Equipment
Folk write in and ask what I take with me, so I have put it down. It is not a lot and none of it is fancy. Where I know the date I have given the date. Where I only know the year I have given the year and left it at that, as a made up date is worse than no date.
Everything on here is in service, retired or lost. In service means it comes out with me or it is used. Retired means it has stopped doing the job and I have kept it. Lost means I cannot put my hand on it. There is no category for things I have given away, because I have not given owt away.
The flasks are at the bottom in their own ledger. There have been four and they want setting out properly.
Carried
in service
The notebooks
Acquired: October 2009 onwards · From: the stationer's in town, mostly
Eleven of them, counting the one in the bag. The first were a red exercise book from the newsagent and it did 2009 to 2011, which tells you how little I were writing down in them days.
Notebook four has lost its spine and wants holding down while you read it. One of the later ones is a black one off the market and another Our Linda bought me in the January sales, hard cover, which is the best of them. The ten that are finished live in the drawer in the back room. The current one lives in the bag and comes in the house at night.
in service
The pencil
Acquired: 2009 · From: already in the bag
It has been in the side pocket since Notebook 1 and it has never once let me down. It does not have to be good. It has to be there. It finished September 2012 for the biro and half of June 2025 for the pen after that.
in service
The pens
Acquired: various · From: the merchant's, then the stationer's in town
Blue biro out of the box at the merchant's for most of the early years. A black Bic did the whole of 2014 and the handwriting is steadier for it. The one I bought in 2022 ran out in June 2025 halfway down a page, so I bought two of the same, one for the bag and one for the drawer. The drawer one has not been needed yet.
The printed pens are a separate matter and they are on the Shop page. I use one of them myself and have done since April 2016.
in service
The folding stool
Acquired: April 2016 · From: the camping shop in town
Aluminium legs, canvas seat, folds flat. It lives in the boot of the car and it has been in there ten year. The canvas has gone at one corner and I have not done owt about it because it holds fine on the other three.
I said on the Reviews page I would write it up once I had owned it long enough to say summat useful. That is this year. I have not got round to it.
retired April 2016
Sitting arrangements before the stool
Acquired: not acquired · From: walls, gateposts, the dry bit of a bank
Seven year of sitting on walls and damp grass. Our Linda said summat about the state of my trousers and that were the end of it.
in service
The bag
Acquired: 2012 or thereabouts · From: Stuart at work, off the trade counter
Green canvas, one long strap, two side pockets. Our Linda packs it. I have never asked her to and I have never had to check it.
in service
The sandwich box
Acquired: 2014 · From: Our Linda (it were hers first)
Sandwiches go in foil, so the box is for what goes with them. A Penguin, an apple some days, and whatever Our Linda has decided I should be trying that week.
There were a second one the same. I could not tell you where it is.
in service
The waterproofs
Acquired: 2013 · From: the camping shop in town
Navy jacket, hood, two big pockets. It is not as waterproof as it were but it is waterproof enough for the length of time I stop out.
The overtrousers that came with it are retired. They made a noise when you walked and I could not settle to it.
lost
The cloth tape measure
Acquired: March 2015 · From: Our Linda, for the stiles
She said she never used it, though I have my doubts about that. It measured three stiles and then the stiles stopped. It is in the house somewhere.
For the photographs
in service
The camera
Acquired: February 2018 · From: Argos in town
Digital, and it is the same one I use today. The photographs come out grainy. I have never bothered to fix that. They suit the subject.
Eight year is long enough to say it has been a good camera, and I would say so on a reviews page if I had got the flask finished first.
in service (the third one)
The telephones
Acquired: 2009, 2016, June 2026 · From: the shop in the Kingsgate, latterly
The first one took the photograph of the boot in the gateway near Marsden in October 2009 and it were no good in low light, which is most of what I walk in. The second did seven year without any trouble.
There is a mark on the lens of this one, bottom right corner. It is grease of some sort. I have cleaned it twice with the cloth off me reading glasses and it is still there, so it is in all of them now. I have stopped trying.
in service
The little stand for the telephone
Acquired: July 2026 · From: Our Linda, birthday
I had been standing the telephone up on walls, which works until it does not. She saw the one where it went over. It folds up to the size of a matchbox and it goes in the side pocket with the pencil.
in service
The drone
Acquired: July 2026 · From: Our Linda, birthday
It goes up over the house and it goes further than that if you let it. There were a shoe out on the road the first time I had it up and I would not have seen that from the path, so it has earned its keep already.
The battery is twenty minutes and then it is not twenty minutes, it is nowt. I have a second battery on order.
in service
The camera that spins when you click on it
Acquired: June 2026 · From: unknown
It come in a box addressed to me with no note in it and no invoice. I have asked Gary, I have asked Our Linda and I have asked Stuart. Still don't know who sent it.
It sits above the front door and it turns to follow you, which you can also make it do yourself by clicking on the picture. It puts things on the internet on its own an' all. I did not ask it to. I am looking into it.
Light
in service
The torch
Acquired: 2011 · From: Stuart at work, when the merchant's changed stock
A Maglite. It lives on the shelf in the airing cupboard and it is the reason the shoe behind the boiler were found at all, as I had me hand in there putting it back.
The light is too white for photographs. The one I took of that shoe looks like the shoe is on the moon. I put it up anyway because it is what I have.
in service
The head torch
Acquired: June 2026 · From: the camping shop in town
An elastic band with a light on it. It lights about six feet and everything past that is black, which I had not thought through before I went up on the tops with it.
Kept at home
in service
The ring binders
Acquired: 2012 onwards · From: the stationer's in town
One to a year, on the shelf in the back room. They hold the printed photographs and the typed up pages. 2009, 2010 and 2011 share the one binder as there weren't the material to fill three.
Sixteen binders and a gap on the end where 2027 will go. I have bought that one already, which Our Linda has remarked on.
in service
The folder
Acquired: early 2015 · From: the stationer's in town
This is the Heckmondwike folder and it is not a ring binder. It is a green document wallet with a flap. It holds five reports, two letters from Barry, a photograph I am not confident in, and my own notes from the hollow near Emley in October 2017.
It has been open eleven year. It stays open.
in service
The car
Acquired: 2015 · From: the garage on Manchester Road
A blue Vauxhall Astra estate. It is not a new car and it were not a new car when I got it. It goes in to the same garage every March for the MOT and it has never failed one.
The stool lives in the boot. There were summat else in the boot in May. That is dealt with elsewhere on the website and I will not go over it here.
The Flask Ledger
There have been four flasks in the seventeen year and I can account for all of them. I have given the dates of service and how each one finished, because that is the part people leave out of a review and it is the part that matters.
No. 1
Pint flask, green, glass lined
In service 2009 to March 2010 · From: Our Linda's mother, some years beforeretired
Broke on a stile near Scammonden, March 2010. I set the bag down on the step stone and it went over, and you could hear what had happened without opening it. I carried it home in pieces rather than leave it up there. You only make that mistake once.
No. 2
Thermos Stainless King, 0.47 litre, stainless steel
In service March 2011 to date · From: the hardware shop in town, 19 pounds 99
Steel throughout, which after No. 1 were the whole point. Dropped once on the towpath at Slaithwaite onto stone and there is a dent near the base, which I now use to tell which way round it is in the bag without looking. The washer in the stopper perished in 2019 and Thermos sent a replacement free of charge, which I thought were decent of them. That is the only maintenance it has had. It is reviewed at length on the Reviews page and it has the fifth star. It has not been retired and it will not be.
No. 3
Pint flask, red tartan
In service 2017 to date · From: Our Linda's mother's house, when it were cleared
This is the one that goes out with me now. I could not tell you when that changed or why, only that it did, the same as the weather going into the notes. It is battered and the tartan has gone pink down one side where it has sat in the car window. The stopper is stiff and I do not get it first time. Our Linda does it before I set off. It were mislaid in the house for a fortnight in September 2026 and it has turned up.
No. 4
Half pint, stainless, part of a set
Not in service · From: Marjorie, Christmas 2020retired
It came in a box with a hip flask, which I have no use for either. It holds a cup and a bit. There is no walk in this district where a cup and a bit is the right amount, so it has stopped in the cupboard. It is a well made thing and I want that recording in case anybody thinks I am being unkind about it.
That is the lot. If summat new comes into service I will add it, and if summat goes I will say so and say how. Best wishes, Keith.