Today was my last day in the office for a week, and I couldn’t wait any longer.

My last holidays were over Christmas (so not that long ago), when I was away from the office for about two weeks. I didn’t travel anywhere and most of my time off was spent being lazy.

This time around, I’m going to be in and out of the office for almost a month.

First, the trip to the snow. After that, I’m back for one day, and then I’ll be away again for doctors’ appointments. I’ll be back again for a couple of days after the Bank Holiday, before flying out again to visit my family in Madrid.

So what does this mean for [shutter and ink.]?

Well, it means that although I will try to post as regularly as I can, I am likely to miss a post or two. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with different topics and schedules, to see what works best, because I would like to add more photos (of any kind, not just proper photography oriented ones, but even if just illustrative) to my posts, but I never have the time to take them, work on them and prepare the posts. I realised I was trying to publish too many posts each week, missing a lot anyway, because I would get pressed with time, and then trying to rush something and finally not being able to come up with good content.

In the end, I decided to post only during weekdays, on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays; and to try to do a variety of types, not just long form, but also photos, quotes, I don’t know, anything.

At the moment, I’m very keen on writing about books, because I’ve started reading a lot again, and I’m over excited about it, but I have many other ideas in mind.

As a present to myself for my birthday next week, I bought some stuff off phlearn.com, which is a site about photography and Photoshop, with a lot of content and free tutorials. Their YouTube tutorials are great, easy to follow and Aaron, the guy explaining everything, is quite funny (especially at the end of the videos, when he runs out of stuff to say and he improvises!). They were having a discount voucher this week, so I decided to buy some Photoshop tutorials as well as action packs. I’m looking forward to start the tutorials! This means I’ll probably write a bit about that too.

If I can, I will prepare some content before I need to leave tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll write short updates whenever I’m near a wi-fi signal, even if it’s just a quick photo!

So, where am I going?

I’m going to this festival called Snowboxx, in Alpe d’Huez, France. It’s a full week of snowboarding, music and fun events. There’s going to be some disco activities, some retro onesies, some karaoke in the cabin lifts and even a pool party! I can’t wait.

I’ve never been snowboarding for a full week, so my guess is that it’s going to be very tiring. My main focus is on not injuring myself, especially my knees, and on taking advantage of the long trip to improve massively. Last time I went snowboarding, a year ago, I felt quite confident and managed to speed up a little. Of course, I always get scared as soon as I go a bit fast and I stop, but I’m going to try to do that less this time. I want to be able to do ollies by the end of the week, and even if I end up jumping only half a centimetre above ground, I’ll consider the experiment a success.

I’m travelling with a large group of people (we’re 10 in total), of which I only know three. I actually have met more of them, but haven’t really talked to them much. I’m a bit worried that the general mood of the group is going to be around going out and partying hard, which I don’t want to do (I’m not a party animal, anyway), so let’s see how that goes. Also, there are only two other snowboarders, as far as I know, who are much better than I am. I guess I’ll be shouting at them to wait for me all the time, or just tell them to go ahead and I’ll meet them at the bottom. I’ll be happy to do that the first couple of days, but I’m really looking forward to picking up some tips from the two of them during the week.

All in all, I am very excited about this trip. I’ve been talking about it for months, and the past week has had me smiling like a fool all day long. To the question of whether I’ve packed my suitcase already… I have… ish. As you might know, I hate packing suitcases, and I don’t know why, so I tend to leave it to the last minute. I had a fair idea of what I want to bring with me, and I made a list (ended up making two). My plan was to get home, put a last washing machine and hang the clothes by the radiators to dry, so I could take them on the trip. Imagine my face when after switching on the washing machine, I sat to have dinner and felt really cold, so I checked the radiator and it was icy. I checked the boiler and it’s not working! I guess that means I’ll have to pop into the launderette tomorrow morning then!!

What I’ll probably be doing a lot, as soon as I get any internet connection, is posting pictures and some videos on my Instagram feed (@marz_shoes), so make sure to follow me over there if you want to see how I’m progressing!

Hopefully we’ll be in touch while I’m away but if not, I’ll see you in about a week!