We arrived way back in October and joined the throngs enjoying the great classics that the island abounds with. Gradually the climbers drifted away, the shops closed and the weather cooled down - it feels like there are about a dozen folks left of this side of the island. Christmas is only a few days away - the UK is frozen solid and most of the western Med sounds very unsettled - I think Kaly was a good choice! Might pop out later to tick my 200th route of the trip.

Another year rolls round and it is the season to start thinking about the North County again. The new Lofoten guide has gone down really well (won Banff last year) and there are already a swath of new routes to report from last summer.  We will release an update in the near future.In the meantime here is a replacement page for the Maurpillaren topo (page 100/101 in the guide) as, despite  lot of head scratching and discussion, the the lines of on the topo of Ingen sommerferie and Pizzatyven got a bit mangled before printing. The replacement is here: Maurpillaren.

Four months spent on the Cote d’Azure has been great but as Easter approached it started warming up and getting busy  - sure signs that it is time for us to start drifting back north. Work on the guide went well - it is looking great and will give folks a chance to see the area in a new light - who knows the Cote d’Azur might even become popular again.  We though we would start with a couple of weeks stopping close to the Verdon, that should be of interest.  It is 20+ years since I did some of the great classics here with Graham. We would set of from the campsite with rack and ropes, rock shoes loosely tied and  hitch down to the Couloir Sampson. Tramp through the tunnels and then head up one of the big lines - the 12+ pitch outings of Ula, La Demande or the Squirrel’s Pillar were the real classics.  Zip up the route, then hitch back to camp, and take the shoes off! Tell that to the youth of today - and will they believe you!After that it back to Chamonix for a week then Blighty - the ferry is already booked!Photo: Me on Marr’s Wall, Slipstones - taken about as long ago as the Verdon trips described above

Awoke to a damp morning today, the first one for two and a half weeks. It is so easy to slip into a routine and forget all about the UK - though an occasional glance at the BBC News (gloom) and weather (double gloom) brings it all back.

Had a trip up to Sainte Victoire the other day - what a crag, and only two other teams on the whole place. I first visited the place in the summer of 1981 - it was mega-hot and we interspersed climbing with days on the beach (tough eh?). The high-light was a dawn start to do the Grand Parcours, the 15 pitch outing that climbs the central feature of the mountain from base to crest - magnificent. The place has pretty much dropped off the radar for UK climbers, what it needs is a decent UK guide!

New Year’s Eve again - 2008 has spiralled down the temporal plug-hole, time for a quick review of the year I guess.

We stayed down on the Cote d’Azure until April which was a great way to start the year. Sadly I didn’t get too much climbing done due to a persistent problem with swollen joints - a long-time worry but it was certainly great to sidestep the UK winter. The Northern England guide was published whilst we were away - I was well pleased with that one.

We left the coast in April and headed for home via two weeks at Buis de Barronaise (I had forgotten how good the area was), ten days at climbing and Via Ferrating at Les Vigneaux near Briançon and a spectacular week in Chamonix. The highlight was a trip up the Midi cable-car, across the Vallee Blanche to Italy and back again - the amount of snow was a surprise and the scenery was astounding! It brought back memories of Alpine epics from 30 years ago.

After three weeks in Blighty, we flew up to Lofoten (a nice change from the usual week-long drive/boat/drive/boat scenario) for the launch of the new guidebook. We had a late night ‘bash’ in the Climbing School (the menu was fish soup - what else), Alan James and Mark Glaister were fresh from Presten’s West Pillar and the guide had arrive just that morning - pretty good timing! The guidebook was well received by all concerned and the evening was massively convivial. Driving home (OK being driven home by Lutta’s Taxi Service) from the party at 2am with the sun already rising high on Vagakallen was unreal.

Then it was back to the UK for the summer (the first time in 20 years) to get all the remaining crag shots for the new version of Western Grit. As it turned out the summer was pretty poor - and got worse. Regular trips up Kinder were interspersed with visits to a host of Lancashire quarries (Sherri wasn’t all that impressed when I look her for a couple of night B & B in the Red Rose County, but needs must).

By mid September I had enough of the crap weather - even though a long planned trip to Kalymnos was only a month away, so we zipped off to Ariege for 10 days and very pleasant it was too.

Trips to a prof at the Royal Halamshire semed to have finally sorted my swollen joints out so it was off to Kalymnos. That was the revelation of the year - what a place. I got more inspired than I had been for years, did 123 routes up to F6b (I know the grades there are soft, but don’t spoil the moment) and we even let the plane go home without us and stopped on for two more weeks. Whilst there I got the great news that Lofoten Rock had won the guidebook catagory at Banff. I phone Alan who was on holiday in Holland to share the great news. It would have been good (and expensive!) to go to the award ceremony but I wasn’t ready for leaving Kalymnos just yet.

Then in mid-December we loaded up the car and drove back to southern France to start work on a guide to the Cote d’Azure cliffs. So that was that - full circle in every way - I wonder what next year holds?

Costa Blanca, El Chorro, Sardinia, Catalunya, Arco, Lecco, Finale, Ariege - been there, done them, got the T-Shirts. Kalymnos was a new tick though, and I have to admit to being mighty impressed, compact area, hundreds of routes, spread of grades, friendly locals, gorgeous weather - all boxes well and truly ticked. Dave Musgrove may have been right, this might be the premier sun/rock destination in Europe.Down sides? Well its is a bit busy (hardly a surprise) and my unexpected dive off the path down from Oddessey yesterday has left me with a sore ankle and a leg like a pin cusion! Not to shoddy though, two weeks in and almost sixty routes ticked with two weeks still to go - already I can see a return visit on the cards, marvelous!

Two weeks after I wrote that we decided to skip the flight back home (it sounds complete crud in the UK) and do a bit more climbing - current tally stands at 109 routes! At a guess 95% of the folks have gone, many of the restaurants and shops have shut, BUT the great weather continues.

Two weeks up here now and the sun hasn’t set, and won’t for about another six weeks - which is all a bit strange. Even stranger is that once again, the weather has been great for us.

The Lofoten guidebooks have yet to arrive and everyone is waiting with bated breath - last thing we heard, they had left Oslo, so at least things are moving along - “maybe tomorrow” has become the cry!

We have climbed (new routes and old) fished, and hiked, and Colin has been plodding around up amongst the snow and ice that still blanket the core of the islands.

Ticking a couple of the “Top 50″ that I hadn’t previously done was interesting, Cuckoo Crack and Pizza Thief, both get N6 in the new guide, the former is nearer HVS 5a and the latter E3 6a - so much for comparative grades! Mind you they both deserve their “Top 50″ rating!

Everywhere is very quiet, we have hardly seen another climber, which is great - just how we like it! On the one poor day Colin helped Thorbjørn out with some DIY on his new house and I rested - so everybody was happy!

Five weeks since I last blogged, where does the time go? We left the Cote d’Azure in good order and had an excellent two weeks at Climb France with Ollie and Jess. It was years (and years) since I have last been to the Buis les Baronnies area and it was pleasant surprise - we never drove more than 10 miles for the week that Dave Gregory was there and climbed on a different crag every day.Then it was of to AlpSun another Brit run set-up (Pete and Helen) not far from Briançon, right up in the mountains. The weather has let us know we are back in the hills, we have had rain and snow plus some glorious sunshine. Plenty of good quality cragging and a Via Ferrata or two - recommendable! Chamonix tomorrow.

Had a great week with Dave Gregory - only a bit knackering - I think 21 routes in the first two and a half days was probably overdoing things a bit though! The weather was kinder than on his last visit, and doing 30 odd routes (and at 72 and 3/4) was more than he would have got done in the UK. The biggest shock to the system was a visit to a great looking limestone crag at Chateaudouble - the guide’s 25 minute approach took us over and hour up an interminable scree slope - the climbing was good, but the descent was equally horrible - not sure my knees will ever recover.

Thursday we dropped Dave of at Nice airport and he had an uneventful journey home - jet-setting was never easier. On our return, the fat package in the post box was the brand new Northern England - nice! OK there are a couple of (very minor) caption errors in there - or are they simply Easter Eggs? Either way I am pleased with the way it looks - two years of enjoyable effort.

I have to admit, the older I get and the more places I visit, the more convinced I am that we got the sh1tty end of the stick in the UK when they were dolling out the rock resourses - and don’t get me going on the weather!

We took a ride up to the Gorges de Blavet, about 30 minutes from St Rafael today, to have a wander round. It looks mighty complicated in the new guide, and it is. though a couple of hours spent exploring the area soon had it sorted out in my mind.

I had never heard of the place and I bet 95% of UK climbers haven’t either, 300′ granite walls, a sunny side and a shady side, a downhill approach and heaps of great looking routes many in the upper grades.

There is even a sunny beginners’ cliff a short distance above the road, a bit of something for everyone really! And is it on the circuit - not a chance!

Then there are the many fine limestone cliffs around Toulon, we have pretty much had to ourselves during our weekday visits - they are at least as good as their vaunted counterparts on the Costa Blanca and a lot less polished too. Have we heard and English voice there - of course not!