I spent most of this summer under threat of redundancy. We lost a major project (nothing to do with the software, which the customer’s staff on the ground were as happy with as anyone ever is, but quite a lot to do with politics), and as a consequence those of us working on it found ourselves with a deadline of mid-September to find another assignment or get the boot.

I should have been far more stressed about it. I had a brief whinge at the start of the whole process and then settled down to a routine of turning up late, looking at the internal vacancies list, and then spending the rest of the day drinking coffee, writing rubbish*, browsing UKC and playing random Flash games before buggering off early to go home/geocaching/to the pub/away early for the weekend.

Then, with less than a week until the official Order of the Boot, I found another assignment - out of the firing line, as it were. And that was where the stress began. I am assigned to a horribly claustrophobic office an hour’s commute away, doing something I know absolutely nothing about. Even a mad comedy moment involving gritstone, a huge overhanging grass cornice and an ice-axe didn’t really help.

Fortunately, when I rocked up on Monday - suit pressed, boots polished, car de-littered (I daren’t wash it, I think some of the mud is structural) - all that happened was an amazing amount of form-filling and the conclusion that I can’t actually do anything until the security boffins have scrutinised said forms and confirmed that I am not, in fact, a terrorist. The solution: “You have how much leave left? Would you like to take some of it? Good - see you in a fortnight.”

So, I have been ordered to go away and have fun. I spent today happily geocaching in a local wood, will be up early tomorrow for a few days in North Wales, will hit a club meet in Llangollen on the way back, and then aim to spend the following week bouldering and letterboxing on Dartmoor.

But, a nasty little voice keeps telling me, “You have volunteered for a job you don’t want to do. Why didn’t you take the redundancy and climb for a year?”

Child of my times that I am, I can’t bring myself to do that. And so, I am under orders to go and have fun.

(*IE random verbal doodling, some of it in verse . . . and quite a bit of this blog!)

Last Saturday saw the first official access for climbers to Shooters Nab in quite some time. As predicted by Sod’s Law, the crag was green as Kermit’s backside and the midges were swarming. So were the climbers - I’ve never seen so many people at a guidebook bash!

We only get a tiny handful of dates this year when we can access this venue, and this was the first. The problem is that part of the crag lies within the danger area for a shooting range and the shooting club, understandably, aren’t too keen on having people wandering around in an area where they could, if things go very wrong indeed on the range, get shot.

Moving the range is about as possible an option as moving the crag. The danger area behind the range is there for entirely sensible reasons - it is highly unlikely that anyone shooting in accordance with the safety rules will manage to send a shot a long way off the range, but range danger areas (on many other ranges in addition to this one) are specified so that said highly unlikely incident *still* won’t injure anyone when it eventually does happen.

So, full-time access for climbers probably isn’t going to happen unless the range closes. What *may* be achievable, however, is an arrangement on similar lines to that for the Wilton quarries, where it is known when the range is in use and climbers have access when it is not.

Here’s hoping.

Sunday, by contrast, saw a small group of dedicated (or possibly half-witted) people meeting up in a damp, green, filthy quarry. Very little done, but at least we put some belay stakes in which will constitute a vast improvement over tied off heather plants and half-buried nut keys.

I ended up with forty-seven midge bites (despite being marinaded in so much midge spray that I can still smell/taste it four showers later) and had to wash my tights twice to get the mud off. And there was cake.

Mmm, cake.