Climber Molly Thompson-Smith on recovery and seeing Hayley McQueen

Watching her team-mates fly up the wall at the start of a new climbing season has been frustrating for Molly Thompson-Smith.

But it's not all doom and gloom for the Sky Sports Scholar slowly getting over a big operation on her hand.

The 21-year-old reveals her new skills in the kitchen and behind the wheel and how catching up with Sky Sports News presenter and mentor Hayley McQueen has been a big boost....

It's almost three months since my surgery and I'm nearly able to use my injured hand again.

It's been a little difficult to keep motivation high during these last few weeks as the competition season for climbing has started.

Despite it being hard to sit around and watch everyone climb and compete, I still like to feel involved in the climbing community, and support all my friends and GB team-mates.

I went to the first competition of the season in Sheffield two weekends ago. I even brushed holds for a problem that was in the semi-finals round - something which is usually done for me when I compete!

It was interesting to be so close and experience the other side but I'm definitely ready to be on their side again!

With a lot of passive stretching and tendon gliding exercises, my movement in the PIP area (joints around the fingers) has improved massively and is almost back to normal.

However, despite a lot of work, the movement around the PIP joint is taking a little longer to regain. But I'm confident that once I start using my finger again the tendon will be able to glide easier.

Around the eight-week mark, I had an ultrasound showing a minimal gap between my tendon and the bone meaning there was no bowstringing and everything was looking great.

It's nice to be able to do all the things I did pre-injury with ease again - even simple things like picking up bags with my left hand, cutting large vegetables and driving!

Over the last month I've been upping the training I'm doing a lot, and trying to get back my one arm pull-up strength. With climbing with two hands again approaching soon I'm eager to make as many gains as possible to try to start as close to normal fitness as possible!

Most climbers stick to climbing and basic conditioning for their training, but with this revolving around things I can't do, I've had the opportunity to train things I never spent much time on before.

The parallettes and rings are my new favourite conditioning tools, and I've been trying to use all the machines I always used to walk past at the gym!

Having more time off the wall at least provides some opportunities and last week I got the chance to go to London and see my Sky mentor Hayley McQueen in action as well as away from the camera.

It was so great to hear Hayley's story, the choices she made, how she got to where she is, her interests in sport and loads of other things.

Hayley gave me great advice on how to be confident in front of a camera - something she managed effortlessly when I saw her live on air. This is something which will be really useful especially in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as climbing gets more mainstream attention.

I'm looking forward to showing Hayley more about my sport when I can climb properly again, and hoping I can take on all her expertise and use it all in front of a camera.