Random Thoughts of the Day

Another New Sleeping Bag (because 4 just isn’t enough?)
In PHD’s last sale I bought a Minimus down jacket. I’ve been impressed with it’s snuggly warmth for very little weight.

Thanks once again to Darren’s heads-up, I saw that PHD has another sale that started a few days ago. I tried to avert my eyes, but accidentally saw that they are offering a Minim 300 sleeping bag at the remarkably small price of £109.

At 570g, it’s 300g lighter than my girl’s model Rab 400, which is a pleasing prospect for a long walk, so I’ve ummed and arrhed at some length. I won’t bore you with all of my thought processes on whether to buy or not!

If I was still a gainfully employed person with money at my disposal, I don’t think that I would hesitate in buying one of these to try it out. Given that I’m now officially a housewife to a retired husband, a little more justification has to be made.

As nice as it would be potentially to cut 300g off my LEJOG pack weight, I’m not sufficiently convinced that this is a bag with which I would be comfortable. So, thus far, I’ve managed to talk myself out of buying one (being female, however, I do reserve the right to change my mind on a whim!).

Training
We’re off to Wales for the rest of this week. It seems rude to spend a few days in the Principality without spending at least one night camped on a hill-side in an unlawful manner, so that’s exactly what we intend to do.

Everything is packed ready to go; all we now have to do is decide exactly where it is that we’re going to walk (I have a pretty good idea, I just need to look at a map).

Of course, a trip of this nature is going to eat (quite literally) a little into the pile of dehydrated meals that we’ve been amassing, but on the plus side it will also serve as a good test of a couple of new recipes. There are some things that just don’t look like they will rehydrate properly, and my ‘Chick Pea Stewy Thing’ is one of those meals. Tomorrow night will be the moment of truth when I will be sitting on a moon-lit hillside either tucking into something tasty or wading my way through something that didn’t quite work. After the hideous biryani experience last year, I sincerely hope that it’s the former!

(As an aside, in undertaking this trip, I’m turning a blind eye to the fact that my car has failed me three times in the last week (impressively, for three completely unrelated faults), and have my fingers crossed that it will now behave itself for another few thousand miles - or at the very least until the middle of next week!)

Head Torch
It’s to be our first camping trip of the year; nearly two and a half months since I lost my head torch in the Pumlumon Hills: and still I have not bought a replacement.

That gives me two choices for this week: 1) take advantage that Father Christmas brought Husband a Petzl e+lite to go with his existing Tikka Plus, and use one of those; or 2) make do with the Alpkit model, which is great for the money but does leave a little to be desired.

Whichever I go with, I will have a torch with me – but I really must stop procrastinating and sort myself out with a new Petzl Tikka Plus ASAP.