New Kit: Meindl Boots

These boots are my babies!  I love these boots, and they love me - in that, I mean that I look after these boots: I wax them, I proof them, I clean them, and in return they don't give me blisters, and they don't let the water in.

These are the Women's Burma Pro GTX - when I first bought them, they looked gorgeous and suede-ish, but I swapped the visual appeal for additional waterproofing, and applied a liberal amount of boot wax, making them appear more like leather.  I bought these from George Fisher in Keswick last summer, and on their maiden walk, I took them up Scafell Pike (probably a bit of a risk, but I had faith in these little beauties).

So, in the year that I've had them, these boots have gone up Scafell Pike twice, around various Lake-District lakes, and have trawled around 150 miles around Dartmoor, and haven't once afforded me a blister.

On Scafell Pike.  Another planking shot!  And, oh look!  New Boots!

New Kit: Rab Gaiters

My birthday present from my Nan and Grandad!  Well, I was given the money, and told to spend it on kit; I needed a new pair of gaiters, so I bought a pair of Medium Rab Latok Alpine Gaiters.

One of my favourite features about these gaiters is that you can hide away the annoying elastic at the back of the gaiter!  The product designers at Rab obviously have had the same problem that I have, in that that relentless piece of elastic constantly would twang into my leg, and leave me with bruises all up my calves!  So they sorted it, giving a loop to tuck it into, solving this problem - and not something that I've seen other gaiters do.  Something else that I thought was superior, is that you do not have to cut the under-boot strap to adjust it, meaning that it is a pair of gaiters that can be used with different boots, and for different people.  The in-gaiter adjustment system means that you can alter the length of this strap without cutting the excess off, and means that you can lend your gaiters to another member of the family with no problem at all.  The final factor in the choosing of this particular set of gaiters is that there is no zip to break!  The simple velcro system means that they are really easy to get on and off, and I'll never get stuck in them like I had with my old pair.

New Kit: Helly Hansen Base Layer

I've been on an extended shopping spree for new kit over the last 6 months, and my next few posts will be based on what I've bought.

My most recent purchase is my base layer by Helly Hansen, called "Lifa."  I went for "magenta" on top and black on bottom.  It's a fantastic piece of kit, I bought the set (top and bottom) for £39.00 from Cotswold Outdoor, and I'm really pleased with it.  I chose it over the alternatives for a couple of reasons: as a wicking layer, it moves sweat away from the skin - so it will keep me really cool when it's hot, but also keeps me dry so that I don't get cold either.  This will be ideal for my walking in the Lake District, as it always rains, at least for a little bit, every day.  Something that you can't really see from the picture is that this is a mesh-type fabric, and not a lycra-type fabric like people often use when out running.  This makes it a lot more breathable, once again keeping me dry.  Let me quote what it says on the box: "Dry Equals Warmer! The key to staying warm, is keeping your skin dry.  While traditional baselayer fibers hold moisture next to your skin, Lifa Stay Dry Technology moves the moisture away from the skin, keeping you warm, dry and comfortable".  That pretty much sums it up really.

The other reason I went for this particular product is because its able to be used as both an extra layer to wear under my other kit, but can also be worn as an outer layer on its own, when it's warmer.  When I go walking, I like to look chic, and don't like my layers flapping around, so this is ideal for me.

The picture above is me in my 'old' kit, planking on the top of "Sail"- one of Wainwrights peaks in the Lake District, a walk that I completed last Summer from Braithwaite, where we stayed at the lovely Farm House cottage in the centre.  Credit for this photo goes to a good friend of the family, Paul Taylor, who joined my dad, my dog - Zorro - and I on the walk with his wife Jenn and adorable dog, Fluke.  We walked all the way to Grassmoor (not Grasmere, might I add), and just got to our destination before it started to rain, so we didn't stay long!

A Level Revision

Exams are coming up, and I've started on my revision.  This year, I'm taking History, English Literature and Government and Politics to A2 level (all on Edexcel) and I'm also taking Critical Thinking to AS (this is OCR).

The Plan:

Well, I've got a Politics mock on Monday, so I've got a lot of revision to do today, but luckily over the last few weeks, I've spent about 20 hours making a set of 200 flashcards, and about 60 'Top Trumps' style cards.  (I like to be creative with my revision!)

Of the books that I've been looking at, obviously I've been using the exam textbook provided by Edexcel, but I found that it wasn't sufficient for everything I needed to know.  The school recommended "Political Identities" by Andrew Heywood (who is one of the Chief examiners) and I have found that really helpful, but the best book I've found is "The Politics Book" - it is absolutely fantastic for political thinkers!  Thought the one downside (as with most supplimentary politics books) is that it doesn't class Multiculturalism as an ideology in itself, when the exam board has allocated it a whole topic.  So examples are hard to come by.

One of the more interesting examples that I've found seems to be an example for conservatism, but I'm not sure whether I'd be able to use it in an exam.  It deals with the thinking of the ancient Chinese leader and philosopher: Confucius.  I've found that it deals with an early form of patriarchy - and that the idea seemed to be that the leader is seen as superior and of purer morals, and that as the people can learn from example, a strong leader can teach them good morals.  This appears to be a really good justification for patriarchy and monarchy, but as it is so early I'm going to need to check if I can use it.

As a politics student, I've found that examples of political thinkers are gold-dust in exams, so would definitely recommend this book to anybody taking the same course.

At the moment, I have precisely 19 days until my first exam (scary!).  Managing my school work and paid work is becoming increasingly difficult, so am going to ask to stop being given shifts after next weekend so that I can start working really hard.  On average, I have been revising 7 hours a day (at weekends) and about 2 hours a night on school nights - when I don't have work - and I'm feeling 100% more prepared than I did at this point last year.  I'm hoping everything's going to pay off!

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What you know you know

Thought I should probably start blogging about serious things again, and today I found a book that really caught my interest.  It's called 'The Politics Book' and I found it in my school library, and I've been using it to support everything that I've been learning in politics.  Amongst all of the political thinkers that I've been studying at school: Marx, Hegel, Burke, Locke, Rawls, etc, I found a quote from an ancient philosopher called Confucius.

"What you know, you know, what you don't know, you don't know, this is wisdom."

For a minute I didn't know where I heard this before, but I realised that although we didn't look that far back in politics, we did look at a speech by Donald Rumsfeld (who was the US Secretary of Defense at the time of 9/11).

"There are known knowns.  There are things that we know that we know.  There are known unknowns.  That is to say, there are things that we know that we don't know.  But there are also unknown unknowns.  There are things that we don't know that we don't know."

I found this particularly interesting for two reasons: first, it occurred to me how principles and thoughts, even as early as 500 BC, echo through speeches and thought throughout history.  Second, I find the concept of unknown unknowns fairly ominous.  The idea that there are things that weren't even considered as options is understandable in retrospect, but if you look at the example of 9/11, arguably there were signs that could have been taken into account.  Does this mean that we're missing real signals of things that might happen in the future every day?  Probably.  And doesn't that make you just a little bit paranoid?

I think Confucius had it right, it's the knowing that makes us wise, whether this is knowing that we're safe in our knowledge, or knowing that we don't know and being able to prepare for it.  This is wisdom.  But the unknown unknowns...

Lord of the Rings Birthday Party

A couple of days ago, all of my hard work from the last month cultimated in my 18th birthday party!  I thought I'd share some of the pictures and experience with you :)

Upon arrival, my guests entered through a hobbit size door which I had made out of a huge piece of cardboard and mounted just inside my front door (to keep it dry!)

 

I also made some little wine glass charms out of FIMO clay, each representative of one of my guests dressed up as their assigned character!

 

 

Upon arrival, we all had afternoon tea (the first of our hobbit meals) made up of tea and scones with cream and jam - whilst watching the Fellowship of the Ring (all films were in special extended edition).  After the film ended, at about 7pm, we went into the dining room for dinner.

 

Dinner Menu

 

Starter

A choice of roasted red pepper or leek and potato soup, served with freshly baked lembas bread

Main

Roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings

Dessert

Tarte au citron and summer fruit and apple pie

 

After dinner, we brought through the cake (though we were too full to eat it straight away!)  I had made a checkerboard cake (chocolate and vanilla sponge) and decorated it as a hobbit house, this took in total about 4 hours.  To create the 'wooden' effect, I marbled brown food colouring paste through fondant, and I textured the door using a cocktail stick, using a gold sugar ball for the handle.  I used small ivy leaf cutters for the leaves, and coloured buttercream green and piped using a no. 233 icing nozzle. 

 

 

After dinner, we watched the second film and got really tired, so decided to head downstairs to sleep.  The intention had been to stay up to watch the first half of Return of the King, so that everybody could be in the mood to face Shelob (my paper mache spider) when we got downstairs into my bedroom.  However, this was not before playing the 'ring doughnut game,' tying ring doughnuts from string and hanging them from the curtain rail, and having to eat them without using our hands - my friend Aggie was named 'Lord of the Rings.'

 

 

 

In the morning, we woke up and had first and second breakfast, cereal and tea for first breakfast, and a warm fruit drink and blueberry pancakes for second breakfast.  We then moved back into the living room and watched the final film before everybody left at 11am.

 

And so ends the chronicle of my 18th birthday!  Subscribe, +1 and comment!



Lord of the Rings Invitations

This evening I've been working on the invitations.  I've taken inspiration from MentaDesigns on deviantart, but am making a few changes to make these invitations really my own.  If you want copies of any of the borders or anything, message me and let me know.

  Including me, there are going to be 9 people at my party.  This means 3 hobbits, 3 elves and 3 (wo)men.  I've decided to do slightly different invitations for each race, so different colour schemes and different embellishments on each border.  I've tried to go for something that symbolises each race: an Evenstar for Elves, a Tree of Gondor for Men, and I was going to do a smial (hobbit house) door for the Hobbit invitation, but I ended up doing the Tolkien signature instead because it looked really cool.

Step One: Cut card to size!  I've used card by Core'dinations in 'Leapfrog' (Green), 'Ming' (Dark Blue), and 'Dream of Wheat' (Beige/Peach)

Step Two: Fold.  You can do this however you like, but I folded a small panel, followed by two larger equally sized panels.  These split into 1 x 6cm and 2 x 11.5cm.

Step Three: The computer editing stage.  I used PowerPoint, it was fairly basic to do.  I basically intertwined 'curve' lines that went around the border of my page in different shades of silver, gold or bronze.  I used silver for the "elf" invitation, gold for the "man" invitation, and bronze for the "hobbit" invitation.  At the top of each page within the border is an icon which represents each race, i.e. a Tolkien signature, an Evenstar or a Tree of Gondor.  Contact me if you want me to send you the templates that I used.

Step Four: print and stick everything on!  

Step 5: I made mini envelopes so that I could put some Polaroid style pictures of LoTR characters within for costume inspiration, I made this out of a cream coloured weighted paper and stuck it onto the envelope.

Step 6: Seal - (see my Wax Seal post for more details of this).

Et voila!