You may have noticed by now I’m a bit of a fan of the Rebel badges. Last week I talked about how I was apparently starting my Wild Swimmer badge, I’ve previously talked about Stargazer and Water Sports and Adventurer and I probably haven’t mentioned Community Service, Craft, Critic, My Brand, Linguist or Reader. Well,… More An overnight adventure in Purbeck
It feels like a long time since I’ve done some Wessex Girl/local travel stuff so today we’re heading to Blandford Forum, a market town in North Dorset which I really should have written about years ago. Its interestingly Roman name just means it has a market. It’s not a Roman town, although I think it’s… More A day in Blandford Forum
January is a gloomy time of year. The lights and joy of Christmas are behind us but spring is still a long way ahead. It’s a month to get through, not one to relish, and you’re probably making it worse by putting pressure on yourself to make a load of unrealistic life changes all at… More Illuminate at the Blue Pool
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
Welcome to the Polar Bear Winter Festival! I’ve written two posts a week for years and now, to celebrate winter because I am, after all, a polar bear, I’m doing an extra post every week until Christmas on the joys of the cold, the snow, the ice, some freezing northerly places I’ve been – and yes,… More 20 things to do in Dorset this Christmas
On Friday I went out for my long-awaited night navigation by sea kayak, which is the mysterious thing I had to practice sea kayaking for in September. The October weather smiled down on us. The run of wind and rain and grey skies vanished literally just for the evening and we set out onto a glassy… More Serenity, sunset and shooting stars: night navigation by sea kayak
I’ve been kayaking before. I’ve been kayaking on the sea before – in fact, I’ve only ever been kayaking on the sea. But this post is about learning to kayak on a closed cockpit sea kayak with a spraydeck. The reason is there’s a thing I wanted to do but it’s only available to groups… More Learning to paddle a sea kayak
Last week I went back to Brownsea Island for another two nights camping in a tree tent. I learned some lessons from the first time round and I want to tell you about five things I did differently the second time. 1) I didn’t take a sleeping bag You have to carry everything a mile… More Tree camping: 5 things I did differently | Tree Camping July 2021
If you haven’t read Monday’s post on how I fared with my Discover Award, go and read that now. Then come back here and see how the Explore Award went. I said last time that Antz wanted me to do a bow rescue, to hang upside down under a closed cockpit kayak and that I… More … and then I got my Explore Award!
I’ve done a little bit of kayaking before and while I’m not overburdened with talent at it, I’d decided kayaking suits me far better than sailing did. So much so that I decided back in 2017 to get my One Star Award. I got as far as booking it and then the group that actually… More I went kayaking and got my Discover Award!