A shameless plug for shameless people

Okay. That headline is not entirely fair. Although – make no mistake about it – Muz and Andy are in fact shameless. This is more about me wanting a frickin’ HUGE pile of free stuff.

GearWeAre.com is a gear review site. But not just any gear review site, oh no. It’s a gear review site that gives you all the information you need – and makes you laugh so much you wish you actually had listened to them and bought that damn she-wee. Or possibly a nappy.

Even if Andy and Muz weren’t my friends, I would still like their site. I covet almost everything on it (except the poo-in-a-box, naturally). I have bought dinky little salt/pepper/chili grinders based upon their knowledge (and the fact that they are small, and I like small things).

Their ability to nab free stuff to test has saved the day on many an occasion (okay, once). Joe’s bike developed a gargantuan puncture after he displeased the rain gods by entering Wales on two wheels during a sunny spell, and their ickle-bitty puncture repair kit got us to a garage. It was scary, actually, because the mini compressed air cylinder pumped up the tyre so quickly, the bike nearly fell over. Also, we had to talk to Welsh people.*

Anyway, I digress. Please read this carefully, then tell all your friends, and family, and accost strangers in the street to tell them too. I’m sending this link to David Cameron and Barak Obama – they’ve been playing ping pong and barbecuing today, they’re clearly the outdoorsy types and won’t be able to live without GearWeAre.

So, GearWeAre. I love you dearly, with ALL my heart. Please send me an enormous pile of Free Stuff. Here’s a picture of some great tits to sweeten the deal:

Hmm. I have just read that back, and it appears that I am the one without shame. Ah well. I’ll have to find a way to live with myself. In the meantime, I’ll direct you all to visit GearWeAre. Even if you don’t like camping, being outside, or having fun. It’ll make you laugh, possibly wee a little bit, and may even encourage you off your sofa and into the big wide world. Just watch out for the badgers, eh?

*I actually love Wales and all Welsh people, I just put that in for comedy effect. Sorry.

Day Two Shetland: A tombolo, a lighthouse and a photography lesson

Today I have learned that two Weetabix is not enough to keep you going from breakfast until dinner. Even the peanuts did not help for much more than an hour…

We set off on a mini-adventure, down to the south of the mainland, in search of kittiwakes, a lighthouse and some treasure.

Jarlshof is fantastic. There is a couple of thousand years’ of history crammed into quite a small area. There is a stone-age hut, iron-age houses and a broch, a wheel house (which Joe has decided he wants to build anew!), Norse long-houses and a Laird’s house overlooking it all.

Wandering the paths between and within the dwellings was fascinating; you get a real sense of the people who once lived and worked and struggled there. And although the weather and terrain can be harsh, the houses – especially the wheel house and broch – were incredibly well protected. Cosy is probably the word; especially when you consider there would have been dozens of people crammed into a small space, with animals wandering by too!

You could almost hear them. Standing within the wheel house, or the broch, with closed eyes and open mind allowed them back in; just for a moment. A half-remembered snatch of sound; something flitting by at the edge of vision. A smell; a feeling.

Jarlshof is an incredibly evocative place. And beautiful – and commanding a stunning view.

Iron-age dwellings at Jarlshof, Shetland.

Mortar and grinding stone from Jarlshof

The zen-like nature of the mortar and grinding stones appealed to me. There were also piles of limpet shells, whelk shells and pebbles. I don’t know whether they were genuinely left from iron-age times, but I like to think they were!

Hiding in a window at Jarlshof

I was really enjoying wandering around those houses, crawling into all the nooks and crannies…

The lighthouse and kittiwake cliffs

We knew there were cliffs up by the lighthouse, in which kittiwakes nest and soar. So off we went. It was quite windy, and the kittiwakes didn’t disappoint – they were showing off for us; posing, and playing in the swirling eddies, seemingly for the sheer joy of it. There are few things that symbolise freedom better than birds. If ever an animal shouldn’t be caged, birds are they.

They were magnificent, and very obliging…

Kittiwake posing for the papparazzi

And they posed for the profile shot too…

Soaring for the camera

The lighthouse is beautiful. It looks exactly like a lighthouse should, based upon multiple readings of books such as The Famous Five. Sadly, we couldn’t get in there, but there was – just yards away – a tower housing the fog-horn. And that we could climb. So climb it we did. I would imagine that being that close to it when it’s sounded would be an experience…

Sumburgh Head Lighthouse

Aaaand the fog-horn. I bet it’s quite loud.

Big red fog-horn...

Quendale Beach

In quest of treasure, we mooched northwards up to Quendale Beach. I know people think geocaching is a little geeky; and perhaps it is. However, we would never have visited this beach if we hadn’t been after the geocache hidden there… It was beautiful. Deserted, sheltered and dramatic. A storm front came across from the west. It passed us by, going around the outside of the bay – but the light was spectacular.

A storm front rolling in across the bay from Quendale Beach

And in no time, the storm front had passed, and the sun returned. The light was divine:

Just before sunset on Quendale Beach

More perfect light. And an arty shot of some seaweed, just because it looked cool.

Eventide. Magical light.

Arty shot of seaweed. Shame about the tracks... needs cropping!

St Ninian’s Treasure was next on our road trip. There lies the largest tombolo in the UK – a strip of beach connecting mainland to an island. St Ninian’s Isle in this case:

The largest tombolo in the UK

We found the treasure – well, the cache – and placed Owen the Travelling Hedgehog in there. We made friends with a sheepdog, hoped for the clouds to clear for a sunset, and I had a short photography lesson from Emma.

Long exposure and a tripod makes dreamy sea pictures…

Long exposure; sea at St Ninian's Isle.

By this time, the Weetabix had well and truly run out.

I love Shetland. It’s beautiful. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring…

Treasure hunting in Wellesbourne

Treasure hunting in Wellesbourne is best begun in the Airfield Café with a humungous fry-up and several pints of tea. It’s great in there – a large breakfast is a fiver, and a small one is four of your finest English pounds. All the tableclothes are air maps under glass, so if you love maps, it’s just about perfect.

Biblical rain had been forecast, but undeterred we set out. Full of breakfast we were, and the dogs were going mental with excitement. Charlie’s pick-up took us to Charlecote Park, where we discovered that although parking is free, walking through the park was not. So he parked in the garden centre next door while I manfully controlled the dogs and searched for the first treasure.

The rain held off (for most of the day, brilliantly!) and we yomped off along the riverside, finding our first three caches fairly easily. Buoyed up with satisfaction and a hint of smug, we swaggered up to the next cache, which was somewhere around the bridge under the A429, and utterly failed to find the treasure. I have a feeling, now, that we were looking on the wrong side of the river. This is annoying.

On we went, we three intrepid treasure hunters. I despatched Freddy the Frog (a Travel Bug) in to one of the caches, and picked up another – a keyword TB which is seeking only to land in caches with the word “end” somewhere in the title. Some of the hiding places are great: in hollow trees, hidden in tree trunks or under rocks, secreted into a chicken wire fence – in plain view if you’re looking for it; invisible if you’re not.

The final cache of the day, Theresa Green (yes, really…) held a fabulous prize: Owen the Travelling Hedgehog. His mission is – wait for it – to visit Scotland! So he is going through Scotland and on to the Shetland Islands. I’m delighted – and I’m going to try and purchase a TB to start in Shetland, and make its way as far south as is possible.

The total miles walked were as follows:

Men: 5.5miles

Me: 6miles

Dogs: 24,459miles

We were powered by: breakfast, tea, Charlie’s home-made flapjack, our home-made lemon biscuits.

Wellesbourne and the surrounding areas are very pretty indeed; the river was quite high, and flowing pretty quickly, but in summer I bet it’s delightful.

My legs are a little achey. But that was such a fun day – and everything is so miserable at the moment, weather and money-wise, that it’s really great to be able to have loads of fun and spend the grand total of a fiver each.

I didn’t bake ginger biscuits though. Fail.

Plotting

We are off to Shetland on Friday morning, for the Up Helly Aa Viking Fire Festival – and we’re really really looking forward to it. This has been in the pipelines for a couple of years now. Tonight and tomorrow night will be spent planning and plotting, to make sure we see all sorts of fascinating stuff right up north.

Near death experiences and poker games…

Friday morning. Weather forecast: rain, with a little snow later on in the day. I start at 8am on a Friday (so I can do the Friday leaving early thing). I’m back on the motorbike now, after the Christmas snow – which is wonderful, as I really miss it when I have to take the car. It’s so much more fun, and is considerably quicker through the Birmingham traffic.

Anyway, off I potter. It’s chilly, but by no means freezing. As I hop onto the motorway, it starts to rain lightly. There’s a lot of spray, so I take it easy – but visibility isn’t too bad. As I join the M42, my visibility suddenly worsens, my visor steams up, and I can see nothing. Literally nothing. I struggle back into lane one, hoping against hope that nothing drives over me, and more frightened than I have ever been in my life. I slow down as much as I dare – I’ve now got lorries overtaking me, and don’t dare stop on the hard shoulder. It’s too nasty. I open my visor, and stinging pellets of sleet hit me. Then it becomes full on snow.

I stop breathing, because that’s not helping, and wonder, for the first time, if this is it. I really thought I was going to die on that road. The relief when I saw the slip road peel off in front of me was phenomenal. I burst into tears at the lights at the roundabout, potter around the roundabout, and stop in the layby with the bacon butty man.

It was at this point that I got off, looked around, and realised that half an inch of snow had fallen in about ten minutes. Do I go back? On the motorway? Not on your nelly! To be honest, slippery roads and a bit of snow wouldn’t normally faze me, but after that motorway journey I was seriously shaken up. But I decided to carry on – it probably wouldn’t be that bad.

It was pretty bad. No gritting, idiots in cars right up onto my back wheel because I choose to leave a large space so I don’t have to stop. Stopping and starting is the worst, you see. Firstly, because when your foot goes down, you don’t know if it’ll stay down, or shoot off sideways landing yourself on the ground with the bike on top of you. And starting involves a lot of back wheel sliding. Incidentally, the back wheel sliding out sideways six inches can be useful, as the muppet up your backside generally clears off when it sees how tricky biking in the snow is.

I did see a couple of other motorbikes around, which made me feel better. And when I stopped at the side of the road, considering phoning a colleague and asking for a lift, a girl on a motorbike went past me! Well, that made me MTFU, anyway. And off I went again. It was not a fun journey at all, but I didn’t die, and I kept it upright. And my soundtrack through town was The War of the Worlds, which was, quite frankly, ace.

Anyway. As I said: I have never before really thought I was going to die. Strange things go through your mind. I felt really guilty at the thought that Joe was going to get the phone call I always dread when he goes out on his bike. I wondered whether it would hurt. If it would just be eternal darkness, or something else, or nothing at all. Also, it makes you feel sick, which is a little unnecessary, I think. Relief is a wonderful thing, and in true “fucking hippy” style, I’m so grateful to be here. Lucky doesn’t even begin to describe it. Everything seemed brighter and sparklier and more colourful, and it still does.

Poker games and good friends

We made a lamb tagine with dates, and they came. Our mates. To play poker. Muzz and Dawn, Andy Mac, Andy (Easy Now), and Dan. And it was good. And fun. And we laughed and drank and ate gooey cheese.

Mrs Mac sent me a gift: a home-made candle from her new business, Mrs Mac Makes. Which is absolutely gorgeous, and a lovely thing to do. Y’see, they have a dog. SamTheDog. He steals cheese and thinks he’d like to eat small children. He’s aces. But he couldn’t come, because of Noodle and Whiskey, so Mrs Mac stayed home with him, and I felt The Guilt. So the gift was lovely!

Andy Mac brought us a log. It burned until Sunday, and we relit the fire from it. An impressive log, that.

Dawn and Muzz brought us a bag and a half of cat litter. Our friends are odd. Lovely, but odd. And they won. First and second prizes in the longest game of poker in the history of Radford Semele. Ridiculous, but fun.

And we learned that cheese distorts reality around itself. Look:

Poker being distorted by cheese

It was a great night, I love my friends, and I thank them all for coming, bringing gifts, and entertaining us.

Treasure hunting

We went treasure hunting with Charlie, Pepper and Freebie on Sunday. We were moderately successful – we found a Motorway Madness cache near Sherbourne, and one at the Barford Bridge. Twas a good walk, although Joe was suffering somewhat from a rather large hangover. On return to Charlie’s abode, we had a quick look around the area, and formulated what is possibly the best plan of this year so far:

Wellesbourne Airfield next Sunday. We’re going to go for a fry up at the airfield, then walk around Wellesbourne with the dogs, munching home-made flapjack, and picking up the 20 or so caches on a five mile walk. Then back to the airfield for pints of tea. Aces!

And we had a bit of a fail on the way home. Joe and I decided to swing by Chesterton Windmill and pick up the cache hidden up there. It was sunset, so the trip wasn’t completely wasted…

Sunset at the windmill

We couldn’t find the cache. We worked out the clue, but the co-ordinates are given in a strange format, and we couldn’t find it. The additional hint helped, and we think we know where it may be, but it got incredibly cold extremely quickly, and our fingers froze, so home we came, in disgrace.

Any excuse to go up to the windmill though. It’s beautiful up there at the worst of times, let alone at sunset on a perfect, clear winter’s day.

Of beer and treasure hunting

Okay. I know I said I was going to do some studying today, but the getting out of bed earlier didn’t go so well. I appear to have become semi-nocturnal. This does not bode well for Tuesday…

So we gave Charlie a poke, and he came over with Pepper and Freebie (the lurcherdogs). A bacon sandwich and cup of tea later, we found ourselves yomping up the Fosse Way to the canal, where, we had been assured by the internet, there would be treasure.

Our camera bag was filled with chocolate money and candy canes, to sustain us on the long and arduous journey ahead. Three fleeces were donned, and gloves left behind (something I would regret later because it was actually bloody cold).

The Fosse is a little alarming when you’re walking along it with two mentalist dogs. You tend to get blown about and spun around by large, fast moving traffic. And it’s a bit bogging.

Our first geocache, then, was called Fosse-icking around, and was to be found on or near the Fosse Lock on the canal. And find it we did! The dogs were rubbish, though. Noses for treasure, they do not have. The cache was in a squirrel. In some bushes. We were the first to find it this year. Huzzah!

We took photos, and Joe and Charlie mocked me for being excited. Which I think is a little mean, but there you have it. It was a mini adventure; and a mini cache. There was no cash in it. So I left a couple of chocolate coins.

A decision was taken to walk along the towpath to Radford Semele, and partake of a pint of finest ale when we arrived at the White Lion. We mooched. We chatted. I did not, at any time or at all, nearly fall into the canal testing the ice. No siree.

Cache the second was searched for for a looooong time at a lock which did not, apparently, contain a cache. We looked into holes. We clambered around on piles of bricks. We slid around on the lock gates. We peered, we shone, we got mucky – to no avail. So on we went, intrepid treasure hunters, to the next lock.

The next lock was, in fact, the one that contained the treasure we thought was at the last one. I found it, attached to a stick with an alligator tied to it. In it was all manner of exciting items, including a rubber ducky with a Travel Bug tag. You’re supposed to take them from one cache and leave them in another. So take it we did. And I left a mussel shell that I found in the bottom of the camera case. As you do. A picture of the treasure is below:

Treasure!

Feeling jubilant, and a little smug, we put everything back and wandered off towards Radford. Where we sat outside the pub, shivered, and drank a rather nice pint of Exmoor Gold. Which tasted remarkably like Old Hooky – which is certainly not a bad thing.

The final geocache on our list was called Bath Time – which Joe and I pass every time we walk to the pub. It’s in the middle of nowhere in the farmer’s fields. Easy-peasy, and I left the rubber ducky there.

It was a grey and miserable day, but I at least had fun. Two grumpy old men pretended not to have fun, but I reckon they enjoyed themselves too. We’re going to Barford next week. It’ll be terribly exciting. I might place a dragon in one of the boxes. Or some more chocolate money. Possibly even a mushroom.

It’s a bit geeky, but then so am I, so it’s all good.

TTFN, dear readers. This was powered by “What I did on my holidays” and candy canes.