I planned to write a post in July about how I’m a kayaking instructor, guys! and that post is still coming, I (more or less) promise – but it won’t be this summer. You might have heard my kayaking story a few times. I’ve done a few half-day sit-on-tops tours on the open sea, I graduated … More My 2022 kayaking and wild swimming plans
In the first lockdown, I took to gardening. I’d never taken any interest in it but my dad was doing the shopping for three households in our local little M&S (Tesco was impossible for the first month or so due to the combination of epic queues and shortages caused by panic buying) and they were … More What I learned from my second year of gardening
Oh, this is a difficult one because quite honestly, there are so many pools, spas and springs to bathe in that the only true itinerary I could give you is to take a month and just drive all the way around Iceland, stopping everywhere. Every settlement with more than about ten people living there has a … More An Iceland itinerary for waterbabies
Now we’re back on track! This is my county trip to Switzerland in 2014 and after starting in the wrong place, I’m now getting my days in the right order. Today is Wednesday and I’m going solo, off to my adopted home city of Neuchâtel and for a little spa afternoon at Yverdon-les-Bains. The story … More Switzerland 2014: My day off in Neuchâtel and Yverdon-les-Bains
Guess what? I did my Rebel Stargazer badge! I’m not going to do a separate post for every Rebel badge I do – I’ve already talked about the Water Sports badge but Adventurer just got a mention at the bottom of that post, Community Service isn’t getting a post because it’s just doing Brownies and … More I did my Rebel Stargazer badge!
There are certain sports that come with a lot of kit. With caving, depending on your budget, you can just keep buying more and more stuff and although vertical kit will give you easier access to certain caves and certain parts of caves, keep in mind that “more kit =/= better caver”. If you’re a … More Caving kit to buy as you get into it
Over the Christmas break, I reorganised this blog a bit – added clickable maps to the travel stuff and made the adventures into a page rather than an endless warren of nested menus – and in the process, I discovered where I had blank spaces. Enough blank spaces to occupy a full quarter of the … More Switzerland 2014: A day in the Lauterbrunnen Valley
Welcome to 2022! Traditionally, the first or second post of any year is my Christmas Adventure With Tom, depending on whether I have time to finish it in time for the first post of the New Year, and this year here it is up first – with some changes. Of course there are changes. We’re still … More Two Bears and a Barnacle
Hi, welcome back to normal blogging! I hope you enjoyed the Polar Bear Winter Festival but now Christmas is over and we’re back to the regular non-winter-related twice-a-week posts. I don’t talk about TV much and when I do, it’s either about Iceland or somewhere suitably Nordic. But today I’m talking about Marvel’s Hawkeye miniseries. … More Archer reacts to Marvel’s Hawkeye
While I was at my cottage last week, in a rural bit of Somerset, I wanted to go for a walk. I had my daily 2km to walk – yes, even when I’m on holiday – and I’d invested in the cutest map. I knew Ordnance Survey offer custom maps (see my Single Map series … More A custom map, a muddy field and an unexpected hillfort
I Am A Polar Bear 