Month: July 2019

Weeknote 28/2019

Posted on July 13, 2019July 14, 2019 by Doug Belshaw

As a result of supporting Buster Benson‘s work via Patreon, I’ve unexpectedly found myself on a Discord server with some very smart people. Happily, they also do weeknotes.

I really like the structure of Buster’s weeknotes. First off, each week has a name. Second, and I think this is the best part, he has a section where he looks to the week ahead and says “this week will be good if…”

With only three weeks to go until Team Belshaw goes on holiday, I’m thinking about routines I can get into when I return. I certainly haven’t got the mental or physical energy to make changes right now. It’s heads-down and get through the next little bit.

The reason I like routine is because it helps me control my physical and mental health. So the last couple of weeks haven’t been very helpful at all. I ended up back at hospital at the beginning of the week, convinced there was something seriously wrong with my ribs. They’re still hurting, but given the damage is actually muscular, I’m pleased to say the pain is easing off a bit.

The other thing is that it’s the time of the year where routines to do with my children’s school (and after-school) activities go out of the window. So I was at their sports days this week, there was a summer fayre, and a rain-soaked football tournament on Saturday.

Add in some travel for colleagues at work, end-of-term Scout business, and uncertainty around projects, and you get a heady cocktail guaranteed to give a routine-lover like me sleepless nights.

Anyway, at least everything is making progress, and no balls have yet been dropped. I’m really pleased that we’ve committed to MoodleNet supporting Free Cultural Works by default, and the clickable prototype for the new UI is pretty much done. I’ve also been writing/recording some good stuff for Thought Shrapnel.

So, deep breaths. Not much further to go. If I can ensure that the current 0.9.5-dev sprint completes as expected this week, then the MoodleNet team is set up for success before I go away. (See what I did there?)

Finally, I’m nearly finished reading a new novel by my very talented friend, Laura Hilliger. Entitled Maybe Zombies it’s not quite what you’d expect from the title, and is well worth a read. She’s also looking for a literary agent, if you know a good one?

Image created from a photo I took during a Photo Walk around Morpeth with Scouts on Wednesday.

Weeknote 27/2019

Posted on July 8, 2019July 8, 2019 by Doug Belshaw

Last week I struggled a little bit with my routine given the pain I experienced with my ribs. I went to hospital on the Monday morning and was told that I’d bruised the muscular wall, but not the ribs themselves. Nevertheless, I was given a cocktail of codeine, ibuprofen and paracetamol to take for 10 days.

That meant no real exercise all week, which really affected me. Without my usual running, swimming, and going to the gym, I became a little lethargic and felt a bit down. I still can’t even do a press-up without pain shooting down the right-hand side of my body.

It also meant that I couldn’t go snorkelling with the Scouts on Wednesday night, something that I was really pleased I’d organised for them. Still, the sunset I witnessed while they were in the North Sea next to St Mary’s Lighthouse was incredible.

On the work front, though, the MoodleNet team managed to fix the problems we’d had with deploying v0.9.4 alpha. In addition, we’ve continued work on the new user interface, and change around some of the ways we work. I’m not a big fan of implementing approaches other than those that work in your particular context. For us, that means outlining everything in a Google Doc, and linking it to issues in the Moodle Tracker.

Due to the pain in my ribs, I was close to not going away at the weekend to finish off my Quality Mountain Days. However, I didn’t want to let down Tom, who had agreed to go with me. I’m pleased I went, and enjoyed our walks and talks. You can read more about that here.

This week I’m taking a half-day today, and then Wednesday as my non-Moodle day. The rest of the time I’m ensuring the MoodleNet team feel supported and have no blockers so that we can release a major update before I go on holiday in a month’s time!

Quality Mountain Days 19 & 20: Sharp Edge and Hayeswater Gill

Posted on July 7, 2019July 7, 2019 by Doug Belshaw

Note: This completes the twenty Quality Mountain Days (QMDs) required to book myself on a a Mountain Leader course!

This weekend, I’ve once again been over to the Lake District to get in a couple of walks. There were two differences this time around, other than walking up mountains I haven’t attempted before:

My ribs still weren’t right from the previous weekend at Scout camp and I’m still on a cocktail of painkillers.
I was accompanied by Tom Broughton, who I picked up at Penrith train station.

QMD 19: Sharp Edge, Blencathra, and Bowscale Fell

Tom was kind enough to send through some suggested routes from a book he had. I adapted one of these to create this route for our walk on Saturday (QMD 19):

We left the car near Mungrisdale, and walked clockwise up Souther Fell, and then up to Scales Tarn. Tom fancied a dip, so he stripped down to his underwear and dived in!

After lunch, we walked up the path you can see behind the tarn, up Sharp Edge. Tom enjoys scrambling, and I appreciated the challenge! We made it up though, and in a slight deviation from the original plan, then headed over to Blencathra.

It was a pretty straightforward walk from Blencathra over to Bowscale Fell, and then down back to the pub and then to the car.

Foxglove near the end of our steep descent down from Bowscale Fell

The main challenges on this walk were our health. I was struggling a little with my ribs, and Tom hadn’t done much since injuring his knee last year. Although it turned out to be a walk of about six hours, but one which we were just pleased to complete!

QMD 20: Hayeswater Gill, The Knott, and High Street

At YHA Patterdale on Saturday night, Tom and I planned out our route for the next day. He was keen to do some scrambling, and we identified a particular one up a waterfall just up from Hartsop that looked interesting.

From there, we planned to go up The Knott, and then down High Street and around to Stony Cove Pike.

Given Tom had a booked train to catch, we gave ourselves the option of going down Pasture Bottom instead. In the end, because we spent a good deal of time going up Hayeswater Gill, that’s exactly what we did.

Relaxing in a waterfall pool after scrambling up Hayeswater Gill

The scramble up Hayeswater Gill was challenging in places, and I slipped over once onto my knees, and saw my sunglasses float away down a narrow channel. Thankfully, Tom managed to retrieve them, and it was mainly my pride that was hurt.

Tom convinced me to have a dip in a pool created by a waterfall near the top of Hayeswater Gill. The water was freezing, but the experience nevertheless glorious.

The ascent up from Hayeswater up The Knott was pretty steep, but worth it when we got to the top. We then walked across to Thornthwaite Crag where there is a beacon.

We stopped for something to eat, but there were lots of midges about, so we ate quickly and started the steep descent towards Pasture Bottom.

The walk along the river and back to the car was a little bit boggy, but relatively unproblematic. Tom and I talked about life, the world, and… co-ops, actually.

When we got back to the car, I stripped off and had a quick rinse in the river before getting changed. We found a pub, sunk a pint, and headed to Penrith to drop Tom in time for his train. I’d definitely go for a walk with him again, as he was good company, and challenged me to do stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise done!

Next steps

The Mountain Training website lists a number of organisations that run Mountain Leader courses. It’s a six-day course, and it looks like I’ve got a couple of options:

All in one go: take a week off work and do six days in one go in a single location
Split weekends: do three weekends spread over a few months, in three different locations

The second option is most appealing to me, but can’t make any of the options this year. So it looks like potentially May 2020.

In the meantime, I’ll probably get in some bonus QMDs just in case, and sign up for the Mountain Training Candidate Management System so I can officially log all of the walks I’ve recorded on my blog!