December: 5 random things from the month
Greetings, friends, family, contacts! This routine is working out nicely to collate the various activities over a month as it allows me to pick out the main activities and events of the year. Of course, this being December, Christmas and New Years Eve will have occurred so hope a good time for all, wherever you are in the world, and even if your respective part of the world doesn’t celebrate Christmas. For example, did you know Christmas Day is a day off in Spain, but it’s not the main day? Theirs is on the 6th of January. The benefits of living somewhere new for a while. So, without further ado…. I also pushed out two updated lists of climbing books: one on general topics and the other on books for training and coaching.
Another College Deadline
This college course I’m taking online from Dublin City University on Graduate Certificate in Management of Information Systems Strategy involves a monthly assignment of 3,000 words alongside various other requirements. The deadline for each is the 6th of the month so as you can imagine, the final few days are always a bit ‘intense’, pulling the final material together. One of the main benefits of the course? Learning the new tool, Zotero (“your personal research assistant”) on collating notes and references. As someone who reads a lot, and would love to re-use much of the notes I’ve collated, this has been amazing to realise how well you can link and reference. Of course, the course itself has also been interesting with topics considering the ‘future of work’ (think: how do AI and robotics affect all our jobs) to how do companies make the most of IT investments. Probably not as interesting to everyone else, but hey ho, each to their own!
2. Hike around Monstant
With more friends and family visiting, it’s been the perfect excuse to get out for some hikes. As usual, our plan for ‘easy’ walks went off the rails when I let Strava auto-generate a loop to bring brother-in-law, Rory, for a fun day out. It turned out to be a 12km epic, with several hundred metres of ascent and….ladders up vertical cliffs. Rory doesn’t climb so…oops! Still, he was ace and the view at the end made up for the all the intensity - a stunning cloud inversion as far as the eye could see.
For anyone interested in doing a brilliant hike, starting from Cornudella and bring you in a circle up onto the Monstant range, here’s the Strava page where you can download the route
3. Naomi picked a project route, I finally found one also.
Half-way up the classic, Pati Pa Mi - not to be this year, but another time.
As we’re climbing, it was time to pick some routes to push ourselves on, instead of just going out climbing loads. Naomi found the classic, Mandragora, and I swapped around between a bunch of routes until I finally settled on the ultra-classic 8a+/8b, Pati Pa Mi. In the end, Naomi sent her route super-quick and in great style whereas, well, should have done mine and got oh-so-close but it wasn’t meant to be. For those who want to nerd out, here are the detailed logs in a dedicated blog post of all the attempts. In short, from a personal perspective, it was great to be able to push the boat out again and test myself. I can officially declare I’ve moved past the shoulder issues of before :) Related, in the photo above, the left-hand prow is the ultra-classic of Siurana, Kalea Borroka. Maybe there’s an opportunity in the future to actually put some proper time into this once again…..
Speaking of the shoulder, big thanks to Pablo Scorza for checking over it and saying all the right things to allow me to go for it without worry. If you’re in the area of Siurana and can get an appointment with this guy, he’s excellent.
Speaking of climbing, going climbing on Christmas Day is something special! For many, it’s a day of gorging on food and drink. We, spent the morning out climbing before the afternoon sitting up in the sun enjoying the 17 degree heat of the day. Grateful to get to live here for this period.
4. Another mega hike on Monstant
With Claire visiting over Christmas, time for another hike! This time, starting from the village of Morera de Monstant, it turned out into a wild and windy day on the summit. At the same altitude as Carantoohill, it’s strange to arrive on top of the Monstant plateau to a barren, desolate region continuously slammed by wind. As usual, and like the previous hike described earlier, the Spanish play it fast and loose with safety (in a good way instead of the wrap-you-in-cotton-wool approach of other countries), so we ended right on some wild ridges with zero cabling. Love it :)
5. The Road Home
After two months in Cornudella, it was time for the road home! A 600km drive took us to the port of Santander and the final 1,000km ferry journey into Ringaskiddy on Brittany Ferries. Fingers crossed this service continues to operate, as it’s hugely beneficial to get dropped off in Spain instead of having to drive through France. I also think (correct me if I’m wrong?), that it’s more environmentally friendly to take the boat than all the driving also? Either way, I’ve offset all our travel for the past six months through Mossy.Earth. It’s not an ideal solution, but hopefully makes a small dent in our emissions while also developing new wild environments.
Of course, the one benefit of getting back near the coast is sea swims! The air temps is pretty fresh right now, and the sea temps aren’t much better, but wow, it’s so good to get in the sea :) Great for the mind and body as always. Spain finished up with a swim just east of Santander, and Ireland has started with swim in Lahinch and a final wedding of the year for Jo and Rob. Perfect way to ring in the new year!
With that, thanks to anyone who’s read throughout the year and hope you’ve enjoyed the stories. Perhaps, it’ll have even inspired you to something in 2020? :) Like always, if you’re into tech concepts, I’ve been pushing out material steadily over on that blog also (here, here - this one was popular, here, here and here) and there should be some more posts with CyberSafeIreland in early 2020. Roll on the new decade and look forward to seeing many of you throughout the year :) What plans have people got?