hike | camp | paint
Various stuff and general musings
This year I only managed 18 wild camps (plus an additional 4 tame camps on the TGO Challenge) against a loose target of 24, falling short largely because I shelved plans for weekends away in September and November due to indifferent weather. In any case, 24 would have been well short of some yearly totals, … Continue reading Camp of the Year 2019
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. Increasingly my hikes are geared around the search for subject matter to paint. Of course … Continue reading 2018 Round-Up Part 3: Art
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 … Continue reading 2018 Round-Up Part 1: Camps
Through a gap in the trees, I catch my first glimpse of the end of the loch. At the head of the glen, rises the Mountain, for the moment innocuous amidst its neighbours, happy to take a back seat for now. The path weaves a seemingly random course through the wood, one moment going up … Continue reading The Mountain
This is just a selection of a few favourite memories and pictures from what's happened this year.
After last year's formal camping out duel between myself and my daughter Rebecca, we decided to give it another go this year. Both of us enjoyed taunting each other about the race, and for my part it did help motivate me to camp out with fair regularity. A slight tweak to the rules this year … Continue reading The Camping Duel 2017
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 … Continue reading The Power of Nostalgia
Our annual Easter break saw us head to Northumberland this year, our choice of cottage heavily restricted by the requirement to fit in 3 families and 3 enormous dogs. We headed there with a plan to spend a couple of days walking in the Cheviots - enough to bag all 6 Nuttalls, and fill the … Continue reading The Grim and Distant North
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 of me winning are slim anyway - whenever I've been nominated before for something like … Continue reading Recognition
Stood at the sink washing up one night in September last year, it suddenly occurred to me to add up the number of camps both I and my daughter, Rebecca, had done so far that year (I think of a lot of odd stuff like that while washing up). I realised with all of the … Continue reading The Great Camping Challenge 2016
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: Spend more on walking and less on gear: Sort of Achieved - a shaky start as the end of year sales usually sees me … 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 … Continue reading Camp of the Year 2015
"Now there is an extra dimension to the charms of The Road - it takes me to, or almost to, Dartmoor - a place that is rapidly taking its place among my favourite upland areas. But unlike journeys to other areas, there is no desire to hurry to get there, no wishing the journey were … Continue reading Dartmoor: Paradise Road
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. 1. … Continue reading 2015 Plans