Last Thursday afternoon Myself and John drove to Lulworth Castle. Quite a distance just to visit a pretty part of Dorset you might think. Well the reason being that we were attending the Final Team presentation of Dorsets 100th Princes Trust team. This is quite a milestone for any Princes Trust franchise. We have run nearly all of their week 2 residentials and so we know their staff past and present very well. It was a great opportunity to catch up with a lot of old faces (certainly older). Well done to Dorset Fire and Rescue Service and here's to the next 100 teams. Not sure if I will still be running teams by then though, it does take a while to reach 100 teams!!!! Lulworth Castle was a great location for such an occassion. It was a late night however for us as we did not make it to our beds until gone 01:00 due to the long drive back.

On Sunday John and Sam headed off up to the River Wye to run our High Hopes river trip with Mick and 4 clients. This is a popular trip amongst our High Hopes clients and we have run this river journey for the last 10 years. We use to run a trip along the Brecon Canal but we stopped due to one year the canal was empty due to a serious breach. Would have been more of a Brecon canal walk. We have two residentials running this week, a Princes Trust team and I am running a different programme for the week for a team from Woking.

Yesterday I cycled a 40 mile route in preperation for this weekend. This will be when 6 intrepid cyclists don their Lycra and cycle clips and head off for John O Groats. Hopefully the trip will take us around 3 weeks. So we will not be breaking any records but it will be an adventure nonetheless. At least the weather has gone milder, although a little damp!!!

I will try and update the blog whilst I am away, with probably a little help from Martin.

Unlike my last blog entry I will get this right first time. Here goes!!

Last week seven outdoor instructors went back to school. We had to attend 4 days of minibus CPD. This invovled 4 days of powerpoint presentations on subjects that were not necessarily relevant to us but were none the less hoops we had to jump through. It was bit like seven schoolboys having to sit in on a school detention. Well done to Dave on delivering a solid and informative course despite the almost unruly candidates. All that was missing was a ride home on the school bus, which now we are unfortunately qualified to drive!!!! Only if it was within 50km of our base or if not we drive to EU.......AHHHH!!!! Going to stop there before I have to take my break!!! 

Our WGL assessment over the weekend was a wet affair for the most part especially on the Saturday. Unfortunately I had a wedding to attend on the Saturday which meant John would do that day and the night walk that evening. When I dropped John and the three canditiates off in Postbridge the mist was descending and the rain was beginning fall. Once I had waved them farewell I turned the heater up in the van and returned to base. As the day progressed the rain increased. Whilst at the wedding reception I even took my jacket off as I was getting too warm. I think at that moment in time after speaking to John, he had just got in from a very wet day and was about to rest before going out on the night nav. I thought of John for a little while whilst I queued up at the bar. In the morning when I met up with John he told me that it was probably the worst visibility he has walked in at night for a long time. John reckoned that the visibility was down to less than 4 metres and with the heavy rain making the terrain underfoot difficult to tell streams from paths. He told me that at one point he even got he compass out, must have been bad!!!! The weather the following day was a little better and it was my turn to take the candidates on their final day. Think John was pleased to dry out. Whilst out we even came across a newt walking on top of the grass. Must have been wet if newts were even avoiding the moor. 

This week John is out with the Kelly Adventure Centre running their SPA training. I have a week in the office which will give myself time to sort office affairs before next week. That will be my final week before we depart on our bike ride. Both Myself and John are up to Lulworth Castle this Thursday for the final presentation evening of Dorsets 100th Princes Trust team. Well done Dorset Fire and Rescue Service on acheiving 100 teams.

Apologies for the out of focus picture. It was raining and I was using a different phone. I know it will not win any wildlife photo competitions!!! 

Just for the record this is my second attempt at a blog entry for today. I was just in the process of entering my last photo when the screen went blank. With words like "Oh, Fiddle and Crumbs that wasn't sporting" here goes another try.

Well what has happened up here at Spirit over the last couple of weeks? I can now put your minds at rest. The temperature up here at Powdermills has not crept above freezing for nearly two weeks and when for a day it get milder it just poured with rain. The wind has certainly played its part in keeping the the arctic chill with us. As my Grandfather use to say "Thats a lazy wind, it can't be bothered to go around so it just goes straight through you!!". He wasn't wrong, as no matter how many layers we put on it never seems enough. Last Tuesday I saw a Wheatear up here at Powdermills, the first this year. I haven't seen it since so it may be the last as it probably packed its bags and has gone back south to warmer climes. 

The week before last I was running a Princes Trust team and despite the cold all was going well. On the Friday when the team were due to attempt their Final Challenge the heavens opened. When I drove through Dousland that morning the road was flowing like a river. The water rushing off the hills was pretty impressive and as you can imagine the rivers were running well!!! With persistent heavy rain and gale force winds we decided to tweak the challenge slightly. It wasn't even nice weather for ducks!!! With the new challenge in place the team had a successful morning albeit a very wet one. The following Sunday we were running a Marie Curie abseil off Meldon Viaduct. It was a though we never had any wet weather. There was an Arctic chill in the air and again the wind had returned. With the prospect of standing under a bridge a 100ft above the ground in those conditions I put on as many layers as I could. I could barely move but I was pleased to be wearing all those layers. Well, I say that but to get to the abseil site you had to cross many metal bars that made up the structure of the bridge. This made an obstacle course that would have even been a test for even Colin Jackson to hurdle successfully. I made this trip about ten times throughout the day shuttling cows tails and taking my turn to abseil the participants. Despite a few participants feeling the cold it was a great day. I think the final number of participants was over 60.

Last week we had the Clayesmore Gold DoE practice expedition. With the forecast of more cold and icy weather on the way the decision was made to camp them close to our bunkhouse instead of remote sites around the south moor. The first night was a very cold affair and the bunkhouse was duly used the following night. With the three groups walking deep into the south moor we decided to follow them more closely than usual. Some days saw Myself, Mike and Alan walking around 20km. I even visited Ducks Pool for the first time in a long time, it wasn't very busy there but it was very bleak and cold!! At times standing on the hills sides it was painful to look into the brisk cold wind. Our faces were certainly weathered at the end of each day and were glowing accordingly. The groups made it to the end of the week and had their final days walking last Friday. 

Even though the clocks changed over the weekend the shorts have stayed in the wardrobe. Not even Martin has dared to brave this cold weather as is the usual tradition here a Spirit. I have a WGL training course over the next three days and it looks to remain cold, but at leats it will be dry.

With thoughts of a long hot and balmy summer ahead of us (we are all entitled to dream!!!) we will be runing a week long summer camp down at Dartmouth at the end of July. For more details follow the link http://www.youngspiritsummercamp.co.uk/. In about three weeks time I will be heading off to John O Groats on my bike with a group of like minded individuals who are not relishing the prospect of cycling and camping in the cold. We will be starting from Lands End so I am hoping the wind will change direction. I don't wish to be cycling into a cold easterly, it will be a holiday after all.

I am going to quit now before I have to remember all this for third time.