Holy moley

It's been a busy one since last week's aquatic 1st aid course. Aside from the day job, I've:

• Spent a day mountainbiking at Gisburn Forest, riding the red and black graded "The Eight" route including the Slab and Hully Gully sections.
• Met with people at Creative International Adventures in Halifax and have agreed to work with them delivering the Duke of Edinburgh's Award in the Calderdale area.
• Brought colleagues on board at Leeds City College with my AspireCamp project. An outdoor activities residential retreat to encourage career planning and progression.
• Watched a couple of good films, 127 Hours and The Reader.
• Moved our house moving plans on a little, and
• Took a walk in the Yorkshire Dales where I came across this sorry sight.

Culling moles seems such an unecessary activity these days.

Update - 7/2/11

I've since read a bit more about the issue of culling moles and there are some sound reasons why culling occurs.

Mole hills can:

• Cause damage to farm equipment (eg. mowers)
• Cause contamination of silage with soil which reduces its nutritional value and can communicate diseases
• Encourage growth of thistles which reduces the nutritional value of the sward.

Justification is a different matter, I guess. Depends of on the scale of infestation/problem and whether alternatives exist. One of the sources I looked at had this to say:

"...while most farmers perceive Moles as pests, the damage which is attributed to them is slight on the great majority of farms. Control of Moles was none the less common and widespread..."

The question remains, in my mind, that if the damage attributed to moles (by farmers) is only considered slight, why the common and widespread culling? Maybe the damage is slight because of culling? Maybe logic is only part of the answer?

References -
http://tinyurl.com/4wdf5zh
http://tinyurl.com/497u5hx

Not waving...

I spent today on an aquatic 1st aid course at Bradford and Bingley Canoe Club delivered by Helen Underwood of Underwood Training.

As is typical, when outdoors people get together, there is a good deal of black humour around the subject of injury and death. Hopefully, however, if we are ever confronted with a situation where our 1st aid skills are called upon we will not be found wanting.

Much of the session focussed on the many ways one can drown. It's not simple. A number of factors come into play which influence the treatment and survivability of drowning casualties:

• Dry drowning
• Fresh water versus salt water drowning
• Secondary drowning
• Hypothermia and the role of the mammalian diving reflex

The lightness of spirit with which we discussed this made me think of Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning" which, on one level, is about how a fragile front of jolly bravery sometimes masks the more sombre facets of existence. Perhaps a degree of delusion helps us to swim boldly out into life's current, avoid its undertows and fulfil our potential.

Any road up. Get yourself on a first aid course. You never know when you might need to bring someone to shore. I highly recommend Helen and Underwood Training.

Using my head

Woahhh, thwack, crunch, unghhh, oof, ha ha ha!

It was in a fit of giggles that I ended up in a heap in a brambly ditch on Thursday's night ride last week.

Thursday night's mountainbike route. Look out for that tree

In a continuing effort to purge a lingering cold, I'd set off up Altar Lane. Pausing at the top to recover I met  a group of local bikers and together we explored the cheeky trails on Harden Moor.  Descending through St. Ive's I misjudged:

1. My speed
2. The adhesive qualities of my front tyre
3. The frictional properties of muddy pine needles
4. The proximity of a tree

Bang. There I was in a ditch having used, first, my left shoulder and then my head to stop myself against a particularly unyeilding larch tree. My helmet (a 6 year old, budget Giro Indicator) had certainly done its job as I was almost completely unscathed while the helmet's cradle had snapped, absorbing energy that otherwise would have been borne by my head.

Helmet showing minor damage to the shell

Snapped cradle means a replacement

Three days later my body is still a little stiff and bruised but thankfully my cerebral qualities, such as they are, are still intact. My new helmet's a Giro Hex.

Bradley Wood, High Ropes Training 2

Today I attended a training course at Bradley Wood Scout Campsite. The aim was to teach us how to use the high ropes structure with groups in safety.

This is what greeted us out of the gloom on arrival.

High Ropes Structure at Bradley Wood

The structure has three elements. From left to right:

• Jacob's ladder - logs suspended horizontally at increasing distances from bottom to top. A team work activity.
• Balance features - inclined log, horizontal log and high wire with "monkey ropes".
• Leap of faith - pole mounted platform with trapeze.

We completed elements of the structure (to get a flavour of what our clients experience), belayed one another and carried out rescues (using a Petzl I'D device, which I'd not used before) from high on the structure.

Escapable traversing belay system

Belaying involved using chain or cable ground anchors (tied in with a clove hitch), an escapable belay loop and a Petzl Grigri device.

Later the day warmed up (slightly) and it was fun to play on the structure and catch up with colleagues from Bradford Met Adventure Activities Development Unit and Wild Ways Adventure.

Shooting the breeze under Jacob's ladder

A quiet one

Christmas is often a time for doing very little, hooking up with friends and family; some reflective and relaxing "down-time" at the end of a busy year and time for planning what to do with the new one.

This Christmas has been more inactive than usual due to a cold. That said, I wasn't entirely idle. Of course, like everyone else, I got out for walks with friends to enjoy the snow. I made a special effort to haul myself out of my sickbed to see the lunar eclipse on December the 21st, the winter solstice.

The moon at the start of its eclipse. From my bedroom window.

More photos here.

I got out to do some birdwatching, the highlight being 2 bittern at Leighton Moss RSPB reserve.

In a final effort to undo some of the damage caused by too much food, drink and slothfulness, and on the shaky advice of a friend  that a cold could be "driven out", I entered my first cyclocross race in Round 9 of the Yorkshire points series at "Todcross", Todmorden.

I was delighted not to have come last in the vet's category, racing for Bradford And Bingley Canoe Club, and to finish before members of some illustrious cycle teams and Here Come the Belgians.  I was less happy to be coughing violently for the next 2 hours. Results here.

This is video of the senior's race. Take it from me that 'd have been off the back in the first 30 seconds.



Footage courtesy of James Lyon and  manchestervelodrome.

Feeling better now. Thanks.

Animal signs

Found this hole and whole and eaten spruce cones under an ash tree. What left them there?

Location : Eccup Ln, Leeds LS16 8,
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