Another Baby Put to Bed

Western Grit is just about packed up and ready to go to the printers, and should be out in about a month, which is bang on schedule. It continues the approach we used on the Lofoten guide and despite some initial worries it looks quite superb - Jack Geldard has even suggested we might get 'done' for making the crags look too good!
I have lost track of how many guidebooks I have written now, but there is absolutely no doubt that if Ken Wilson and his cronies hadn't stuck their oars in and managed to sink my little black and white Gritstone Select guide that I wrote for Cicerone Press, then I wouldn't have called Alan James around for a meeting on April 1st 2001. I wouldn't have gone on to win three awards, pack in teaching and spend the winters in nice places working on more guidebook; funny how things turn out - cheers Ken!
We have three more weeks down here to get the final few shots for the Cote d'Azure guide, then I want to reacquaint myself with the Verdon. We have booked into a place in Moustieres for a couple of weeks so that should be good.
Then there is the summer - where to go?

Callanqueing Around

A long-weekend in Marseilles seemed like the easiest way to get the required information and photographs for the new book - so we booked a hotel on the outskirts and tootled across there on Saturday.
Then it was down to work, Morgiou, Sormiou, Luminy, Les Goudes, En Vau - it has been a busy few days - and hot too! The fact that it was the first warm weekend of the year meant that are was heaving with city-dwellers heading out - I had forgotten how much I dislike crowds!
Despite that the Callanques really are a beautiful part of the world, and nowadays they seem pretty much a closed book to UK climbers - as an example a search of photos on UKC for "Kalymnos" produced 150 images, and for "the Callanques" a big fat zero!
It is a pity that the city is so close, and the fact that you have drive through the grottier end of it to reach the climbing is a bit of a downer. Mind you once over any one of the various cols it is a whole different world - a magnificent wilderness.

Weather Forecasting

A week ago they (Meteo France) forecast a couple of days of rain, these duly arrived exactly as predicted, and for just over 36 hours it rained on an off, sometimes heavy, sometimes light - then it stopped, again - as predicted. Compared to the usual ridiculous guesswork back home, watching the TV, checking the various sites plus the radar, then making tentative plans - and they nearly always get it wrong! How hard can it be?
The rain meant I could get a heap of work done proofing Western Grit and also that all the rivers in the Esterel had more water in them than we have ever seen - a great excuse for a walk in the hills.
The good news - Meteo France is forecasting 10 days of sunshine - cracking stuff!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Beach-walks, hill-walks, exploring, bouldering, researching, climbing, writing, editing, photoing and photoshoping.

Projects and places; Lofoten, Mallorca, The Peak, Lancashire(!), Catalunya, Verdon, Kalymnos, Cote d'Azure. Planning, travelling, book reviews, more climbing, sorting, shuffling, blogging, hiking, logging, chainsawing too.

Publishers, printers, deadlines, places to go, people to meet, rocks to climb and books to write, awards to accept - how did we ever have time to go to work!

Its a tough job, but someone has got to do it - glad its me! ;-)

Something in the Air

It is beginning to feel like spring is just around the corner - the mimosas are in all their full yellow glory, there was even a Mimosa Festival last week-end, and suddenly the place was heaving! Not really sure where everybody appeared from though, and of course they have all vanished again. Also it is warming up nicely, it was up to 15 degrees today.

We have continued to explore this delightful area, interspersing short local walks with longer trips away working on the book. A big day checking the state of the bolts on a couple of hundred of the routes at Sainte Victoire was the most recent.
Now there are only seven weeks left - its almost time to start planning again. I quite fancy returning to the Verdon on the way home, its years since I have climbed there.
Then there is the summer - maybe we could make it back up to Lofoten just one more time!
I'm glad to say that the autumn is already sorted though - it just has got to be back to fabulous Kalymnos - spending five and half weeks there last year was brilliant, I think maybe we need to stay a bit longer this time though!

Halfway House

Eight and a half weeks gone - that flew by - and eight and half to go; bugger! Dave Gregory has gone home and of course the weather has turned from mixed to sparkling. After dropping him off at the airport we visited La Trinite, an old disused quarry on the outskirts of Nice. It might seem like an odd choice of a crag for a selected climbs guide, but it is a perfect 'airport-day' venue - 10 mins from the airport and with parking close by.

The brouhaha about the French guides continues in the European climbing press - a few folks have got their knickers in a bit of a twist over it. Fortunately, as Walt Unsworth told me many years back after a similar furore over my tiny Costa Blanc guide (some things never change!), all publicity is good publicity. We have now had more coverage that we could ever have generated ourselves; enquires about when the books will be out and what the actual coverage will be have gone through the roof!

Whether or Not?

The same old pattern repeats itself, with a regularity that is almost unbelievable. Colin went home after a rather unsettled spell and we were blessed with three and a half weeks of glorious sunshine. Dave Gregory arrived a week ago and we haven't seen the sun once since then! It may actually be the longest unsettled spell that we have had down here in over 20 years of regular visits. We have managed to climb and to get some walks in but it has been very much dodging the showers and grabbing the our moments as and when. It would appear that the weather Gods thought DG was going home tomorrow, as the forecast is much better, lets just hope its right before he has to head of back into the snow!
At least the poor weather has given me the chance to really get stuck into the Cote d'Azure guide, it is already looking really good, another award winner on the way maybe. Oddly some souls are trying to whip up resentment against it amongst French climbers - sad small minds!