Various stuff and general musings
A few weeks ago, I was inwardly bemoaning the fact that my calendar for 2020 was looking a bit sparse in terms of backpacking trips, with just the TGO Challenge and one long weekend on Dartmoor, inked in. No trips to the Lakes, no section of South West Coast Path. Nothing that would involve taking time out of work – such was my work pattern that every day counted.
Now, how things have changed.
Continue reading “Deferred Gratification – Part 1”
Before you get too worried that I’m about to bombard you with loads of pictures and ask you to buy them, I’m not. I’m just going to pick out a few instances where the outdoors and art overlapped this year.
This is nothing more than a selection of pictures to show what happened this year…
Persistent readers will no doubt be aware that for the last few years, I’ve had a camping out competition with my daughter, who does quite a few camps due to her involvement in several sections of the Scout movement. We did it again this year, but with 2018 being A Level year, it was pretty obvious I’d almost certainly win. In the end I won convincingly and broke a record in the process.
Ever since I began wild camping in 2012, the number of camps has been on an upwards trend almost every year. I’ve now camped out around 31 times a year in the last 3 years (30, 32 and 31 respectively). Of these 2016 and 2017 both featured 26 wild camps, reflecting me forcing myself to camp out at least once a month in 2016, and doing my first TGO Challenge in 2017. In 2018, however, 30 of my 31 camps were wild, reflecting both the conversion of tame camps to wild on the 2018 TGO Challenge and the lack of social camp meetups. In terms of stats alone, 2018 would rank as the best year for camping yet. But was it really ?
It’s been over 10 weeks since I returned, broken, from the TGO Challenge, a mystery illness having made me fight hard just to get to the end. On day 2 back at work I collapsed as the mystery illness deteriorated. … Continue reading Getting Back On The Horse – Part 1: Pottering About
This is just a selection of a few favourite memories and pictures from what’s happened this year.
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
