David Carrington

Scouts night hike

Our Scouts came joint 7th out of 17 groups from around the district on the night hike on Friday. This is pretty surprising, since we had to rush back by skipping 2 bases with a shortcut. It turns out that very few teams went to all 10 bases, with one team only managing 6. My legs have recovered now, but my sleeping pattern is still a bit off.

Prawns in tikka masala sauce with pilau rice

In an attempt to expand my cooking abilities, I bought a bunch of spices and checked out a recipe for pilau rice. I’m very slowly working on becoming a better cook. Perhaps the next part is making the sauce by myself too – as I’m pretty unlikely to go catch my own prawns.

GSM stumbler failed

My attempts at making my GSM stumbler application run while my phone is sleeping has not gone well. The latest version doesn’t seem to pick up any changes of cell tower at all while the phone is off, and takes a pretty long time to discover that I’ve moved. I’ll have to look into this again.

It’s about zero degrees outside, perfect to go on a night hike for 10 miles around Cookham with a load of Scouts I’d say! Here’s how I’m packed:

Bag main compartment:

• Waterproofs
• Headlamp
• Food
• Spare map

Front compartment:

• First aid kit
• Camera
• GPS (for plotting route on the computer later)
• Spare batteries
• Wallet
• Keys
• Space blanket

Fleece pockets:

• Woolly hat
• Gloves
• Compass
• Folded up map, printed from an OS map

In the rear of the bag is a big pocket for my water bladder, 2 litres so that I’ve got plenty spare. I just need to charge my phone now and that’s me pretty much ready.

On Tuesday night I was glancing at an OS map of Maidenhead to check out a route that the 19th Maidenhead Scouts would be navigating. 4km long, with about 14 stops, and 1.5 hours to do it – it was focusing heavily on precise navigation rather than walking speed. Just to “be prepared”, I loaded up the route into both GPS devices I own.

Up comes Wednesday evening. Parking a short distance from the start point, 14 of us gathered at the start point and began the crucial first step in our two groups: making sure everyone knows where they are on the map. MP3 players removed and torches switched on, we head off on our journey into the night.

Read more »