Live life outdoors

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 ...

There are two philosophies for being outside in inclement weather. The first is that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad kit, The second is that I don't mind being cold and I don't mind being wet but I don't like being both. Somewhere in the Venn diagram of where these two schools of thought meet is where I sit. On the whole I would rather be cold than wet. It's easier to warm up than get dry, especially if you're in the middle of the woods with limited dry kit available. The problem with being wet is that everything becomes a chore. For me there is actually a third weather issue that can be worse; hot weather. I'm a big guy and I sweat, a lot! When I'm out and about in the summer I tend to wear a Buff and a hat - be it a baseball cap or my favourite Tilley hat. I also try and carry a lot of water to keep myself hydrated. The ratio for the amount of water you need to carry is one litre of water for every two hours o...