A Frivilous New Toy

I can’t defend this new toy as being even remotely necessary. It was entirely a frivolous purchase, but in my defence, it was purchased with money given to me as a Christmas gift and I think that that demands that something other than just mundane items be bought (although perhaps a head torch would have been the more sensible option, all things considered).

The background was that a few weeks ago, standing on top of a windy hillside on which I was struggling to remain on my feet, I commented to Husband that I’d really like to borrow an anemometer off someone. It’s not something that I would want long-term, but I thought that it would be nice to know (purely from a curiosity point of view) what different wind-speeds feel like (particularly what the wind-speed needs to be to knock me sideways).

I had assumed at this point that anemometers were dreadfully expensive items.

A Google search just after Christmas proved that you can actually buy a cheap model for a mere £20.

I had also assumed that they would be heavy and cumbersome devices that you wouldn’t want to carry on more than a handful of day-trips.

It turns out that a cheap model is smaller than my Nokia mobile phone and weighs (according to my not-calibrated balance scales) a tiny 45g. At that size and weight I’d happily throw it into my daysack on a regular basis, so I bought one.

I actually went for the model that does temperature and wind-chill as well as windspeed (it also shows current windspeed, average and maximum in any one session) purely because that one was in stock whereas the basic model wasn’t.

It arrived yesterday. Prior to using it in anger, the good points seem to be that it is very small and light and looks to be easy to use. On the down-side, it doesn’t look very rugged at all (but then I’m sure that that’s a function of price, and this was the bottom end of the range); hopefully I’ll manage not to sit on it or bash it against a rock before I’ve fulfilled my purpose with it.

Bring on the windy-day walks…