, having fostered them previously. They come with a lot of baggage in the form of emotional damage, learning difficulties and behavioural problems (think flooding the school and throwing the entire contents of bedrooms down stairs at regular intervals.) This has led to me home educating our son with daughter soon to follow in September.

My wife had a very time demanding job, until March, when she finally cracked up and has been off work due to the stress work caused her. Doing the work of 2 people couldn't go on for ever. She took 2 weeks leave during which she crumbled and realised she couldn't go back. She is still not back to her old self but is fighting on and getting there with regular counselling sessions. It's horrifying to see a confident professional, who takes such pride in her work, reduced to the stage where some days we have to fight to get her out of bed.

We are moving to Spain on the 2nd of August. That means that right now we are in chaos with boxes everywhere, big decisions to make and feeling excited and scared at the same time.

I also need to fit in work running my outdoor activity business and the associated paperwork that goes with it. Whilst this is bringing in good money it is also seriously eating into my time. It's not fair for me to work all day and then ask Mrs Biscuit to look after the kids in the evening as well so if i work there's no playing out for me.

Then there are all the normal day to day things you have to get done as a house husband with 2 kids and a 4 bedroom house and the other fun stuff aside from climbing.

This post isn't meant to be a whinge just a reminder to myself that if i don't/can't get out climbing it's not the end of the world and i shouldn't beat myself up over it.

Spain is not going to be a magic bullet to fix all this but a lot of mess will be done away with.

Even if i only get out 2ce a week with climbing areas like this to go at:

VIDEO: BD athlete Adam Ondra repeating Chilam Balam (9b) and making the first ascent of La Planta de Shiva (9b) in Spain from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo.

i should be the happiest climber in the world.