Light as air.

Image by Neil T via Flickr

 

"Many a mickle makes a muckle". So said Gordon Jackson in an advert about supermarket savings in the 1970's. It had something to do with looking after the pennies and the pounds looking after themselves.

It is just as relevant when it comes to grams and kilos.

There are always savings to be made. I just reduced the weight of my psion 5 by 3 grams by changing the stylus. I could reduce it further by not using the stylus, the plastic tweezers can double up, or a small carbon fibre rod. I can reduce it further by removing the AA batteries and running it on the backup Lithium. I choose not too because it reduces functionality more than I wish. However I know the options and have considered them.

Not all 500ml plastic bottles are created equal. They all weigh slightly different amounts.

My tent pegs, similarly so, some are lighter than others. A gram or two, but why not take the lighter of them, they will perform the same practical function.

I suffer from asthma which means medication in the form of an inhaler. For whatever reason I cannot get just the refill bottles, the NHS hands out the whole container each time. I pay for it and am happy to pay for it, but I would be just as happy to pay the same and avoid the plastic pump mechanism.

The original plastic inhaler pump weighs in at 46grams. Once I had removed all the stuff that is not necessary for function this halves. Still though it is more material than I need to make it function.

Fortunately not one to ever throw anything away I had an older style inhaler. Attacking this with a pair of scissors and then attacking the remnants with a drill I get the weight down to 5 grams.

It still fulfils the same function. I could reduce the weight a little more but it begins to get potentially "un-functional".

46grams of equipment which could save my life doesn't seem a bad trade off. However with a bit of thought this can be reduced to 5grams of equipment which can still keep me alive. 

I used to scoff at these sorts of weight savings but it is remarkable how it adds up. It also represents a different mindset. The first, if I don't care about the few grams here and there I end up with a few kilos here and there and that is no fun carting around. 

To be constantly looking at ways of saving grams easily means a packweight which is always being refined.

Kit : Bandana

Maybe not the most hi-tech bit of equipment but if there is a prize for versatility this has to be a contender.  My love affair with the humble bandana can be traced back to Saturday afternoon.  Not a specific one, anyone, coz that was when they used to run old cowboy movies.  A cowboy without a bandana was some sort of effete town dweller who owned a suit.  The real deal wore a scruffy bit of cloth around their necks, Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven is a perfect example.  The baddies hid their faces behind them when robbing banks and the good guys protected their faces from sandstorms when they chased the bad guys into the desert.

Morgan Freemans character seems to shun the bandana, bet he wishes he had remembered to wear one.  Clint Eastwood wears the biggest by the looks of it and the townies simply have become too “civilised”.

Anything a bit of cloth can do, a bandana can do.  It can do a fair job of keeping light weather conditions off your head much favoured by Les Stroud in survivorman.

Pour water on your bandana and it cools you, don’t and it warms you.  It can dry things like cloths are famous at, you can use it to pick up hot objects.

In the winter I tend to favour the larger bit of cloth about 2.5foot square as it goes around my neck twice and so is nice and warm.  Summer, the smaller version favoured by Les as it is slightly less flamboyant when on your head.

This is one of the very few bits of kit I am never without.  Its not very glamorous and while the marketing boys have done their best to create bandanas which are less useful and more expensive generally its not been successful.  I have used the remains of favourite shirts to create bandanas over the years.

When the sun is beating down hard I stick it in the back of my baseball cap and it hangs down to protect my neck and ears and depending on how it is arranged as much of my face as necessary.   This might look a bit daft, but not as silly as a bright red neck and usually there is nobody about to point and laugh.  There is something intrinsically humorous about this arrangement though.  As evidenced by the Outdoor Research Sun Runner Cap

The going prepared blogsite has the lowdown on the benefits of these things.  You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Tick Tick Tick

 

 

Ticks are one of those things that are hard to love. Actually they are difficult not to dislike. You are wandering along minding your own business and without you knowing it a tiny hitch-hiker has stuck out a thumb and is coming along for the ride. So far so okay.

Once on-board they can wander about a bit, find somewhere nice warm and moist if possible. So this is the first hint the relationship is not healthy, your armpits and crotch are ideal holiday homes for ticks.

This is bad enough if they just hung about being a vague nuisance, but nope, they bury themselves into you head first, little legs wriggling. The wriggling legs give them away more than anything at this point. The size of a pinhead, not exactly easy to see, especially if via a mirror. There is something unsettling about spotting an insect burrowing into you.

If only this was their least unpleasant aspect. It is bad enough, but worse to come. The reason they are buried head first is because they are after your blood. Leave them long enough they can end up the size of a large pea or more, filled with your blood. They look decidedly ugly at this point.

If only this was an end of it, but in exchange for your blood they can give you rather unpleasant diseases. Lyme's disease being primary, it is not something you want. To add to the fun, symptoms can take a considerable timescale to develop and can be difficult to diagnose. Delightful isn't it.

Removing them as quickly as possible is a good plan. A diseased tick has a greater chance of passing on the disease the longer it is attached. Here the tick has one last little joke for you. Evolution has made sure tick mouthparts are ideal for hanging on. Basically they are not coming out, Pull a tick and its body will part from its mouth. The mouthparts remain in you to go septic. If that is not bad idea enough, in shock the tick probably vomited its stomach contents into you. Not great for disease avoidance. Burning them, covering them in meths etc etc have similar drawbacks.

So removing a tick fast and efficiently is a good plan. The best way I have found is with a tick removal tool and daily inspections where at all possible.

Not all removal tools are created equal. After failed experiments with a few (it is useful to have a small dog as a tick collecting device) I found the O'Tom Tick Twister to not only have the most flamboyant name but also the best results.

The device is simple, effective, efficient and small. Seems to have some eco-friendly credentials too boot. The Vetinary Record tested 4 different extraction tools offering different approaches to the same problem and the O'Tom was significantly better than other methods.

This is one bit of wildlife I am keen not to meet on Dartmoor.  I fully expect to be pulling them out of the dog at some point though.

March of Tech

 

 

How things change over the years. This trip to Dartmoor is dominated by digital preparations. Partly because the other elements run on well practiced lines.

The digital march has no new tech, but it does have much more extensive use of that tech. My Psion 5 carries a dozen or so Dartmoor related texts and a great many notes to improve my understanding and interpret what is being seen. It actually has ludicrous quantities of information including decades of Victorian moor archaeology.

With the best will in the world it is impossible to remember it all and it is a relief not to have too. It is all stored away digitally and at no extra weight.

The Psion also is capable of a game of backgammon or chess if need be.

I have been updating my Dartmoor gpx files and sorting out the 500 most relevant waypoints for this trip. My old Garmin Etrex, a discontinued model is showing its age now but it performs its essential task well.

Always annoying to have missed a curious stone by a few hundred yards, which happens more often than I would like. The waypoints reduce the possibility of that.

There is so much to see and seeing something in the landscape with your own eyes beats all.

Waypoints give a different perspective to a map and I confess a lot simpler to check quickly than unfurling the map.  Effectively it is my map with the things that are relevant to me on it.  Bogs being one of the things which are easier to spot on as a waypoint than on the map.

Image via Wikipedia

New SIM for the phone so I have a choice of networks, hopefully this will reduce the chance of being in a deadspot. This might not be an issue, or it might be a matter of some importance.

The phone trebles up as camera, it is quite good enough to capture my memories of Dartmoor, and mpeg4 player. The Hound of the Baskervilles travels with me in written word, spoken word, radio play and two film versions. Again overkill, but it is there if I want it and the phone weighs no more for the extra contents.

Without tech most of this would not be possible at all. The books would be possible, if I did not mind walking about with a couple of dozen.

Tech has revolutionised the way I conduct walks generally and it is an enhancer. Rather than cut me off from what I see it allows me to see and understand more of it.

Break in the clouds

Work clouds that is.  An multiday trip to Dartmoor had to be put off earlier in the year because of work commitments.  This worked out okay as the weather was positively dreadful at the point in the year things should have been getting better.  I don’t mind poor weather, but there is no reason to actively seek it out when there are alternatives.  I promised myself I’d get to the moor the moment there was a suitable gap in the work schedule.

The problem with not going on a break is you don’t get the time back and if I was too busy in spring, chances are I was going to be too busy through to the autumn months.  All well and good having time on my hands in Feb but I can always think of better alternatives to being half frozen out on the hills miles from nowhere.  Usually half frozen closer to home is the option taken.

But it looks like a break in the schedule is coming up.  Uncomfortably close to the August bank holiday but take the chances when they come, there might not be another.

I am at the kit evaluation stage.  Most of it is good to go.  New boots, but they are pretty much what I had before, they work, I will let others guinea pig the latest space age nano boot tech.

My trangia is being retired for this trip.  It has done me good service, the military version, it is pretty well bombproof, but the weight is testament to the indestructibility.  The replacement is the whitebox stove.  Don’t ask me why its taken so long to make an obvious decision put it down to the devil you know.  Other considerations might have been, “I’ll let others guinea pig this space age nano cooking tech”.  Or, “its a bloody crushed can”.  Still it looks to be a well reviewed robust bit of kit, its a field tested and proven bit of kit.

New cooking pot is needed, nothing space age, its a camping saucepan with lid, folding handle and a base broad enough to handle the flames coming out of the white box stove.  Nice and light, you don’t need much to boil water and cook beans lets face it.

After the trangia, it all seems a bit like a child’s tea set.  My main concern is stability issues but I am a reasonably competent adult so I suppose I will get along.  The website says it does not need a pot stand, but that might be like saying I don’t technically need two legs as I could hop.  Nobody seems to be making a big fuss of stability issues other than saying “stability issues”.  Reasonable care seems to be the thing to apply.

My hat, my beautiful hat.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and given my hat is out of my eyeline I probably am not the best judge of these things.

It is nothing special, a heavy cotton baseball cap which started life as dark blue.  It is now a not very heavy cotton baseball cap that varies in colour from white to pale blue.

It is worn everyday and has never let me down.

This year though it has not rained on it enough to even give it a pretence of clean.  Yesterday on a walk it near blew off my head and into a pond.  I grabbed it just in time and was mighty pleased to do so.

Today I thought a good wash was in order.  It has been washed twice in its life time, other than the usual downpours it has weathered.  Well how many times do you wash a hat?

The results were disturbing to say the least, the fact that the dirt that came off the hat refused to wash of my hands was a hint that its daily worklife has been a harsh one.

Still I washed it thoroughly and things were looking good until I spotted a number of rips in the cotton crown.  It was so worn and thin in places the cotton had simply given up the effort of maintaining cohesion.

There are only two or 3 tears in it currently and as it blows about in the wind drying I am contemplating the options available to me.

Obviously throwing such a treasure away is not an option, it is all about the best repair method.  I have a sneaky suspicion it is beyond stitching, there is not really enough firm material to anchor it together.  This looks like a gaffer tape and glue exercise.

Some of you might be thinking “buy another hat”.  Well don’t you think I have considered this, in fact, done this.  Over the years I have bought loads of hats, none have been able to take the place of this one.  No matter how I have tried to love them, they are just not the same.

I have actually bought a replacement, a waxed dark green baseball cap.  Lets see if this is a worthy successor, as I will need one before the eventual retirement of my trusty companion which is likely to be before winter hits given its current state.

Map replacement

After a good many years of service it is time to replace my OS 1:25000 series Dartmoor map.

Perhaps for some this is a matter of the totally mundane, not for me.

While it is not exactly seismic even for me, its not a five minute decision either.

The process could have a legitimate claim to have started two years ago when I first considered replacing the map.  From an informational point of view there was no reason;  things don’t change too dramatically and the progression of magnetic north has not been that astonishing.

The reason for change was the map was beginning to get “tatty”.  Areas of it had got wet and the crease lines where it folds were fraying.  There were also various areas of the map which were shaded various non-standard colours.  The colours represented bits of  meals which had sustained me along various routes.

Despite the map getting wet, it had dried pretty successfully and the folds were reinforced with micropore tape (significantly better than sellotape for this purpose).

The simple truth is the map had become part of the experience and its state represented no real danger to my safety.  The dog prints, the food stains, the rain, the fraying edges added to the fabric, it did not detract.

So the map limped on for another year, and then another.  While it is not used everyday in the field, the weeks of the year it does get an outing it gets a significant work out.

Oddly the decision to change the map was not based on the fact it was wearing out and becoming likely to fail me at a crucial moment.  It was based on the fact as a document it had become more than the sum of its parts.  It was no longer a map of Dartmoor, but a map of MY adventures on Dartmoor. 

Irreplaceable if lost, so time to replace it.

So the decision has been made, a new map is required.

Ideally I would buy a map at the location it represents, ie Dartmoor.  It would be “of the place”.  But it would potentially mean a restriction in choice and price. 

I cannot imagine a situation where I could not find one for sale, but equally the ramifications of that would be significant enough even an insignificant possibility is to be avoided.

The most significant disadvantage would be the lack of time to get to know my new map.

In truth given my location, online is the purchase choice, and this tends to be ebay, for better or worse.

25000 series or 50000 series?

25000, its the walking series, it is what I am doing.  Although the 50000 series does have logistical advantages to my mind, notably, more land shown in any given bit of paper.

OS or another producer of maps.

Again really a no-brainer for me, I grew up with OS, it is what I know.

The final decision was waterproof or not, and if waterproofing, what type.  I have heard tell of various potions and incantations you can add to paper based maps which will make them impervious to water.  There would be a weight saving to this method, but I decided against it because if I am that determined to save weight, I will cut my shoelaces a bit shorter, or simply miss a meal. 

The real reasons:

The first being it would still not be wind-resistant, while the wind has never torn a map to shreds in my hands, there is the possibility.

Related to this my old map failed me at the creases, I imagine the waterproof OS series is less likely to give me this problem.

Finally I like the idea of being able to draw upon my OS map with a waterbased pen.  It makes route planning a good deal easier.

The map is bought, but there are downsides.  It is heavier, it does not fold so flat and I suspect the increased strength of the creases mean bending the map to my will is going to be significantly more tricky.  Finally this map is just not going to age in the same way my old paper map did, it seems unlikely to gather character. 

Functionally I believe this is a more robust map, and it has reduced the chances of wind – rain destruction, which given its Dartmoor is no bad idea.

My old map gets hung up on the wall, it deserves the retirement and it is great to just let my eye wander over the landscape I know so well while running the movie of various walks on the big screen in my head.

New sunglasses

Disappointingly I managed to lose my sunglasses of long standing last week.

I blame the weather, it was not sunny, so my glasses were not on my nose but rather the top of my hat.  Had they fallen from my eyes I would have noticed their absence rather sooner than I did as they slipped off my hat.

I know the exact stile which caused the problem.  It is not so much a stile as two large horizontal timbers set up in such a way as to hinder rather than assist the walker.  Last year I had seen a woman of slim proportion step gracefully between the two timbers.  In my reckless folly I imagined I was made of the same stuff.  I wasn’t, I blame the daysack of course.

When I looked back after some minutes walking I saw someone else at the stile and stopped to watch as it was so unusual to see someone there.  I suppose it was curiosity as to how he was going to get over the obstacle.  He seemed to look in my direction and be in at least two minds about what he intended to do.

He had found my glasses and was wondering if they were mine and if they were could he attract my attention with a shout.  I worked this out later of course.  The third option he had was to pocket them.  This was his chosen route.

The glasses were nothing special, certainly not expensive, they were actually pretty tired.  But they were mine and we had shared enough adventures for them to have become an integral part of things.

Time to get another pair.  Not the same pair, because there were improvements I could make, and here was an opportunity to do so.

Firstly they had to be wrap around and have a high impact rating.  No need for them to stop bullets but plenty of reason for them to stop some pretty high speed fragments as I work outside in an environment where fragments of stuff I would not want in my eyes tend to zoom about.

My previous pair had a semi-mirrored finish to them and I came not to like that.  I like a low visibility profile, flashy and indeed, flashing sunglasses never sat well with that approach.  I am no Ninja, and nor do I set out to be, but given a choice between a hi-viz jacket or a dull earth tone in the countryside, I go for the dull.  I leave the hi-viz to council workers and others that think they need the attention.

Protection against UVA, UVB and whatever other death rays that the sun has emitted for eternity but our eyes have failed to evolve protection against (surely its not all marketing) is a given.  Well I take it on trust its a given because I don’t know how to test it and there are plenty of stories about how many sunglasses fail to give the protection they are meant too (more marketing dirty tricks?).

Finally I made my choice, a pair of wrap around safety glasses with smoke coloured lenses with the added bonus of being significantly lighter than my lost pair of Bolle glasses.

The final addition was one of those safety straps to stop them being lost when not on your nose.  Well, not quite, a bit of string serves that purpose, its just as functional, just does not get the same marketing push.

So hopefully I will get many years of use out of these sunglasses.

From extrovert to introvert.

 

Those salad days of youth when being seen was about the most important thing.  How stupid I looked was a very distant second place.

Moving forward, not being seen is about the most important thing on the agenda.  How I am perceived is of even less interest to me now, I know I look daft.

In halcyon days of long lost summers the external frame backpack (rucksack was not a term in my vocabulary) was the thing.  It was blue and vile, built to survive nuclear threat, I was not built to survive it.

But the key point was, lots of places to tie stuff.  I must have been quite an event walking through quiet villages, a one man band clanking through.  Small children knowing only marginally less than me would stop, stare and point.  Elders would cast nervous glances, I was too young to be a vagrant, but still, just maybe…

My backpack had travelled through Seth Brundle’s teleporter and come out the other side inside out to all intents and purpose.  It was all hanging and swinging off the backpack frame for legitimate reason.

Naturally the bright yellow rollmat did not fit in, so it was strapped to the exterior.  The tent spars were too large to fit inside, so they lived on the outside.  Given this it made sense that the tent might as well live on the outside as well in its own bag.  After a bit of use the tent had all the form of a bag of unwashed clothes strapped precariously on the pack.  You could compare it with the wet clothing hanging off the bag to dry.

My sleeping bag was enormous, comfort was important, it did not matter it was so wretched hot I seldom got in it.  Too large to fit in the backpack it was strapped on the top comfortably extending above my head.

This arrangement now caused issues with regard low hanging branches which was neatly resolved by hanging a large parka over the lot, blue with orange lining.  The parka, a sacrificial layer, it got snagged, not the sleeping bag.

All this strapped on with a bungee or two and yards of string.

Finally the cooking pot, much to dirty to live within the pack it was on the outside, rattling and clanging merrily with every stride.  It even annoyed me at times, but not enough to do anything about it.

Finally, and this must be the most absurd of all, a spare pair of boots.  The message to the outside world, I walked so far along such un-trodden paths I needed at least two pairs of boots to complete the journey.

I have no idea what was in the backpack itself, some food, but never enough and certainly not enough water.  Food and water was for softies.  I suspect there was all manner of gizmo’s that never got used and backups and spares for these un-used items.

This touches on the reason I wished for the recognition.  I was on a journey, perhaps an epic one, that few mortal men would consider and few in that number would live to see the destination.

I can laugh now, but then I didn’t.  The backpack was digging into my back in all manner of hideous ways as the load simply had no rhyme nor reason, it was heavy where it should have been light, light where it should have been heavy.

The whole shooting match swung precariously without any assistance from me, but as I wobbled and tottered under it I gave it plenty of extra incentive to upend me.

Travelling under low branches (or bridges even, but memory might be playing tricks on me here) I did not so much duck as sag at the knees to get under obstacles without ripping holes in parka and sleeping bag or dumping me on my back.

Getting this backpack on and off without some bit of equipment either dropping off or walloping me was an art to be mastered.

The process by which these items disappeared into the bag was slow.  But it has happened and only last year did I realise it was completed when the sleeping mat was replaced by a self-inflating mat which would live inside the rucksack.

Along the way for reasons of comfort the sleeping bag headed into the pack first.  Having got smaller and more manageable.  A bag was made for cooking equipment, an old pair of moleskin trousers donated a leg for the purpose.

The purchase of a bivvy bag meant the tent could be exchanged for a poncho tarp.

Now all that remains strapped to the exterior of the pack is a pair of walking poles, they look less daft there than they do in my hands.

There was still that nagging feeling this simply did not look the part.  Real men had stuff hanging off their pack, it was manly.  Fortunately Ray Mears came to my rescue.  You cannot doubt his manly credentials and everything is always neatly squared away in his rucksack (or in the landrovers).

Gadgets

Once upon a time there was talk of calculators being bad for maths.  It should all be done by consulting fingers and toes and studying arcane formula.

What if you didn’t have a calculator, what if the batteries ran out mid sum.  You mind would have atrophied during the use of the adding contraption and perhaps you would forget to feed yourself.

I was not around for the invention of the slide rule or the creation of log tables but I am sure there were people out there wanting to burn them and to do all the calculations in their heads while leaving a proportion of their mind free to congratulate themselves on being so clever, before getting the wrong answer a week later.

Computers were laughable items that sent people incredibly inaccurate gas bills.  Now they are highly efficient bits of kit that run the world, unless its a council computer in which case it is always down for maintenance when it comes to something you want, but working overtime when its time to get the council tax bills out.

Now we have GPS and there is a significant proportion of the walking populous that believe it is the devils work.

What if the batteries die, what if you drop it, what if the satellites spin out of orbit, you don’t know how to use it.  Scenarios of increasingly unlikely events are paraded, all warning off near certain disaster just looking at the device.

Map and compass, that is the thing, always works, never goes wrong.

Okay, what if its blowing a gale and the map disappears over the hill.

What if its raining and the map turns into a sodden lump of mush.

What if there is high iron content in the ground and your compass is inaccurate.

What if you don’t know how to use a map and compass?

Well says the wise old acre, you have a spare map of course, you have it securely housed, waterproof.  The idea of your compass being deflected by iron is scoffed at, the concept someone does not know how to read a map, take a bearing, locate yourself in the middle of nowhere on a moor is laughed to scorn.  If you cannot do that, you should not be trusted out of your own front door, let alone near a rucksack.

Some of those that shun the devilry of gps seem quite happy to strap something that looks to me like mosquito netting on their feet, claim them to be walking shoes  and head off into the hills.

All joking aside, what we see played out again and again is new fangled meets old fogie.

Everyone has their old fogie streak, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it does have to be recognised.  Essentially you are out of step with the modern world and must accept it.

The trouble begins, as it so usually does, when you start taking a pride in your fogie attitudes and it begins to take on a life of its own.

There is nothing wrong with GPS, a spare pair of batteries and not hurling it around will see you right most of the time.  It is a great tool to be used in conjunction with your map and compass.

A map and compass is only useful if you know where you are, a GPS is only useful if you know where to go next.

I love my GPS, its a very simple etrex, it pinpoints me within 10 metres or so.  That’s good enough.  I plot in various waypoints of a walk when on footpaths and for the most part that is it.  I just follow the footpath till a junction, the gps comes out, quick look at the screen and I know the direction to walk in.

The map and compass is packed away safely and having plotted the walk on my computer I have a mental picture of it in my head.

So for most of my day, my primary navigational aid is the GPS.  None of this is rocket science, it seems perfectly sane and rational.  What does not seem sane and rational is the reaction I get from some and the justifications they have for navigating by the stars.

GPS is going to take over map and compass which will increasingly be used as backup devices for most everyday use.

This I will find a shame as I already miss the visual scope of a map and the tactile nature of a compass and the fun it is in using them properly.  I have just bought myself a new Silva Ranger Series 3 (actually its old, I like a compass that has miles on the clock and stories to tell).  My only concern is it probably will not get the use it should have, just because GPS is so convenient.

Kit chat - Karma rubs it in.

Laugh it up.

From the safety of my armchair, I chuckled and derided these gyrating fatties.

“Lose some weight fat-so” I could well have said as I scoffed down my fish and chips.

“Imagine being so fat your clothes hurt”  Scoff, scoff.

The advertising gods were listening.  Newun and improvium I think they are called.

Blithely I set of into the rising sun leaving behind my cycling shorts because they were hot on the previous weeks walk.

Big mistake.

The sun had heard my hubris and exacted sweaty revenge.  My chosen garments appeared to have been constructed of heavy grade sandpaper which, on reflection, was probably a poor choice.

21km later I was rather sore.

Fortunately not being actually fat, by the simple method of walking like John Wayne I managed some pain relief.  Sort of fine in the countryside when nobody was looking but back in town walking about as if I was holding an invisible water melon between my knees was a crowd puller.

Possibly not the sort of walk you wish to adopt when going into a shop to purchase “anti-chafing” gel but I was too far gone to care.  The alternative was mincing little steps with a very pained expression on my face.  I preferred the John Wayne to the John Inman impersonation for this purchase.

So now I have another bit of kit for my first aid box, although prevention is better than cure in this matter.  Certainly the cycling shorts will not be left behind next time.

Kit chat – The cat in the hat.

If you want state of the art kit reviews your in the wrong place.  This is more about the evolution of my kit and some of the memorable iterations it has taken.

Most people seem to have gear nowadays, I still have kit for the most part.  It tends to be less expensive and less fashionable.

The hat.

The very peak of your physical being.  I have a weakness for hats.  I am not alone in this but have lived through hard times in the fashion stakes because of it.  It is more acceptable to wear a hat in public now, but anything more than a baseball cap with some US sports team is looked at with suspicion in most circles.

At first I needed a hat to tame the unruly hair beneath, and so I did not frighten the horses.  Now the years have been unkind to my flowing locks and its more about protecting the top of my head from any amount of weather condition.

At a point in hair failure the auspices  of weather take on greater interest.  The sun beats down on you harder, the cold is colder, the wind keener, the rain more immediate.  In short, substitute hair is needed that is not of the “point and laugh” variety that gets you called wiggy.

I have a more varied collection of hats than any other bit of kit and it is driven by the search for the “perfect” hat.  Gloves are a close second in this, but hats win it.

A pair of boots might not be perfect for the terrain, but unless totally bizarre will “do”.  Hats just don’t “do”.

My first conscious walking hat decision was in the late 80’s when a large part of the South West Coastal Path was up for the conquest.

An Australian digger style hat was just the thing for a stroll around the SW of England as the sun was most surely to caress me fondly.  It also happened to be about the only thing suitable in the rather bizarre army surplus shop.  The other offering, a german flying helmet, seemed unlikely to set the right tone.

Miracle of miracles the hat also fitted.  I was ready.

In the event the worst storm in living memory struck England ripping up trees in its path.  Before it did all that though it had to get past the excessively large sun brim of my hat.  I think I saved a few trees from destruction that year by taking some sting out of the gale force winds before it could do more damage inland.

When the weather was not threatening to part my head from my shoulders it was raining.  Something the cotton hat was not design to cope with.  It was wet for a good part of the walk and green grimy water would eventually run down my face.

When it was not windy or rainy it was in fact windy and rainy.  My wonderful hat took the likeness of many rock formations in Monument Valley, often seeming to weigh as much.

The hat actually did years of service, it was only formally retired 4 or 5 years ago when it became to precious a relic of youth to be endangered any longer.

A perfect hat for me needs the following features:
It fits, so I don’t have to go chasing after in on a windy day and does not have to be removed from my head in any sort of wind I can feasibly stand up in.

It keeps the sun off my head, which is defined as everything above shoulder height

It keeps the rain off my head, which in this instance can be slightly smaller area than sun protection requirement.

It keeps me warm up to the point of English temperature extremes.

It does not risk the collapse of my neck muscles from the effort of keeping my head up (because clearly any number of war helmets and armoured jousting helmets fulfil the first 3 criteria).

Provides enough ventilation to not end up a sweat head.

Finally it is not so bizarre that is draws a large enough crowd that walking becomes a problem.

It has been surprisingly difficult to tick all those boxes.  Hence the 20 or so “not quite right” examples on my hatstand here.  Fashion has played its part in this number as has getting bored with a hat.

Jump forward past wool hats, fur trapper hats, all manner of military efforts.  Beanie hats seemed to offer hope, but failed in many respects, the worst being for some reason they ride up on my head till I appear to be an inhabitant of middle earth.

One hat currently stands head and shoulders above all others.

 

It is bucket style hat, it weighs 44grams, is breathable waterproof abtex and has the neat trick of being capable of folding itself into a flap in its crown.

It fits wonderfully on my head, protects me from wind, rain and sun.  Its thermal properties are the weak link but within most “normal” UK temp ranges it does the task.

A headover provides able support for the hat.  Headover/snood/necktube, its like a buff but without the fashionable price tag that can be associated with such things.  An incredibly versatile bit of kit that is found in many configuration around my neck and head area.  There is never a reason to leave home without it.

I am really hoping my search for the perfect English hat is over, near perfect is good enough.