About

Welcome to This Isn't The Place, where I get to talk at length about where my feet have been and how I plan on getting there. This is a new project, and still in the very early stages: it's a great time to get involved, so please do subscribe and comment on the things you find interesting.

 To that end, there is a three part introduction piece that will do a better job of explaining what exactly here is hoping to be. You can find it by following the links:

 The Goodness of The Outdoors (Part 1/3)
Choose Only One Master – Nature (Part 2/3)
Signposting The Trail (Part 3/3)

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PXR001: There And Back Again: A Circular Route From Edale

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"A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to" - J. R. R. Tolkien  A little later than I would have liked, perhaps - but true to my word regardless. Here we are at the start of the first post expedition review, or PXR. What will follow is to include an account of the trip as well as the important but oft overlooked aspect of planning considerations. Should you get to the end of the post and find yourself in a position to recreate what we did a few weeks ago, well, my writing has served its purpose. Of course, it is wonderful to wax lyrical about what happened and it's certainly important that this is done, but don't forget that this is but one cog in a much bigger machine. Without considering the logistics of travel, accommodation, and booze, of water, food, and fuel, of weather, route, and going... Well, there'd be no adventure in the first place. Without further ado, here we go. The View From Our Campsite Aims
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Being Injured. Or, it's ok not to be fine

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A funny thing happened the other day. For the first time in as far as I can remember I got an injury. Not an ache, a pain - an injury. Climbing had done me over, or rather I had done myself over climbing. The course of true love never did run smooth . - Shakespeare It had been a long day at work, each hour seeming like so much more, and I'd decided the only way to unwind was to climb. So there I was, hands chalked and ready. Half way up a route and approaching a state of flow. Left hand here, right foot there. Flag out wide, reach up for the crimp and... pop . A feeling like lightening, electricity shooting up my arm. Instinctively I pull away and fall. The landing is fine; that's not the problem. The issue is my grip or lack thereof. The Lovers - Rene Magritte Devastated I was, am, about it all. That must have been close to five weeks ago now and still I'm unable to climb. An embarrassing trip to the wall yesterday shows that much. This doesn't happen to me.
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An Introduction: Choose Only One Master – Nature

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Earnest Shackleton once said that "it is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown". This I believe to be true. There is an innate desire in all of us to understand the incomprehensible and know the unfathomable. It exists in the infant reaching out toward a world of possibilities, a teenager toward the secrets of adults, and in the elderly toward that which is still to be done. At the age of 78 (nearly 79!), my Grandpa still tends to his garden. I'll be damned if a season goes by where he doesn't tell me about a new thing that he has learned, something different to normal happening, or of  new flower arrangements blooming. The problem, if there is one, is that the act of discovery in all of us is increasingly becoming a feat of mind removed from matter. The Evening Star - Joseph Mallord William Turner Picture this, it is an ungodly hour in the Black Mountains. The temperature has been clocked at minus 26 (centigrade, you heathens) when windchill
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