It turns out it is possible to spend a long weekend in Adelaide. But, no matter how many beers you drink or how many songs you sing, it is quite tiring.

Anyway, in going to great lengths (literally) to prove this fact I did of course ignore this blog. Now, somewhat unsure whether it is dinner time or breakfast, I present a mish mash of stuff that has happened recently. Normal business will be resumed next week (probably).

Fearless Fridays

Business consultant and personal coach, Anna Lundberg, interviewed me for her excellent series Fearless Fridays. It's always strange to talk about my journey of life re-design, especially when I am in it and still unsure of how it will end up.

You can (and watch) read the interview here: Fearless Fridays: From burnout to a better way.

A new business

For the individual, one of the challenges of blogging or setting up and running a web site is the sheer volume of work, often mundane, that is required to try to make it work. In late 2016 I set about trying to alleviate this by farming out some of the work to a virtual assistant.

In the first few months of this outsourcing odyssey my experience was very negative but these days I am trying to find the positive in everything I do. In this case it actually led me to believe I could set up a business that would provide what I was looking for. Not that it doesn't exist, but I just figured I might be able to do it better.

The result is that my business bizee.co pivotted in the second half of 2017 to start providing virtual personal assistants to individuals and small business owners to help them grow by taking away the repetitive tasks. The premise is that any one running a small enterprise, whether a physical business or a blog could better spend his or her time focusing on what they do best and not necessarily on the admin side of things.

It's early days but we are working with a variety of clients who can benefit from my personal experience and the great team of VAs that we are putting together!

New articles

I have written a couple of articles with very differing themes. I was very grateful to be asked to write a piece about blogging for the excellent Business of Adventure web site.

Still in the wake of our family adventure in Serbia & Montenegro this summer the Serbian online and print publication Blic, asked me to contribute to a piece about travelling with children. It recently appeared in print and will also be online soon. I will publish an English version soon on this site.

Would you like to write a post?

And talking of new articles, in January 2018 we will start a series of guest posts. So if there is anyone out there who would like to write a post for The Armchair Mountaineer, then get in touch. I would love to feature stories of transformation - tales that demonstrate the power the outdoors in making life happier and healthier.

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Cleveland Way - Scarborough to High Hawsker

In October 2020, my friend Dave and I walked a section of the Cleveland Way in Yorkshire over a couple of days. We started from Scarborough and walked to Ravenscar (18 km). The next day we walked to High Hawsker (15 km).

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Packrafting the River Tamiš

In July 2020, in a brief respite from the worries of the covid pandemic, I had the good fortune to be able to escape for a little adventure, spending 3 days paddling down the Tamiš river in northern Serbia, in my packraft.

Interview with Emily Woodhouse - Founder of Intrepid Magazine

I recently had the pleasure to interview Emily Woodhouse, someone who is well known and someone who has been somewhat of a pioneer in giving a voice to many women in the adventure / outdoor sports world.

In this interview Emily gives me some insight into her whirlwind entrepreneurial journey and how much there is to learn from diving into a (business) adventure.

Not only has Intrepid Magazine provided something that was missing in the outdoor space but it is doubly satisfying to know it was the vision of someone who cares passionately about the subject matter, saw the importance of it and had the courage to go through with it… although I am not sure Emily herself see it as “courage”. As she says in the interview: “I looked at the hole in the magazine world and thought: I can do that”.

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Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the wallaby)

The loch was like a mirror as we set off from Luss on Friday to explore. Having walked to the high point on Inchtavannach to admire the views, and paddled around Inchmoan, watching the deer come down to the water’s edge, we agreed to spend the night on Inchconnachan for no other reason than it appeared absolutely idyllic as the sun began to sink and the evening light bathed the lake in a silvery light.

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Weekend Adventure - From lying in the sun to crying on a plane

I have mentioned a few times that my daughter is neither naturally sporty, particularly active or indeed fearless. She is perhaps the opposite. So I was especially proud that she decided on the Saturday morning, as we dithered whether to have an hour in the water at Buzz Active Cuckmere, that this was indeed the ideal opportunity for her to go solo in a kayak for the first time.

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Canoeing the Wye: Happiness V Social Media [Video]

I had so much fun this weekend that I didn’t tell anyone about it. Imagine that! The moment was way more important to me than broadcasting about it. Yes, I know it should be, but if we are honest with ourselves, it isn’t alway, is it?

I spent Friday and Saturday canoeing down the Wye with my 7 year old daughter, from Hoarwithy to Symonds Yat. It is the first time either of us has done this kind of trip and to share this adventure together was the sort of experience that makes me go all mushy and emotional…

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Wild Night Out 2019: The Whining

Travelling in ultra lightweight style (we only carried four cricket stumps instead of the full compliment of six) Emma and I marched along the coast path, over the dunes and onto the vast sands of our beautiful coast for a perfect Wild Night Out 2019, until the high-pitched whining started…

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30 Days Wild: Suburban Springwatch

One thing I decided to do this year was leave one corner of the garden wild. I don’t know how long it will last as pressure builds from within the family to “do something” with that corner but while it does last it has had a positive effect in terms of wildlife.

Perhaps the best aspect of this experiment is the fact that every night around 9pm we have a fat hedgehog who comes through our front gate, wanders through the garden to this unkempt patch of land and roots around for a couple of hours before waddling off to check out what the neighbours have to offer.

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30 Days Wild: Freshwalks: Networking in the Outdoors

This filthy-wet month, I am trying to spend time outside in nature during my working day as part of the Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild. I cannot pretend it has been as easy as last year’s sun-drenched June when gently swaying flower meadows and deserted Norfolk beaches called out to me.

However, recently a client of mine drew my attention to an innovative and inspiring initiative getting business people into the outdoors, for Freshwalks. The benefits of which might surprise a few…

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30 days Wild: Welcome to my office

“Can you repeat that please sir?” I could hear a slightly exasperated tone on the other end of the line.

This morning, a few days into June and woefully short of what I hope to achieve during 30 Days Wild, I ventured out into the meadow to make a few phone calls. I took my office outdoors! The helpful assistant from Barclays Business Banking went off for a few minutes to find out some information, and probably to curse me as my microphone was buffeted by the breeze, that bent the tall flowers surrounding me and repeatedly flicked my hood over my head.

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30 Days Wild: Switch off with Nature

We are just a few days away from June and the start of 30 Days Wild; the Wildlife Trusts amazing initiative to get people outside, enjoying and appreciating nature.

This year, as part of 30 Days Wild I will be focussing on how nature can help alleviate the stresses and strains of work and how to get more of it into the working day.

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Do you want to live more adventurously?

The decision to change my life and live more adventurously was utterly instinctive, borne of exasperation, a last resort. I was burnt out, suffering from anxiety, depressed.

How I got to the point of changing the direction of my life was a couple of years of mental wrangling and torture, until I stumbled across some inspiration.