All stuff related to outdoors – leisure, scouting, bushcraft, hiking, cycling.
I store previous routes (GPX files) on my Garmin Connect profile.
Nobody likes paying for parking and perhaps another reason why Chesterfield is one of the happiest places to live – residents get free parking. The difficulty is the council doesn’t provide a map – no worries, I got your back.
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Since managing a lengthy walk in one session, 40 miles around Cannock Chase, I have always wanted to do a large circular again. I attempted the Surrey Greensand Monster (18 miles) but failed three times – I was overweight and out of practice. Although my weight is reasonable, I have aged a decade since the Cannock Chase and I have another challenge to overcome.
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Biology in the 90s focused on concepts of organisms and competition for environmental resources. A better paradigm to understand ecosystems is as a community of organisms. Sometimes though, organisms are so inter-dependent it almost seems archaic to still view them as separate. Take yourself, for example, you’re made up of individual cells. Are you a community of organisms or are you one organism?
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My penchant is car boots. Who doesn’t like a bargain? I’ve acquired so much at car boots now, I just think I’m paying a fair price and now high street shops seems like a scam. Just because I get things cheap, doesn’t mean they’re cheap items though! Car booting is great fun and I sincerely can’t remember when I last walked into a shop and bought anything other than groceries for a ‘normal’ retail price.
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Deciduous trees are slowing down production (photosynthesis) in readiness for the winter but they seem to burst into life with colour during autumn. This is the time many trees bear us gifts so it is a great time for foraging. Autumn enables me to combine a passion for photography, a love of hiking and a, somewhat spiritual, appreciation of trees as the ancient life that enables our biosphere to live, with oxygen and energy.
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Hedgehogs are adorable little creatures. I acknowledge that all of God’s creation deserves awe and respect and that it’s important to appreciate that every species has a valid role to play in our ecosystem. But hedgehogs, well, they’re lovely aren’t they? Sadly they’re endangered in the UK so I set about to help out some of these prickly little friends.
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I was heading out to grab a couple of wooden pallets, that somebody had offered for free, which I’m going to use to build a hedgehog house ready for this year’s hedgehog cam live stream. My Mum called to say that town was busy and there was a Spitfire near the church so I thought I’d pop in and have a look.
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I’ve still got a few kilos to shed but I’m not supposed to go to the gym when my muscles are still recovering so bike ride it is. By the time I persuaded myself to go after a Sunday morning routine of coffee, breakfast, gardening, reading (currently Norman Doidge – The Brain that Changes Itself), it was nearing midday so my options were limited to places a bit more local.
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I’ first heard of Grindleford 25 years ago: I’d just gone through the turnstyles at Chesterfield’s (old) football ground at Saltergate and I was one of the lucky few to be chosen out of the crowd by the Police officers and be quizzed – presumably to ascertain my disposition toward violence. “Were you the one that did the off license robbery in Grindleford?” inquired the officer. I denied the accusation and gave my name before I was dismissed. I’d always been interested in this mysterious place called Grindleford, with it’s, presumably now, heavily fortified off-license.
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I saw a few attractive Waitrose winter wreaths a couple of weeks back and decided to make one using, where possible, naturally scavanged materials. I’d wandered around a few places over the last forthnight but had not felt motivated to walk around with a shopping bag full of twigs. With a weekend staying in Godalming, I decided to go equipped on an afternoon walk with a friend, Jen, in search of the fundametal ingredient, willow.
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