Category Archives: Culture

Whatever Happened to the Plastic Bag Tax?

September 24, 2009 – 10:07 pm

The plastic bag tax is due to increase in Ireland and is planned to be 40p per bag.  When the plastic bag tax was introduced a few years ago in the Republic of Ireland, I really thought this would be adopted in England very quickly.  Now, Ireland plans to double this tax to further deter shoppers from using plastic bags.  Yet still not one political party in Britain has picked up on this as a possible double whammy to take the environmental high ground and to solve all the budget cut issues and revenue raising in one hit.

The time is right for a plastic bag tax, even with all the environmental and climate change awareness that has been so high profile over recent months, I still see the majority of supermarket shoppers indulging in multiple plastic bags week in week out, while supermarket staff continue to try and ram plastic bags down your thoat.  As a serial fabric shopping bag fiend, I have genuinly had numerous occasions with supermarket checkout staff where I have had to almost argue I don’t need bags because I have my own shopping bags.

So the time is right for a plastic bag tax and I welcome it.  We need to raise revenue for the country, and a plastic bag tax is trivial and gives the individual a choice.  Those prefering to avoid the tax, can easily use their own shopping bags and can sleep easy at night knowing that they are saving the planet.

Maybe administering and implementing the system is less than simple.  For instance, self service checkouts are commonplace in supermarkets nowadays, but lessons can surely be learnt from the Ireland model.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Green, Politics | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

The Twitter Geo Test

March 29, 2009 – 11:28 pm

I have decided to build on the @medway_tweet engine and do the same for @barnet_tweet and @hackney_tweet. I am looking forward to seeing how these communities pan out. Using twitter as a local communication tool is realistic now there are so many users accross the board.

Since launching @medway_tweet it has been interesting watching the community build and seeing the conversation local to the area.  The same can now be said for Hackney and Barnet.

Potentially I’ll be rolling this out over about 30 areas as a trial and then around 400 areas if things work as intended.  I’m hoping these retweet bots have a positive impact on the local communtities that they are intended for. We’ll see…..

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Saturday Night in a Box

March 29, 2009 – 12:03 am

This is the place I like to go and watch a movie on a Saturday night.  ReactionGrid on OpenSim.  Each Saturday they play a crappy old movie, normally black and white.  This week a colour 1970’s voted top 19th most rubbish movie, Track of the Moon Beast.  They hold the movie to stress test their servers.  Genius idea.  Mixing business with pleasure.  So dive in and take a look.  It warms the cockles of my heart.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch, Video | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Namesakes and Doppelgangers

March 21, 2009 – 7:56 pm

twin

Since writing the @medway_tweet application, I have been thinking about the idea of opening up to include more Medway town names in the twitter search API query.  I had a conversation with Carl Jeffrey (aka @fellowcreative) about the app and he pointed out that maybe I should think about ignoring medway tweets from US twitter users, especially as there is a Rochester and Medway in the USA and this will help to filter out unrelevant and unlocal data.

But the thing with this is, it might also filter out some very relevant data.  Especially if someone living in the USA is actually referring to the Medway in Kent, UK.  It’s not a bomb proof factor.  So a concession will need to be made somewhere along the lines, whether it is a data integrity issue, false negatives or moderation.

This got me thinking.  Actually it could be a positive thing.  Meaning @medway_tweet could become an online twinning vehicle, bridging the gap for those living in Medway anywhere in the World.  Helping to build communities within a community and to share experiences.

So we’ll see how this goes and I am really looking forward to see how this app grows and evolves over time.  There is also scope to include more data inputs – suggestions welcome.

In the mean time, I am trying to figure out the best way to roll this out for other areas.

Photo courtesy of brianbutko under a Creative Commons License

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Visualising Red Noses on Twitter

March 12, 2009 – 9:04 pm

These last few days I have been developing a twitter application so we can visualise all the red noses on twitter and build a Red Nose Day 09 wall.

I was approached to do this application last week by James Governor and Amanda Rose to help drive traffic to the Digital Red Nose website where you can buy a red nose for £1 and then upload it to twitter or Facebook etc.

All you need to do to join in, is:

1. Get your Digital Red Nose from www.digitalrednose.com

2. Follow @rednosin on twitter to be added to the site.

3. Visit the wall to see all the rednoses http://rednosin.chinposin.com

We’ve turned on RSS feeds for this, so there is a Red Nose avatar feed and each user gets a homepage with their own Red Nose avatar RSS feed and wordpress or java widgets for embedding your red nose on your blog etc.  My homepage is http://rednosin.chinposin.com/home/yellowpark.

I’m hoping we can get some more mosaic type visuals happening and a big thanks to Abesh for the wordpress plug in.  Abesh – you rock.  Thanks for your help.

We have also had a pets Red Nose meme happening, which is more than slightly bizzare and they have also submitted a pets red nose wall.  Awesome :)

pets1

Tomorrow is red nose day and I expect it will be a busy day all round.  Thanks to everyone for the support on this project.  It has been fun putting it together.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Comments (0)

Watchmen Blogger Screening

March 4, 2009 – 12:37 am

Today I attended a bloggers screening of Watchmen held at Paramount Pictures International in Chiswick, London.  This is the second screening I have been to like this, the first was City of Men, last year.  Attendees were invited via twitter and I knew the assembled company would be good, so I thought I’d go along.

Watchmen is not the sort of film I would normally go and see.  I don’t really class myself as a sci-fi person and I’m not a great lover of comic films.  I also had a public bashing on twitter for admitting that I actually liked Superman 3.  Although maybe that was more to do with the fact that I was watching it on my Nokia N95, rather than the film.

If you are unaquanted with Watchmen, as I was, Wikipedia reliably informs us:

Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics in single issues during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form.

So another superhero film.  Having not read any of the comics, I was heading into the film cold and had no idea what to expect.

The cast is not star studied, but there are some great performances.  I particularly liked Jackie Earle Haley who played Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan who played The Comedian.  I enjoyed the sound track too, including 99 Red Balloons in German.

Watchmen will be classed as an 18 in the UK.  There are some extremely violent scenes.  Almost disturbingly so at times.  But in a comic way.

Visually stunning, Watchmen is a work of art and is a well crafted and produced movie, which you would expect for the $130 million.  I particularly loved the eye masks and costumes, and a serious attention to detail.  This goes hand-in-hand with the special effects.

Overall I enjoyed the movie and I’m glad I went.  Watchmen is two and a half hours long.  Did I want it to end so I could get out of there?  A bit.

By chris dalby | Also posted in film | Comments (1)

Brighton Twestival

February 21, 2009 – 2:25 am


Brighton Twestival from chris dalby on Vimeo.

On the 12th February 2009, 202 Cities around the World hosted a Twestival event, raising money for charity: water.

Shot at the Brighton Twestival, asking “What are you doing in 140 char or less?”.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Video | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Making Angels

February 5, 2009 – 1:06 am

This text will be replaced

A simple stop animation of some photos I shot during the trip to Poland last week. Created from a set of photos on flickr.

angels-thumb

By chris dalby | Also posted in Video | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

My Polish Dental Holiday

January 29, 2009 – 7:21 pm

Plush Tooths

I have been in Poland this week, making a tip to my new dentist.  That’s right, I am now commuting from the UK to Poland in the name of dental hygiene.  I have been making regular visits to my local NHS dentist since moving to Gravesend in Kent a few years ago.  However, each time I have returned feeling like the job hasn’t been done right with my teeth in a worse condition that when I went in there.  I’m not going to go into detail as such, but I felt it was time for a change.

My wife is Polish, and so I thought we should take the opportunity to spend a few days visiting family and friends in Poland and combine this with a trip to the dentist.  My wife has been telling me for years how good the dental treatment is in Poland and I have to say that I didn’t believe her.  Maybe it was my pig headedness for not believing that a poor country like Poland could have better dental care than the UK. How wrong I have been.

I have spent about 4 hours at the dentist over the last two days, having work done to rectify the bodge jobs that my local dentist had done.  Looking back now, I feel so angry how my teeth have been mistreated.  In this brief experience of Polish dentistry, I have noticed differences and similarities between UK and Polish dentists.

The major difference, and wait for it, is that I have had 4 fillings without an anaesthetic!  Yes, you read correctly.  I had four fillings and did not have an injection for the “pain”.  There was no pain.  I must admit, I wasn’t ready for this.  My wife had forgotten to tell me about this minor fact.  So I was somewhat shocked yesterday to say the least, when the dentists popped the drill in my mouth and started drilling away without an anaesthetic. Yes, I do enjoy a bit of pain, but honestly, I felt no pain at all.  I’m not just saying it.

Compare this to brain surgery, when the patient is kept awake throughout the whole operation.  So the surgeons can make adjustments according to patient reactions.  That’s exactly how it felt for me. The dentist was slow, methodical, reassuring and it genuinely felt like he was feeling the teeth and working out exactly what the problem was.  After all, numbing the area and just drilling away willy nilly goes no way to feeling the teeth. For the feint hearted, you can ask for local anaesthetic, again another fact she forgot to tell me until afterwards!

The other main difference was time.  At my dentist in the UK, every appointment they have seemed in a hurry to get me in and out, with no concern regarding whether the job has been completed to a standard.  In Poland, the dentist spent a great deal of time making sure the job was done right and discussing all the options and issues along the way.  This has never been the case for me under my UK dentist.  I even had a cup of tea half way through and watched the Australian Open tennis on Eurosport.

For all intents and purposes, the Polish dental surgery and equipment looked exactly the same as back home in the UK.  Modern, up-to-date equipment, clean, friendly and welcoming.  But they also had a few gadgets that you don’t regularly see in a UK dentist. I was shocked when he brought up on the screen a photo of my teeth before and after. I didn’t even see him take the picture.  Really great quality too.  You don’t get this in normal dentists in the UK, certainly not the ones I’ve been to.

The dentist also worked pretty much by himself.  He had an assistant, but she was doing other things and he occasionally called her for help with getting certain things.  But not that often.

All in all I am so pleased I came on this trip.  I am going home with a new smile and a new dentist.  It has cost a fraction of the price for the equivalent work in the UK and it also means we’ll have an excuse for visiting friends and family every six months.  I would recommend to anyone the Polish dentist we use.  And if needs be, I’ll also help set you up.
Image courtesy of Little Green Giraffe under a Creative Commons License.

By chris dalby | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Reducing Outgoings and Crowdsourcing Credit Cards

January 7, 2009 – 3:48 pm

twtpoll

I have had a manic day on twitter today.  It started first thing this morning, when the BBC2 Working Lunch twitter account asked:

Is another interest rate cut in the pipeline on Thursday? Is it driving you nuts or saving you money?

I decided to reply, because it is driving me nuts that I signed up for a fixed deal when the interest rates had reached a peak.  I nearly spat my coffee out when they read my comment out live on the show on BBC2.  It brought a huge smile to my face.  I don’t think I’ve heard my name on the BBC before.  I’m hoping to add the audio snippet at some point.

I then received an email from Money Saving Expert, a great website from the GMTV money man Martin Lewis, listing all the best deals and tips for saving money.  Given that I have been incredibly fed up with my current bank, I decided to take Martin’s advice and switch, gaining £100 in the process.  Easy money!

This then led to a flurry of conversations and a lot of people were wanting to move away from HSBC – one of the only banks in the UK to actually have a good year last year.  In my opinion, brought about by heavy handed tactics, like giving customers 2 weeks notice that their overdraft facility will cost them 19% interest.

I then decided to look at a new credit card deal.  0% interest rates for 18 months on balance transfers.  What’s not to like?  In keeping with my online life, I decided to crowd source the colour of my new card using twtpoll, a great tool for conducting polls on twitter and a rare mashup that doesn’t require you to enter your username and password.  Given the recent phishing scam I wrote about last night, it’s a safe tool and an excellent way of gauging immediate opinion.

I received a lot of replies about how good Martin’s Money Tips website is.  It is jam packed full of great advice for all the best deals.  It’s worth checking out.  I also received a couple of great tips about other websites with some money saving deals.

@darrengoucher suggested using Quidco to swap credit cards, “the web’s cash back co-operative”.

Neville Hobson suggested using Tesco.Net for mobile phone deals.

All in all a great day.  I’ve saved money, had a great time online and been mentioned on National TV.  Let’s hope the rest of 2009 is like this.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

License to Hack

January 5, 2009 – 7:17 pm

A story broke yesterday, on the TimesOnline, and although there was initially quite a bit of talk on twitter about it, I am surprised there hasn’t been uproar.

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

I haven’t noticed anyone on my twitter stream talking about this today, nor have I seen this on any of the national news channels.  According to the Daily Mail, there are already 4.2 million CCTV cameras trained on the public in the UK.  We truly are a surveillance society.  I have also previously read details about microphones being used on the streets of Westminster to eavesdrop on conversations.  Although this appears to have been a trial that is not being rolled out.

Maybe we are so used to this surveillance culture, that we as UK citizens are resigned to the fact that we have nowhere to go without being monitored.  And now we can’t sit in our own home without our IM, email, browsing habits and files being remotely scanned by the police.  What’s to stop them having a sneaky peak through our webcams or listening through our microphones.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing to hide.  But while CCTV does go a long way to help solving the increasing number of violent crimes in the UK, it is obviously no deterrent, otherwise we would all be leaving our front doors open when we leave the house and our streets would be the safest in the World rather than knife crime at an all time high.

I was listening to TWIT yesterday with Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak, Robert Scoble, and Dwight Silverman and they were discussing this story and how the police will actually manage to pull this off.  I mean, what sort of firewall will we need to prevent this type of infringement on our civil liberties?

I only wish the same amount of effort was being put into getting the country out of this massive economic mess we are in rather than adding another level of paranoia to this broken society.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Comments (0)

Maiden Voyage of the new boat

November 2, 2008 – 8:14 pm

We took the new canoe out for it’s maiden voyage today. I finally finished fitting it out this morning and couldn’t resist the opportunity for a test drive.

Courtesy of a post over on songofthepaddle.co.uk, we decided to go and have a flat water afternoon on the River Medway, which is only about 30 minutes drive.


View Larger Map

We got there quite late and so only had an hour on the river. But it was worth it. Gosia was in her element and a great way to spend an afternoon.

Really pleased that we’re up and running with it now and it was a good chance to check it floats! Roll on Tyne Tour next week.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Boating, Video | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

My new boat

October 4, 2008 – 5:05 pm

My new boat

After getting back from my Alps paddling trip, I just had to go out and buy myself a new canoe. I spent ages thinking about which one to get. I had my heart set on a We-no-nah 15 Prospector for a long time and was aiming to drive to the Alps trip with one of those on the top of the car.

In the end I decided on the Venture Canoes Prospector 15, for a number of reasons.

I wanted somthing that I could paddle both solo and tandem with my wife
Something suitable for flat water trips and whitewater
Something that could handle a bit of bashing around

I spent long and hard thinking about this.  It’s not the sort of thing you buy that often.  Thanks to Blue, Matt Blue and Phil Hadley for letting me bore you with my questions.  I bought this from Kent canoes that is well stocked, 20 minutes drive away and meant I could drive to the store and came back an hour later with the boat and lots of new paddling kit.

I’m really looking forward to getting this out on the water.  Next comes the job of drilling some holes in it and rigging it up with the bouyancy, painters and kneeling thwart.  Not for the feint hearted when you are drilling a hole in a perfectly servicable boat.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Boating | Tagged | Comments (1)

Final Day of Paddling the Ardeche

October 2, 2008 – 7:45 pm

My final day of canoeing was spent on Day 1 of the Ardeche River, in France.  When I say Day 1, I’m referring to the section of river you normally do if you just run the river for one day.  You get on at Creps and get off at Chame.


View Larger Map

The day started off learning to surf a wave backwards in an open canoe. We did this on the rapid called Peachy. A great training venue, we had a good play here.


Learning to surf an open canoe backwards from chris dalby on Vimeo.

After this we paddled down and found a place for lunch with Ollie Van’s group from Bicton College that were all paddling kayaks.

After lunch, we dropped down the river and eddied out top left backwards on the rapid called British Airways.


Eddy left backwards on British Airways from chris dalby on Vimeo.

To finish the day off, Charlemagne never dissapoints. Everyone descended backwards and eddied out to have a play. We had great fun here. Bashing the kayaks out the way and jumping on the wave. Great to see the tandem surfing too. Albeit in slightly small boats. After playing solo on the wave, I decided to surf the wave tandem with Blue and had a swim trying to surf the wave backwards. Shame I didn’t get that on camera, but you do see me swimming while tandem with Danny.


Charlemagne Backwards from chris dalby on Vimeo.

A cracking end to an amazing two weeks. The end of the video sums it up. The last days paddling for the whole of the season for those guys who travelled home the next day.

Thanks to everyone on Blue’s Paddle Training for making me feel welcome and sharing some memorable times. Inspiring me to run out a buy a new boat. Stay tuned for that one and more video footage.

A huge thanks to Blue, Matt Blue and Phil Hadley for putting up with me on the courses and training. Really enjoyed being a trainee in your sessions.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Boating, Video | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Paddling the Upper Ardeche

September 27, 2008 – 1:06 am

After the high jinks of the Apls, I have been glad to get down to a bit of rest for a few days and a spot of work. Being on a campsite with wifi is awesome and means I am the same as at home.

This afternoon I went paddling with Matt Blue down the Upper Ardeche. A stalwort of the GB rafting squad, I worked with Matt back in 199something. His first season, my last. He since went on a skills mission, worked many seasons on the Ardeche, worked as a raft guide on the Zambizee and now paddles on the GB Raft squad.

We had spent the afternoon driving round looking for a river worth running. Then as if by magic, it appeared that the tap had been turned on. The river started appearing high and running well. Transporting water from a reservoir, down many levels, into the town to keep the resources moving. Amazing to see resource management and movement happening. Nonetheless, we embraced the water level and had a great paddle down a few hairy rapids.

There are two rivers feeding this. The Font blah de blah de blah (apparently), and the Ardeche. A great afternoon paddling. Some great rapids. Big and bouncy. Lots of rocks.


Upper Ardeche in an Open Canoe from chris dalby on Vimeo.

After this, Matt ran back the 2k to the bus with trailor and returned to collect us and get home. We stopped off for a Mc Doo and the obligatory walk round a sports shop and I bought a new river nife and tape for rescues.

Looking forward to 4* Leader training. Bring it on.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Boating, Video | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Alps Trip – Day 3 – The Rab

September 27, 2008 – 12:34 am

Waking up after another bivvy and another night spent round a huge fire and N glasses of vino (N being the positive integer greater than 1). People were practising their bushcraft skills of making an ashtray out of a log and burning the hole using embers and sticks from the fire.

Ipod music and a great night had by all. We had already paddled back to Carlsberg after having the most amazing steak dish, with three different sauces, plus a huge salad and a strange pasta and ham dish that lived under the dangling steak and received the nasty end of of the flamed cognac. Picutres to follow.

The Rab is a nasty rapid on La Durance river, in the French alps. The import thing to remember is that rapids change. And nasty rapids eat you and change.

I was paddling tandem down this rapid and we swam like fish. I love this photo. Still paddling to the bitter end.

Paddling the Rab, on La Durance, France.

I recorded this video of everyone coming down the Rab. Not for the feint hearted in an open boat. We unanimously love the typewriter move that sucks from the chicken run to the nasty hole. We did laugh.

Check out the video here:


La Durance paddling from chris dalby on Vimeo.

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Alps Trip Day 2 – Via Ferrata

September 25, 2008 – 1:27 pm

We came to the Alps intending to canoe. However, a local Via Ferrata proved too good an opportunity not to miss. If you have never heard of a Via Ferrata, think of it as climbing for tourists. Throughout Europe, there are loads of these setup by either regional authorities to promote tourism to the area, or by commercial operations. The course consists of a fully bolted and cabled route. Wearing a climbing harness, helmet and Via Ferrata kit consisting of 2 slings with karabiners, you can safely traverse the route with virtually no risk.

This is not climbing. The course is made easy by a series of large metal staples allowing you to safely climb vertical and overhanging rock faces with virtually no climbing experience. They do leave out the odd staple here and there, to make life a bit tasty on occassion and to get the heart pumping. Especially at that height. ALso, various bridges and wires, making it look like a scene out of Indiana Jones. There are also a series of zip wires spanning both sides of the gorge at it’s highest. As we were out of season, unfortunately these were closed :(

The one we were doing was the Via Ferrata in la Durance gorge, which provides excelent views of the white water river below and the surrounding area. Not for the feint hearted, the Via Ferrata is 800m in length and 250m in height. Quite something dangling at that height off a sheer rock face with a video camera in one hand while holding on for dear life.

If you are interested in doing this, here is a link to the website of the organisation running the course.

Here is the video I shot:


Via Ferrata la Durance Gorge from chris dalby on Vimeo.

I also shot a series of mobile video as it became a bit hairy trying to dangle at that height with a video camera. Even so, still pretty difficult with a mobile!

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Alps Canoe Trip Day 1 – Serre-Poncon

September 23, 2008 – 8:24 pm

After getting to the Ardeche and settling in at the campsite, I spent the first night meeting up with the rest of the instructors on the paddling course and quaffed a few beers in anticipation of the trip.

We left the Ardeche on the morning of Friday 19th September and headed to the French Alps for Serre-Poncon, near to the town of Gap, where we would bivvy at a secluded spot right on the lake. The bivvy site, known as Carlsberg, because if Carlsberg made bivvy sites, they would probably be the best in the World.

The drive to the Alps took 5 hours, followed by the obligatory trip to Decathlon to buy a few last minute essential items of sports kit. We arrived and paddled the 2k distance in open canoes to the bivvy site in the dark.


Agrandir le plan

Map of Gap

I’ve never paddled a canoe at night before. Not like this. Not carrying 3 days worth of supplies and in truly stunning surroundings. The moon was not strong, but the stars were out and we were treated to a wonderful shooting star display and a great view of the milky way. A truly stunning place, we did not see another sole there for the whole time. Set overlooking the lake, a remarkable place to bivvy. Reminds me of everything I enjoy about being in the outdoors.

We made the 2k, pulled our boats and kit out the water and carried everything to the bivvy site to meet the rest of the instructors. When we got there, they had already setup a great camp and had a huge fire going. Everyone was sitting around, drinking wine and talking with great expectation of the days ahead. People were carving things out of wood for the camp and doing bushcraft skills. A real back to nature experience.

Here’s a video of the morning after this night.


Serre-Poncon from chris dalby on Vimeo.

At the end of this video, you will see Martin paddling an open canoe using a stick. He was dropped off to go a walk up the mountain you can see behind him by himself. Early into the walk, his rucksack straps broke and he had to turn back. Liuckily we had left a canoe over that side of the lake, but no paddles. So he paddled the 2k with a stick.

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Prologue to the Alps Canoe Trip

September 23, 2008 – 6:13 pm

If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I have disappeared for a few days on a canoe trip to the south of France. I have hooked up with a friend of mine that is running a canoe instructor training course down here and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

I arrived last Thursday afternoon, courtesy of Ryan air from Luton to Nimes and transferred to the Ardeche, South of France. My connection with the Ardeche is that I worked there for a few years when I was a lot younger as a canoe instructor. Paddling the river, teaching groups of English children how to paddle a canoe at an outdoor activity centre.

I left the outdoor education industry when I was 22, having completed 5 summer seasons working for an outdoor education company, as I felt there was not a career path capable of paying the right money for the amount of responsibility. This was shortly after the Lyme Bay incident that massively shook up the whole of the outdoor education business. And rightly so. I shudder to think how many lives I was responsible at the tender age of 22. Leading groups of 50+ people down the Ardeche river on a weekly basis in the southern French climate on a white water river. The buck stopped with me. They were the best days of my life and those memories stay with me always.

Things have changed somewhat since I left. Many of the people I worked with are now top of their game in the canoing world. Something that I hugely admire. Both professionally and from a lifestyle point of view. It’s something that I felt I would never be able to achieve. So I moved on. But I still enjoy paddling and I am making a huge effort to get out there and paddle as much as I can again. It’s something that is good for the soul. You just can’t beat a days hard paddling, followed by a few glasses of wine around a camp fire on a bivvy site.

This post should act as a bit of background to the trip, so you can understand where I came from and how much canoeing and the south of France means to me. I am recording video, taking photos and will be blogging the whole trip. The first three days of the trip should follow shortly:

Day 1 – Drive from Ardeche to Serre Poncon in the French Alps. Paddle to the bivvy site and camp out.

Day 2 – Via Ferrata – an unexpected beauty. Brought my climbing days back. Truly awesome.

Day 3 – Paddling La Durance in open canoes – A grade 2/3 river

I was inspired to blog this trip after reading the most excellent blogs by Thomas Otter about his recent Italian Cycle trip.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Boating | Tagged , | Comments (3)

My wife’s first bag video

September 15, 2008 – 11:07 am

My wife makes handbags in her spare time.  This is the first vide we have put together of her making bags.  More to come.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Video | Comments (0)