Live life outdoors

OK, I'm going to start by being very selfish and self-centred. Covid-19 sucks! Not much of a shocking revelation I know but it is heart felt. My plans for spring and early summer were to do as much cycling, camping, fishing and kayaking as possible. Also we were heading to Florida for a mega family holiday and hopefully I was going to catch my first ever largemouth bass (LMB) and bluegill. This has now all been put on hold because of the aforementioned Covid-19. Now at the moment all those I love and care for are well and healthy so I have very little cause for complaint compared to other people in the country. Also, I'm safely ensconced working from home (even though I hate it) rather than putting myself in harms way like so many key workers. So like I said I'm being very selfish and self-centred. Anyway, that being said I tend to seize the day the moment the lockdown is lifted. I've got everything organised. The fishing tackle has been sorted between sea, fre...

OK, so it's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. Very sadly we lost the Matriarch of Team Flynnie when my mum finally succumbed to cancer. Because of this we were not in the festive mood as you can imagine and decided to go hiking on Christmas Day which was lovely, but there were a lot more people around than I had expected. Anyway, here we are in 2020 with a whole years worth of adventures in front of us. So the first trip I want to talk about was the bike ride I did this morning. I bought a new bike just before Christmas as my old one was going to cost more to upgrade than buying a new bike! I now have a nice shiny new bike that I have added a rack, panniers and a few other bits and pieces to as my aim is to get some bikepacking in over the summer - cycling and camping! Does life get any better than that? It does apparently according to Mary! The cycling is OK but the camping is definitely off! My plan is to do a series of rides over the next few months of ...

Due to some peculiar circumstances Mrs F and I found ourselves holidaying in Southern Florida for five days recently, and I have to say that generally it was an amazing experience and I managed to do another bucket list tick, more on that later. Firstly I need to address the issue of the Floridian Lizard People who are born on the Sun! In a place where the temperature is around 30c (86f for the Lizard People) and rarely drops below 20c (68f) it is not necessary to carry a sweater around as “it might get a bit cooler later”. Nor is it necessary for Walmart to sell slippers and fleecy pyjamas! You are crazy people! Rant over! On our first full day we went for an airboat ride out in the Everglades. We had a guy called Gus as our skipper who was awesome. We didn’t see too much wildlife as it is just coming to the end of the rainy season and everything is still spread out across the glades. What we did see was brilliant though, including a close up encounter with an alligator...

As I said the other day Life has an unfortunate habit of getting in the way sometimes and camping trips this year have been another of its victims. I’ve managed to get out several times to chill in my hammock in the woods for a few hours at a time but haven’t managed to get away camping; until last night that is. I spent yesterday morning sorting and airing my kit. Making sure that everything was in good order and repair and that I had everything that I needed. I just about managed to pack it all into my rucksack. I think I need a new, bigger one; but when I mention rucksacks to Mary her face takes on a very stern, grown up look! Anyway I got everything stowed that I wanted to take with me and it was comfortable enough to carry. I wasn’t going to be walking too far but it was still going to be a case of being able to carry everything in and out as well. I knew I would be coming home in the dark this morning so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. So off I bimbled to my...

It’s been a while since I did my last blog, but sometimes life has a horrible habit of getting in the way! Anyway, what have I been up to? I’ve been to Austria and did some hiking in the mountains, and also managed to see some marmots, edelweiss and Alpine Chough. Not a bad haul for one holiday. I’ve also been out in the kayak and helped a friend from work reignite his passion for the sport. Anytime you want to go out again Adam just let me know! I’ve also been trying to get the garden up to scratch for the winter and been sorting out crops for planting now and harvesting what we’ve grown over the summer. In all of this I’ve been aided and abetted by my much better half, Mary. We’ve also not long since celebrated our 10 th wedding anniversary. Anyway, I have a nice long weekend now (treating myself for my birthday) so this morning I decided to go on a little bit of a fungi foray as it’s that time of year. Mushrooms seem to be a real Marmite thing. You either love them or hate th...

And into the forest I must go to lose my mind and find my soul………. This is my church, this is where I get spiritual relief and reenergise my soul. There’s no alter, no iconography, no priest and no dogma. There’s just you, the sky, the river, the trees and the gentle sounds of nature. There really doesn’t need to be anything else does there? After yesterday’s sojourn to Glastonbury (such an awesome place, if you haven’t visited the town you really should) Mary and I decided that we would go over to our favourite little spot on the forest near home, have a cup of tea and chill out in the hammocks. Well the chilling out in the hammocks happened but the cup of tea didn’t. I set the stove up and just as the water came to the boil the stove toppled over! Schoolboy error on my part as I didn’t ensure that the ground was level before I started – oops! I also wanted to test out my new underquilt, and I have to report that it works brilliantly. I was lying in my ...

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day, and for me it certainly has been; but in a very awesome way. I got up this morning at 0200hrs as I wanted to kayak down the River Stour to Christchurch Harbour and watch the sunrise. To make sure I didn’t waste any time this morning I loaded the car up last night so when my alarm went off it was a simple case of get up, grab my shorts and shirt, give Mary a kiss and head out the door. Driving across the forest at such an early hour was wonderful, dipping in and out of pockets of mist and being enchanted by the wildlife. There were vixens out with their cubs, gentle fallow deer pattering across the road and lots of bunnies; everything from little one fluffs up to big four fluffs. Just as an aside a fluff is the official bunny measurement in the Flynn household! Seeing so many rabbits this morning was brilliant given how widespread rhdv2 ( Rabbit Haemmorhagic disease variant 2 ) is at the moment. Once at Iford I quickl...

The sun is shining, you have a couple of hammocks, a beautiful wife and a few hours going spare so what do you do? That’s right, you bimble out of your front door and straight on to the New Forest with a rucksack loaded with everything you need to pass a chilled out couple of hours. It turns out that all Mary needed was the hammock, but more of that in a bit. As I said we came out of the front door, on to the forest and pootled off to a little glade that we know that I swear was designed by someone who loves hammock camping. The trees are perfectly spaced and there are great clearings to set up in and get the stove going so you can have a brew up! Now the point of the exercise today was to introduce Mary to the sheer bliss of lying in a camping hammock, all she has used up until now is a garden hammock on a tubular frame, neither comfortable nor an overly enjoyable experience. Anyway, I got Mary’s hammock slung up first and then left her to figure out how to get into it w...

Oh I do love a Bank Holiday weekend. Just the pure joy of a long weekend so full of potential! So much to do and all the time in the world to do it! Saturday was an absolute cracker. We, Mary and I, headed off to the Garden Centre to get some replacement tomato plants. We had planted some out at the beginning of the month and lost the lot. We think it was a combination of weak plants (we left them in a heated propagator too long and they bolted) and sun scold. Anyway, regardless of what it was we lost the lot. We had some other plants that are doing OK hanging on the fence; even have a couple of fruit on them. I had also bought on some giant plum tomato seeds which I had brought on slowly and had been given a few plants by our friend Emma. We now have 24 plants so fingers crossed we will have a good crop of toms again this year. In the afternoon it was time to go and play pirates with my brother, Paul. As our alter egos, The Wessex Wyverns, we had arranged a Splash Mob – a Ge...

I feel good today, not just OK but actually chipper. As I mentioned the other day I’m in the transition period from one set of meds to another, and the past few days have been rough. The tiredness I can deal with (what’s a full night’s sleep again?) but the mood swings have been horrible. Never knowing from one minute to the next whether you’re going to want to laugh or cry; shit or go bust is not fun. So I say again, I feel good today. The day started badly oddly enough. I had planned on making some mushy peas (Ambrosia of the Gods) today and to that end had put the peas in to soak yesterday. Anyway when I came to cook them off I bolloxed it up but recovered the situation enough so that I now have enough pea soup for lunch at work every day next week – yay me! After that I got on and decorated a triple layer chocolate fudge cake. One of our team is leaving tomorrow and I promised her I would go all out on a cake for her. I think I’ve kept my promise! (I will quite happil...

Good morning you lovely people Apparently May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so to get the ball rolling I just want to say my name is Phil and I suffer from Endogenous Depression. Most of the time like everyone else I’m OK, but every so often I need to take a break and reset my clock and this happened recently and my GP suggested changing my prescription which I was happy about. The only problem is the transition period which I’m in now. It’s horrible; swathing mood swings, ennui, headaches, pressure and apathy. It’s going to be a fun couple of weeks. I’ve had this for the past couple of days. I went into work yesterday and finished off a job I had promised someone and then came home as I could feel myself sinking fast. To try and alleviate that feeling this morning I thought I would cut and split a cord of pine for use with the fire pit and brazier; exercise is brilliant for helping my mood. It’s even better when the sun is shining! I got everything asse...