New Toys!

Yesterday Postie tried to deliver a couple of the items that I ordered last week. Alas, it was either not the usual Postie or he’d forgotten the nice arrangement we had, because he didn’t leave the parcel in the shed nor did he sign for the ‘Signed for…’ item on my behalf.

So, this morning started with a trip to the Sorting Office (which is no longer on my way to work in that I’m no longer employed).

The Tibetan Titanium 900 Pot was the first out of its packaging.

As I suspected it would be (being so much lighter than my MSR Kettley Thing) it is made of very thin titanium and it’s quite easy to flex the walls around the top of it. But, it looked like it would be fine for my purposes – just so long as the Bushbuddy would fit inside of it.

Alas, despite my careful measurements pre-purchase, the Bushbuddy didn’t fit. Measuring the pot it turns out that rather than being the advertised 4 inches tall*, it’s actually only 3.75 inches. Only a quarter of an inch out, but in this case size does most definitely matter. If the Bushbuddy isn’t going to fit inside the pot with the lid on, then there’s no advantage over my existing Kettley Thing. [*If you click on the link now, you'll see it advertised as 3.75 inches - they sent me a very nice email apologising for the error and have now corrected it.]

So, a trip was made into the village to mail it back. I did consider buying the 1100 pot instead (and nearly got sidetracked by a collapsable mug whilst I was browsing), but that’s just too big to use as a mug and I don’t want to have to carry a separate mug, so for the moment I’ll stick with what I’ve got (phew, the retail embargo remains almost intact!).

Next out of the packaging were the waterproof overmitts from Terra Nova, purchased for £12.50 in their sale. I’d nearly popped up to Alfreton on Friday to pick them up in person, as their £4.50 P&P charge was making me gulp. However, the thought of Friday afternoon traffic on the A38 and the time it would take me to get there was enough to make me fork out the charge (maybe they could reduce their costs, and thus the charge, by not sending the goods in one envelope and the receipt separately?)

There’s not an awful lot to say about a pair of GoreTex mitts, other than that I did get the sizing right. It is a pity that they were only available in red – I’ll be clashing nicely again when I’m wearing them in my Orange Velez smock.

I made it back from my postal-related excursions to be in when Postie arrived today with the Alpkit headtorch that I ordered yesterday. This one is not in breach of the retail embargo, rather it’s a present for my mother, who likes to take a headtorch with her when staying anywhere away from home.

Her existing, somewhat antiquated, model eats batteries so when yesterday she went to use it and once again found the batteries flat, I decided that it must be better to have something half the size which will save more than its purchase price in reduced battery consumption.

The Alpkit model isn’t one that I would choose for my own purposes (it’s a little on the cumbersome side when compared to my little Petzl Tikka Plus) but it looks like it will do the job nicely for Ma. And, at only £5 (including P&P) it seems to be rather good value for money.