Late catchup!

Wow, has Christmas and New Years gone already?! And there I was hoping to start the New Year with a regular weekly post :)

Anyway, been pretty busy for the past while. Last weekend bouldering in Glendalough and at the Scalp in Wicklow, Ireland, was fun - a first time experience at the Scalp strangely (considering you have to drive by it on the way to most of the other bouldering areas in Wicklow! Had the interesting experience of trying out an Amazon Kindle there (thanks Steve) with the last pdf edition of the Irish bouldering guide (short description of the Kindle - the screen just about handles the maps, and the text is more than fine, but you end up having to zoom in and out which I thought just made it annoying and unusable. Perhaps a bigger screen would fix this?). 

Regarding the guidebook, kudos to Dave for having the vision all those years ago to start TheShortSpan and compile a country-wide collection of bouldering.

In between that, I've been re-learning a lot of climbing again. I like to try and start with a clean slate (as much as possible every once in a while) and I've been attempting this at the Climbing Works recently, spending as much time as I can on the steep, thuggy problems and starting to introduce myself to the woody (aka the Beastmaker board). I'm honestly finding the Works brilliant this year. It's easy to get complacent with how you're climbing (not in performance or grades, but just the amount or quality of the climbing) and the Works has really jolted me into activity again this year - one thing I've found: my finger strength has dropped off over the years (especially from my early days of tons of crimping down on tiny edges at DCU's old uni wall) but I can still keep up with many of the strong guys at the wall in this regard. But what I don't have is the power moving between the holds. I can pretty much hang most holds, but actually pulling between them is a whole different story. And of course, it's an easy fix - do more of this type of climbing! Big power moves, high intensity bouldering, and really focusing on technique and movement. Going to be a busy and fun year!

What are you working on this year?