I originally wrote about StrengthsFinder on our Touchwood website as we were investigating how this online survey and personal development tool could be used to develop teams and groups — particularly in non-profits and social groups. I’m posting about it here as well because knowing and honing your strengths is a sound survival strategy. We’re [...]

Orkney walks When I first came to Orkney over 10 years ago, I was not impressed by the apparent walking opportunities. It has taken me years of exploring but now I can proudly say that has changed. I have found fantastic places to go, many off the beaten track where few, even locals, tread. Orkney inland [...]

Here are some of Orkney’s many wonderful places to visit – from a tour with Malcolm. Orkney is always atmospheric, memorable and surprising – a land of history preserved in stone, protected by distance and heritage, and now open to exploration – right on our doorstep. Here are some of the favourite places we love: [...]

So you want to make fire, without using matches or magnifying glass or even a flint and steel? Here are a few tips to focus you on the most important aspects … get a drink and settle down to read this blog … Ultimately, if you really want it bad enough, you will get it, [...]

I have just returned from exploring the Shetland Islands – the most northerly place in Britain, over 60 degrees latitude. I organise and lead private tours there, taking people to the best of Orkney and Shetland, using either B&B or simpler accommodation. This is an account of the simpler way: Watched puffins (early August) and [...]

I took photographs of some of the trees growing on Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands, for two reasons: To show that trees do grow in Orkney and to show how they cope with the strong winds and shorter growing season (sunlight). I have taken the opportunity of snow to contrast against the limbs, [...]

It was 8oC and it was hammering it down. Yet here I was, fully gortexed-up, barefoot on a beach on Orkney and heading for the sea. After a lifetime of stomping about the countryside in hiking boots, walking barefoot is a strange, but bizarrely enjoyable, experience. “Walking barefoot is a metaphor for how we should [...]

I am passionate about the lost art and science of what is termed “Natural Navigation“, or ‘emergency navigation’ – the skill or reading nature’s clues to find your way without map, compass, gps or signposts. To start you off, here are my favourite books on the subject, which you can all find online. My favourite [...]

What are the best books to buy about survival and bushcraft? The best 10 books on the subject from my library, are listed below: Mears, Ray – Outdoor Survival Handbook Brown, Tom – Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival Kochanski, Mors – Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and wilderness survival Gatty, Harold – Finding your way [...]

Here are my notes, scribbled first on paper over the last weekend, when we had no electricity for the March Spring Equinox and Power Off Weekend II – please excuse it jumping from past to present tense, this is how I wrote it: Friday … Worked like crazy to get the new Five Senses website live [...]