Thursday 29 May 2008

Serious Arctic

Back to Lofoten one more time, only on this occasion we flew, clutching a bevy of copies of the new guide. One hour thirty, Manchester to Oslo, one hour fifteen Oslo to Bodø, a three hour drive to Skutvik and a two hour ferry crossing to Svolvaer. It sure beat the usual five day trek to get here. Two months earlier then usual it is all a bit strange, lots of snow on the mountains, a daytime high of 7 degrees at the moment, and the racks that cover the island decked out with cod, looking like miles old grey socks drying in the wind - very pungent!
Sherri caught SIX cod in half an hour fishing in her favourite spot, and we had a pleasant day doing the great classics of Gandalf and Gollum - we had the crag to ourselves, which was great!

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Busy Boy!

Three books published in less than two years - and all fat ones at that! Eastern Grit was a rewrite, so that was less of a task but Northern England and Lofoten Rock were done from scratch. Working on two books in parallel was quite an undertaking, but having both volumes roll off the press just a couple of months apart has been great - all three are crackers too! My bookshelf is starting to creak and crack a bit!
What I need now is a bit of a vacation, well at least once I have got the Western Grit rewrite out of the way - should only take about eight months!

Thursday 8 May 2008

Westward Ho!

It was a great journey home. 8 hours 15 minutes from Chamonix to Zeebrugge (570 miles) - the French motoway network is superb. Then it was an overnight ferry to Hull followed by a 70 min drive, and now its all over!
We brought the weather back - as per usual, and apart from heading to Nottingham for the printing Lofoten Rock I have been using the sunshine to get stuck into the photography for Western Grit 2.0. Today was superb in the Chew Valley, we had to wait a couple of hours for the sun to come round onto Dovestone Edge - but we coped!

And it Continues

Exploring the coast north of Altea February in the Costa Blanca Three weeks on and we are still seeing slow improvements in my stamina, bala...