WEEKLY BLOG EPISODE 137 | THE REAL EBENEZER SCROOGE

The main feature of this weekly blog episode should have been a trip over to Wales for a night of guided stargazing. Alas, the British weather had other ideas.

After we got so much joy from seeing the stars in the Sahara Desert back in October, having not seen stars like that since we camped near the Grand Canyon back in 2016, I bought my husband a stargazing and astrophotography experience for Christmas, which was due to take place this weekend.

Unfortunately, our guide cancelled the activity due to inclement weather. While naturally disappointed our Sunday night plans were scuppered somewhat, there’s absolutely no point going stargazing on a cloudy night. And if South Wales was anything like Gloucestershire on Sunday night, it was chucking it down. We’ll just have to get that rebooked as soon as we can (I wonder how many times we’ll have to book it before the skies over Wales clear for us?!).

My Week

Anyway, enough about what I didn’t get up to this week, how about what I did do.

I worked, of course I did, and it was once again a very busy week at the day job. They all are, I don’t know why I even note that these days.

Outside of work, I have been rather enjoying the cold snap (much nicer than all the rain we’ve been having), and how beautiful the sunrises and sunsets have been this week – and I’ve had some lovely lunchtime walks, too.

I successfully got my car’s MOT renewed, cooked some new-to-me recipes from my new recipe book Cook Out, which will feature in my currently loving post coming later this week, and sold a couple of pairs of shoes over on Vinted. At the weekend we finished the downstairs potion of our clear-out by doing a tip run and taking a couple of boxes of bits to a local charity shop, and we also installed our new ground anchors in the garage to up the security a little bit more.

In this weekly blog episode, though, let’s take you on a trip to Gloucester, muse on closing down the Outdoor Bloggers Network, and share a few other bits and bobs I feel like writing about today.

The Real Ebenezer Scrooge

Did you know that the real-life Ebenezer Scrooge lived in Gloucester? Or at least the man who inspired Dickens’ well-known character, anyway.

I’m a bit of a fan of a Christmas Carol. I don’t know what it is about the story, but it has always captured my imagination. It’s just such a good tale of nasty turns nice. It perhaps helps that I once played Scrooge in a small-scale production, getting to bellow out the famous lines including “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart”. Apparently, the part suited me.

Anyway, cue a visit to Gloucester to hunt down a blue plaque and learn a little more about the richest commoner in England.

James ‘Jemmy’ Wood

James ‘Jemmy’ Wood was a Gloucester banker. Wood inherited a hardware store and small bank from his father, which he turned into Gloucester Old Bank, becoming so shrewd a saver he died a very rich man.

Wood was incredibly reluctant to spend money. He wore rags for clothes, was dirty and unkempt, walked rather than paying for public transport (there’s a story about him being picked up by an undertaker half-way between Tewkesbury and Gloucester), and picked up coal that had fallen off the ships in Gloucester docks instead of buying his own.

When he died in 1836, Wood left an estate worth £1.25million – the equivalent of £50million in today’s money. This wasn’t just thanks to never spending anything on personal care and home comforts, he also had terrible business practices which gave him a spectacularly bad reputation.

People who knew him hated him and his business practices with a passion, so much so that during his funeral procession, people lined the streets to boo and throw stones at his coffin.

The Richest Commoner in England

Known as the richest commoner in England, Dickens almost certainly knew of Wood. Dickens visited Gloucester regularly, and while they may not have actually met, it is widely accepted that this mean man was the inspiration for Scrooge.

Not only that, but it’s likely that Wood was also the inspiration behind the infamous case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Bleak House – the unsatisfactory form of his will caused a costly 11-year legal dispute to resolve. What a lovely man!

While Scrooge is well known to me, I’ve never read Bleak House, so I’ve downloaded it on Audible to listen to, the one narrated by Miriam Margolyes from the free-to-members Plus Catalogue. When I’ll actually listen to it, I don’t know, as it’s a whopping 43 hours long!!! Yea, maybe sometime in the future. On a very (very) long journey. Have you read (listened to) it?

Fielding and Platt’s Atlas Works

While we’d gone specifically to Gloucester to see the Scrooge-related blue plaque (I know, a bit sad, but an excellent excuse for One Hour Outside), we also had a wander around Gloucester Cathedral, the Docks and Quays.

We got a freshly cooked jumbo Welsh Cake from a street seller (he’s still selling them for £1, and they’re huge!), and lunch was from my favourite On Toast, where I had my usual Hawaiian – it never disappoints. Maybe 2024 is the year I try the Crème Egg toasted sandwich?!

The new Gloucester Food Dock looks interesting, although I think I was expecting something a bit more like Market Halls Victoria than a series of restaurants with their own front doors, but it’ll be interesting to see how that area develops as more independent restaurants take up space in and around it.

We spotted another blue plaque which piqued our interest, outside the Quays outlet shopping centre. Having only moved to Gloucestershire a few years ago, we don’t know the history of some of the areas that have already been redeveloped in the city, and this one provided us with a bit of a history lesson.

Apparently, this shopping centre used to be Fielding and Platt’s Atlas Works, a world-renowned engineering firm. This firm pioneered the manufacturer of hydraulic machinery, produced Britain’s first vacuum cleaner in 1902, and the aluminium plate stretcher that helped to build Concorde in 1963. The factory only closed in 2003. How times change.

I wonder what other blue plaques there are to discover in Gloucester? I’ll be looking for more on my next visit. 

Closing Outdoor Bloggers

Over the last few weeks, Jenni and I have made the difficult decision to close the Outdoor Bloggers network. A combination of the world of blogging shifting so much since we started it back in March 2015, and both of us leading very busy lives, means finding a relevant and properly resourced space for our network has become harder and harder.

At the same time, other outdoor-focused networks have been created and developed, and they are serving our members much better than we are able to. I like to think Jenni and I paved the way for some of these more formal business-like groups to exist, by shouting about the needs of outdoor bloggers, and bringing like-minded people together. Something to feel good about.

The reason we started Outdoor Bloggers was to answer our desire to find other people like us to meet, get to know, collaborate with, and go on adventures with. At the time, fashion, food, beauty and lifestyle bloggers were all very well catered for, but outdoor-focused bloggers weren’t on anyone’s radar. We wanted to give those blogging primarily about the outdoors the chance to meet and get to know each other, by developing an informal network through which organised events, challenges, collaborations, and opportunities to work with brands.

I recall a conversation with early member and friend Jason right at the start, who said we could very easily turn Outdoor Bloggers into a business. And he was almost certainly right. I guess we just always wanted it to be more informal than that, for us and members, and time never allowed us to make it really big. While I do wonder what would be different now if we’d have gone down that route, I am happy that Outdoor Bloggers was always a friendship-based activity.

It Started in Edale

After lots of discussion, Jenni and I decided the best way to get people interested in our new network would be to go camping. We picked a date that looked good to us and opened up the invitation to anyone who blogs about the outdoors to come and join us.

We had loads of interest but knowing that the best things start small, it was great that four of us met in Edale, for camping, walking and eating in the beautiful Derbyshire countryside. Mark and Allysse were our first members, and we had a great time outdoors together. Actually, that camp provided me with one of my funniest camping memories, as reindeer – actual reindeer – trampled over our tents as we were putting them away at the end of the weekend.

In the eight years since four of us camped in Edale, Jenni and I built a community of over 500 members and collaborated with over 40 brands and organisations. We’ve run a bunch of camps and other meet-ups across the UK, and many members have also attended events hosted by the brands and organisations thanks to relationships we built. 

Most importantly, as it was the original aim of the network, Jenni and I have made many good friends through this community, as have many of our members. It’s been a really fantastic way to meet and get to know other people based on a mutual hobby, and I am very happy to call some of those people my closest friends.

We wrote to all 500 Outdoor Bloggers members last week to share the news, and received a number of really lovely replies which have made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  

My Outdoor Bloggers Highlights

I’ve genuinely gained so much through setting up and running Outdoor Bloggers. But it’s been the meet-ups and campouts that have really made it a special time. Jenni and I organised camps in Edale, Snowdonia, Lancashire, Dalby Forest and Cheddar. We ran a Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge weekend, annual clean up events where members spent an hour litter picking their local area, and even quiz nights and story-telling evenings online when the world shut down.

I can’t decide whether my favourite Outdoor Bloggers camp was in Dalby Forest or Cheddar. During the former, we hiked the Hole of Horcum, which was a particularly enjoyable hike, and shared some hilarious campfire stories before it started raining and we had to retreat to our tents. Our Cheddar camp was probably our biggest (and most confidently run), and when we weren’t hiking up and over the gorge, or climbing up it, we had a very silly time on a scavenger hunt on our campsite.

By far my most ridiculous Outdoor Bloggers memory was a collaborative camping weekend between Outdoor Bloggers and VARTA (the battery people), thanks to Prova PR. It was so wet and muddy, I can’t even describe it. I mean, one of our campers (I won’t name names just in case…) returned from the pub to find her tent had blown away! And I packed my tent away by screwing it up and shoving it into a massive bin liner (to be cleaned and sorted once safely at home). Seriously, though, the weekend also included a most excellent and insightful presentation from the Bowland branch of Mountain Rescue, which was a real treat.

Dean Wye Collaboration

I must also give an honourable mention to the most full-on press trip I’ve ever been on, which was also thanks to Outdoor Bloggers. This one was a collaboration with the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley – they did most of the hard work on it, we just went along. In a little under two days, I went walking, caving, mountain biking, explored a fairy-filled forest, and ate amazing locally produced food. Our accommodation was spread out in the area, and I happened to get a room in a self-catering lodge within the grounds of Puzzlewood, which was pretty special.

That particular trip also sticks out as it was almost certainly the start of our personal decision to move to Gloucestershire. And I’ve had the absolute pleasure to work with some of those same people – PR representatives and bloggers – a few times since, including eating afternoon tea on a paddle board.

My Own Blogging

Honestly, the opportunities blogging has provided me over the years cannot be underestimated. Outdoor Bloggers enabled me to make friends with other bloggers and brands, and for that I will forever be grateful. I met the people behind PACMAT thanks to Outdoor Bloggers, and even worked with Merrell to give everyone who came to one of our camps a new pair of shoes.

I very much hope the relationships I and others have built up through this informal community called Outdoor Bloggers will keep on going for years to come.

As I pondered at length in my birthday-focused weekly blog – episode 136 – I am very much still an outdoor blogger. There don’t seem to be many of us around these days, not who haven’t moved into making videos, writing books, or running an Instagram-based business, anyway. Life in the outdoor blogging space lives on, the decision to close the network doesn’t make any difference to that.

Just One Instagram Account

Making the decision to close Outdoor Bloggers was also the push I needed to look at other aspects of my online world which required action. I guess this is just the online bit of that clear out of stuff I’ve been having at home.

As such, I have now also closed my two other Instagram accounts. Running The Snack Addicts and Take Time for Tea was great fun for a while, but I think my ideas around creating content for a couple of very niche Instagram accounts have run their course. I just don’t need the extra to-dos in my life these days.

Don’t worry, there are definitely still snacks to be eaten, and tea to be drunk, but if these are worthy of sharing, I’ll keep it on my one Instagram account.

Homemade Energy Balls

And talking of snacks, let me tell you about my homemade energy balls… how’s that for a Segway?!

I mentioned at the top of this weekly blog that I successfully tried some new-to-me recipes this week, some of those being from my new recipe book, Cook Out. The Irish Stew was particularly successful (so much flavour in such a quick stew). As were these homemade energy balls.

These spheres of sweet goodness are a blitzed combination of oats, dates and pecan nuts, stuck together with a sticky glue made from golden syrup and peanut butter. That’s it. It’s embarrassing to say I’ve never made this kind of snack before, given how easy they were – they required no skill and hardly any time, and were much better than the shop-bought ones I normally get.

Energy balls like this are perfect for a treat when I need energy to move, such as when I’m hiking or doing something else active. They should travel well, although these ones didn’t make it far away from the house! They’d also make a really great on-the-go breakfast when I’m travelling or having to start work particularly early.

Calorie Dense

The fact that these are calorie dense snacks should be noted, they are literally full of energy (the clue is in the name!). But they are, at least, made from good calories and not from ingredients I can’t pronounce – nutritious in their sweetness. And as I’ve now realised just how easy they are to make, I would like to think I’ll stop buying those factory-made date bars in packs of four from the supermarket, and will instead make a habit of creating my own.

Next time I think I’ll roll them a little smaller, so they are simpler to eat on the go. The large size of these (several bites) is great, and means each one feels like a substantial snack on its own, but they are a little hard to eat without making a mess unless you’re sat still. Breaking them down into bite-sized balls, maybe getting two or three to each one of these, will make that easier.

Do you make your own date balls like these? What combination of ingredients do you use? You’ll find the recipe and method I used on page 194 of Cook Out.

See You Next Time…

That’s quite enough for this weekly blog episode. I did think I would write shorter weekly blogs in 2024 to help make sure I have enough time to post an episode every week, but I just can’t help myself and end up writing long form articles every time. Just don’t be too disappointed if some are shorter than this one!

In case you missed my new non-weekly blog posts in recent days, do go and read the last two articles in my Cotswold Way series. I put together two lists to finish off this adventure journal set – my favourite (and least favourite) memories of the Cotswold Way, and twenty hints and tips for those thinking about hiking this National Trail in the near future.

Later this week I’ll be publishing my latest currently loving feature, and then next week I will be launching my annual One Hour Outside February Photo Challenge by sharing all the daily prompts with you. I hope you’ll come back and read those when they are online.

Read more Weekly Blogs.

Buy Me a Cuppa?

If you enjoyed this weekly blog episode and fancy supporting me and my mini adventures this year, you can “buy me a coffee” for £3 (well, a cup of tea, if that’s okay?). Head over to Ko-fi to find out more. Thank you.