Right now, my beloved Kawasaki is off the road. I have £3 to my name, until next pay day (Friday), then I’ll have about £40 spare to get me through the week. Tomorrow though, my car is getting delivered! I don’t WANT to buy a car, but I have to for this damm college course thing.

Its not a BAD car. it’s a Ford Fiesta, a 1.3 injection ZTEC engine model, so its not too painfully slow. It is a little small for a gargantuan of my stature, and a little bit girly.

Still, it does have a decent sound system in place, which I’m planning on upgrading, I might get some Ford alloys off a different model (so I don’t look too much like a boy racer), and then it’ll be more to my liking.

My feet itch. I had an awesome climbing trip in August, but it was long overdue. My climbing partner and I had an awesome week a few years ago touring the North of England, and we really want to go back. More importantly, there’s a few climbs we want to take our beginners on.

I don’t know if I should rush preparation and try to do a climbing trip before it gets too cold or try to do one next spring…. That is more for the benefit of the beginners, I’m a large, hairy Welshman who just doesn’t feel the cold, and my climbing partner is pretty hardy, but for the newbies, hardcore although they are, we don’t want to give anyone hypothermia.

What I’m going to suggest is a quick two day trip to Dartmoor THIS year, and we can show the beginners a totally different style of climbing (not everything is as scary as the stuff on my doorstep!). Dartmoor is nice, its granite, really technical, but for the best part easy and safe with loads of grip off the rock.

Next year I’d really like to do a circle round the UK, leaving my house in the centre of the South coast, heading West to the granite of Dartmoor, ignoring Cornwall because there isn’t much worth doing there, then up to the ice-cold sandstone of South Wales (one cliff there overlooks the hospital I was born in), then up to the mud and cold of North Wales, then pushing onto Lancashire with its friendly, safe, easy massive climbs, taking in the Cambrian region as we do so, then across to the Gritstone of Stanage (which is supposed to be amazing, but when I was there I found it over rated), and the Roaches (which is definitely in my top ten favourite cliffs), then I think its home time!

The only reason we haven’t already had a trip like this, is because one of our beginners has a car, and she tends to drive. But for a novice climber to drive for 5 hours, then climb for 5 hours, then try to drive another 5 hours, every day, its just too much. But I KNOW I can handle large amounts of distance on the road, and for me I’m so used to my sport a decent day climbing will not leave me tired. So when I’m stood atop the Roaches with grazed knuckles, or doing some seriously heroic moves on the dagger sharp rock of Dartmoor, or solo climbing in Lancashire, I’ll be able to think about the bike I’ve sold to do it and maybe I won’t be quite so sad.

I’ll keep you guys posted with the developments.