galaxy hot chocolate

A great find this. I’m not a big hot chocolate drinker but occasionally having a sweet warming drink is a great morale booster. Best of all it’s not one of those calorie counting ones either with each sachet having a 20g load of carbohydrate and 484KJ of energy. Not bad for a 30g packet.

For an insulin controlled backpacking diabetic it’s a source of readily absorbable carbohydrate so I always pack a couple should I need my blood sugar level or my morale boosting.

Update: unfortunately they have 'improved' the recipe so it now contains barley gluten. This makes it no longer suitable for coeliacs.

john west salmon flakes

A new find whilst doing a circuit around Waitrose this afternoon. Looking for low sodium chicken stock cubes, I must add.

Not sure what I might cook up with this apart from, say, salmon fish cakes made with instant potato. Or added to a white sauce flavoured with dill and served with pasta.

tuna and potato supper

This is a simple meal that’s easy to prepare and is very tasty.

Ingredients
One sachet of tuna sandwich filler
One sachet of instant potato

Boil the required amount of water, make the potato, add the tuna to the potato, stir, and eat! Did I mention this was simple to prepare?

Those with a fry pan and the inclination could make tuna fish cakes with the mix.

The ones I use are John West and they come in a variety of dressings, my favourite is the sun dried tomato one.

Exped AirPillow – first look

It might seem strange that for someone who is constantly striving to reduce pack weight that I should make space for a pillow in my rucksack.

It’s simple really; I sleep on my side and need something to support my neck. Most text books state that you can make a pillow out of your spare clothes but I don’t carry much in the way of spare items. If I was packing a primaloft top or down waistcoat then chances are I’d be wearing it to boost the rating of my sleeping bag.

For a couple of years I used a Ajungilak pillow but this had developed a leak on a seam that, no matter how I tried to repair it, it would always deflate.

The full monty

The Exped AirPillow is it’s natural successor. It tips the scales at 79g, over 50g lighter than the one it replaces, and the tiny stuff sack supplied weighs a measly 5g. It has two valves on the underside, one to inflate (a one way valve) and the other to deflate the pillow. The Ajungilak had one valve with no self sealing mechanism making it a struggle to get the plug in without letting too much air out. Another plus for the AirPillow then.

Sweet dreams?

The pillow is supplied with a repair kit which is a nice touch, especially given my previous experience. The pack size is good too, being about the same size as a mobile phone.

On paper then it ticks the right boxes, all I need to do now is to get out with it and see whether it lives up to it’s promises.