Rannoch Mountaineering Club 

www.climbrannoch.co.uk

Dinner Meet 2001

It was scary………..it really was………Colin delved deep into his lunchbox, pulled something out, looked over to me and said,

" Hey, Al! Fancy some tongue sandwich?"

I thought ferfuxake what’s this? Some kind of deviant Jordanhill sexual practice? ……..or a simple offer of bonhomie during lunch break after an enjoyable couple of routes?

In the end, after sizing things up, I took some of Colin’s tongue……….and the bottom line was, it was rather enjoyable.

Anyway, I digress. We were at Neist Point crag on Skye, getting some climbing in before the Annual Dinner Meet. . It was an excellent choice of crag as the weather on the drive up on Friday night had been appalling……absatiddly pishing it down the whole way up. We were resigned to a wet weekend of soggy padding and beer guzzling.

Ah, the fickle Scottish weather………we awoke on Saturday to a beautiful crisp sunny day, if a little breezy. After a convoluted conference over the cornflakes and coffee, crag choice was confirmed as Neist Point, on the west coast of the island.

Anyone with any sense had come to the same decision, so I don’t quite understand how Bish had decided to go there as well………and I certainly don’t understand why Colin and I agreed to Bish and Tim coming in our car to the crag! I have lost count of the countless previous experiences of ‘Bish’ epics and disasters. If I had a quid for every time I’ve ended up waiting around while that bampot Bish sorts himself out, I would be a couple of quid richer, I can tell you!

There I go digressing again. Anyway, we got to the crag and set up an abseil. We only had one spare single 9mm rope, and I don’t know about you but I feckin hate abbing on a single 9. Scary stuff.

We did a VS, a HVS and an E1, all of which were excellent, well protected and on superb rock. All had names something to do with stocks and shares, investments and venture capital……..spot the guy who disnae have a Skye Guide, and I can never remember route names anyway!

"This Year’s Bish Epic" involved him tying his spare gear and jacket onto the end of the abseil rope, and you guessed it, when we pulled it back up his jacket fell off halfway up the crag and got stuck! Cue much to’ing and fro’ing, farting-about, faffing, and general discombobulation while the rest of the team waited back at the car.

He failed to retrieve it and we decided to leave it til the next day and we got the pedal-to-the-metal on the drive back to Slig for the Dinner. The lads were hungry……..and thirsty.

The Dinner was, well, just dinner really……..a selection of food divided into various courses and cooked to varying levels of well-doneness, then scoffed with much gusto before getting to the "raison d’etrier’…………..getting completely blootered.

After-dinner coffee and mince, was served in the ‘Collie Lounge’, and I must say most of the mince was in the form of a political discusssion between Colin ‘True Blue’ Grant and Angela ‘Better Red than Dead’ Jefferies………..anyway this had the desired effect of driving most of the ‘men’ (everyone except Harpic curiously enough, arf arf) into the bar in the quest for blooterdom.

Blooteration attainment levels were duly reached and the team split up into hotel, camping and bunkhouse factions.

Sunday arrived later than usual, and it was another cracker. The Bunkhouse Faction went to Elgol Crag where we did a VS and an E1. ‘Somethin Jimmy-something’ and ‘Crack of Zawn’. Both superb.

Bish and Tim wen’t back to Neist to partake in the new climbing sub-sport ‘Jacket-half-way-up-the-cragging’……it’ll never take off.

Then it started raining and we went home.