This is an idea I had six or eight months ago but I didn’t have time to do it in the autumn or winter but today, at last, come and join me for my no-cruise cruise! I’m not a cruise person. I never will be. First, emetophobes and long boat journeys don’t mix. Second, I’d… More Come with me on a no-cruise cruise!
What’s going on? New polar bear post on a Tuesday? I don’t do Tuesdays. Well, now I do! I’m having a go at YouTube and because I only have 9 followers at the moment, I thought I’d post them here on the blog as well in the hope that a few more people notice my… More Video: I walked the South Downs Way
It’s three and a half weeks since I walked the South Downs Way and I guess it’s time to switch my brain on and do a little analysis. I knew what this post was going to say, word for word, while I was limping through the countryside but when I got home and tried to… More What I learned about myself, long-distance hiking and kit on the South Downs Way
Not all of it! I didn’t walk the entire length of the South Downs Way. I didn’t even walk the entire length of what I had planned. But I managed 28km of it, which is 17.5% and that’s not bad. My plan was days one and two as given by both the South Downs Way… More I walked the South Downs Way!
Sparkle & Ice is my favourite of Girlguiding’s large-scale events. That’s partly because I’m a polar bear and I like things that are meant to be cold and/or wintery and partly because I like the weirdness of it. We don’t generally camp in the winter, because we’re not tough enough and the girls certainly aren’t… More Sparkle & Ice 2022: the warmest Sparkle ever!
That’s a total clickbait title – for the first time, I deliberately didn’t book a qualification at Try Inspire Qualify because there were none I wanted to do that I haven’t already done. Try Inspire Qualify has a lot in common with Camp Wildfire, actually: a lot of adults taking the weekend off being responsible… More I didn’t qualify at Try Inspire Qualify!
Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market has become something of a habit in this household and we were all very sad not to be able to go last year, so the moment it was announced that it was (probably) definitely going ahead in 2021, it went in our calendars. It’s pretty consistently marked as one of the… More Come with me to Winchester Christmas Market
Santa Specials – Father Christmas and mince pies on steam trains – have been a staple of the season at least since I was a child, and for decades before that, probably. But that’s not really feasible in 2020 and so the heritage steam railways of the country have had to come up with some… More Steam Illuminations on the Watercress Line
Very occasionally I watch Michael Portillo’s Great Railway Journeys and earlier in the week he was travelling from Norfolk down to Dorset, with a stop on the Isle of Wight on the hovercraft. I immediately wanted to have a go and fortunately, I live within easy driving distance of Southsea so I went. I’ve been… More A summer day out on the Isle of Wight by hovercraft
Last Monday, a lot of big old heavy solid permanent monuments very suddenly became a lot less permanent. My reaction to the Notre Dame fire, once it had been established that most of the building had miraculously survived, was to book flights to Rome next month, primarily to see the Sistine Chapel. I also went… More A day at Winchester Cathedral