Various stuff and general musings
We trudged through hop field after hop field, along shady lanes and even a bit along the road. Barely noticing our surroundings and wrapped up in our conversation – a conversation that had been going for several hours now. Frequent breaks, hidden stashes of sweets, Special Brew and Benson & Hedges. A burning hot day and progress was slow. So slow that we were pulled out and transported to the campsite. Continue reading “The Power of Nostalgia”
I had an email today from the marketing department at Trespass telling me I’ve been shortlisted in the Hiking/Walking of their 2016 Blog Awards. Now I know some people can be a bit scathing about these things, and the chances … Continue reading Recognition
I’ve been out and about quite a bit (for me) in 2015. This has quite a lot to do with the goals I set myself at the start of the year: Continue reading “2015”
At the start of the year, I set myself the objective of camping out every month of the year. Twelve camps that shouldn’t be too hard should it ? After all I tend to do more than that each year. But what I’ve struggled to do is maintain my tent-dwelling evenly over a year, and I’ve tended to do it in fits and starts. So it wouldn’t be the number of camps that would be the challenge, but the timing of them. Continue reading “Camp of the Year 2015”
I suppose, having looked back at 2014, I ought to do a post looking forward to 2015. I usually try to avoid posts like this as writing down plans here is usually the kiss of death to them. So I’m going to keep this as brief as I can and try not to over-commit. Continue reading “2015 Plans”
For January to June, see the previous post.
July
Having already been to the Lakes four times in the year, a record for me, I deliberately switched my attention elsewhere, and resumed my assault on the Cambrian Way. Just as the first time, my plan was a little too ambitious Continue reading “The Ploddies 2014 – Part 2: July to December”
In my last post, I introduced the idea of the hillplodder.com awards aka The Ploddies. It’s now time to get down to business and look at the things and experiences that have made the year and are worthy of special mention. Continue reading “The Ploddies 2014 – Part 1: January to June”
Awards have been very much in the limelight in the outdoors blogging world recently, with controversy surrounding at least one prominent award for Outdoor Blog of the Year (note, not necessarily “Best” given that the shortlist itself is more of a popularity and “who has more friends” contest – a better description would be “Most Popular out of a limited selection of blogs”). I’ll say my piece on this subject, get the elephant out of the room and then it’ll be on to the main business of this post. Continue reading “Yet More Awards – Plus Introducing Even More Awards”
I’d like to thank Gina (@CumbrianBlondie) for nominating me via her blog – The Adventures of Cumbrian Blondie. The Liebster Award was originally an idea to spread by word of mouth (or should that be word of type?) blogs with relatively low readerships – not because they’re crap, but more because people might not have come across them yet. It is a bit like a chain letter, in that each nominee then nominates 5-11 more people, and as such I wouldn’t normally play the game on principle (I’m like that), but as the outcome is sharing with others some of … Continue reading The Liebster Award
With my current work contract drawing to a close, and more hill time coming, I’ve been mulling over some potential Lakes trips for the next few months. Trips which are getting harder and harder to plan as I home in … Continue reading The bridal hill formula
The folks at Go Outdoors have launched a new Walking Blog Award, with a varied shortlist of 15 blogs, and yours truly is one of them. It goes without saying that just making the shortlist is an honour, and especially … Continue reading Go Outdoors Blog Awards 2014
This year’s plans were disrupted by a new work contract coming along at the start of the summer rather than, as I’d hoped, the end of the summer. This curtailed walking plans somewhat and even more so when I found … Continue reading Not a review of the year, just some nice pictures
Today, I’ve sadly had to go and put the Cambrian Way project on hold until next year. Clearly this isn’t an ideal state of affairs, but I’ve been offered a project at decent money in an environment where there aren’t that many things going in my specialist area at any time, let alone now. So keeping the roof over the head has, this time, had to take priority over keeping silnylon over my head. Just last week I was sat there with the whole summer spread out before me – a summer of family holidays, walking trips and snatched mini-adventures. … Continue reading Oh Bugger
WordPress sent me my annual report on how I’ve done as a blogger. It threw up some interesting stats: Of the 11,000 views of my 93 posts this year, the busiest day was May 14 with 188 views. I posted 608 pictures. However, I’m not sure how this number has been affected by me recently starting to use my pictures on Flickr in my posts rather than uploading directly to WordPress. Most popular posts (and explaining the May 14 total views) were those to do with wild camping, especially the My First Wildcamp series of posts. There were 3 of … Continue reading 2012 Blogging in review
2012 has been a bit of an odd year and after taking 8 months off in 2011, this year was always going to be a little more work focussed. However, I never expected my current assignment to last into the summer, let alone make it to the end of the year. Whilst this kept me from big chunks of time on the hills, it has been advantageous in two ways. Firstly, that  it has now put me in the position of being able to take an extended break in 2013 which will afford the opportunity to undertake some bigger walks (more about that later). And secondly, the nature of the assignment meant a far greater degree of flexibility and the ability to dictate when I took time off than I might have got from a different client. That ultimately resulted in more trips. Continue reading “2012 in Pictures and Memories”
