To me a fleece is a basic standard piece of clothing for any walking activity (or other outdoor activity such as bird watching, etc). When walking I layer up in: base layer — fleece top or jacket — windshirt or waterproof. I’ll use a micro-fleece in the warmer months and a midweight fleece when there is a nip in the air.

I’m not a big shopper and my current thicker fleece is now about 8 years old and looking a bit worn. Actually, now that I look at it, I see it’s worn so thin, it’s barely warmer than an auld semmmit!

So when I was offered this Berghaus Women’s Activity Jacket IA (Midweight fleece) to try I said yes! Just in time for our winter.

The technical blurb says this fleece jacket is constructed from recycled Polartec Thermal Pro 200.

All I really want from a mid-weight fleece is to be kept warm, and dry from the point of view of any sweat being wicked away. So how did this Berghaus mid-weight fleece suit me?

Fit:

The jacket is big! Bigger than I’d normally choose. I’d not used Berghaus clothing before so I measured myself and followed the size chart on the website to order the correct size. When this arrived it swamped me. The sleeves were half covering my hands, the back was longer than my waterproof shell jacket and the chest was loose. It sort of fitted (with room to spare) across the bust, but then it gaped out in front over my ribs – not the best fit for trapping warm air on my torso. In fact it felt like a man’s fit (I’ve been walking long enough to remember when you could not buy women’s outdoors clothing and simply had to go for Men’s Small). I returned it and chose a size smaller, but still it’s an ‘roomy’ fit for me. Again is is longer than my previous fleece jacket, but at least it is just shorter than my shell jacket. Now some people may wish a jacket that covers their bum (and indeed I came across one reviewer who noted this as a positive), but I prefer a shorter jacket with a more ‘fitted’ fit. This women’s size 12 fits my son who takes a Men’s Small.

Features:

The cuffs on this jackets don’t have any fastenings, however there are quite close fitting, while still being stretchy enough to allow for the sleeves to be pushed up on those days when I overheat slogging uphill.

There are two zipped hand-warmer pockets that are accessible below the level of the waist band on my daysack, but would not be accessible with the hipbelt on my backpacking rucksack.

The zipped collar is a good fit – it can be zipped up fully when there is a cold wind, without feeling like I’m being strangled (on other jackets this has been a problem).

As to be expected the jacket is quite big and bulky, but as mentioned I tend to just use this in the colder months. Apart from the odd unseasonally-warm spring days, I’ll be wearing it most of the day, or if removed I I’ll manage to stuff it in my larger winter daypack.

The IA (InterActive) part of the name simply means it can be zipped into a Berghaus shell. There are wee elastic thingies on the sleeves to fasten the sleeves and I presume the zips are compatible. I don’t have a Berghaus shell to test this. I’ve never understood the desire to zip fleece and shell together anyway.

Practical Use:

I’ve used this fleece now for several short walks and it makes a fine casual jacket. I’ve used on it’s own it over a thermal base layer; with a windshirt on top; and occasionally with a waterproof shell on top. It’s certainly warm enough for our winter, and in fact was almost too warm when the temperature was not much under 10°C in this unseasonally mild spell we’re having.

Obligatory cheesy catalogue pose

So far, apart from the ‘casual’ fit, the only negative to me, is the colour. Or lack of colour! I wouldn’t normally choose black for a jacket.

This fleece jacket is currently available at GO Outdoors for £67.50. I acknowledge that there are cheaper basic fleece jackets available. In fact you can buy basic fleece jackets just about anywhere on the high street, but I know not all fleece jackets are equal. There are differences in terms of fit, useful features, wear and price. I have been supplied with enough value brands as part of work uniforms over the years to recognise good and poor fit and how well they stand up to constant wear. (I seem to have been inflicted with poor-weather since starting working in the environmental/tourism field, and therefore wear these jackets almost every day.)

I recognise that some people would rather spend less, on the understanding that they may be replacing their fleeces more often. I prefer to buy quality stuff and hang on to it.

This jacket is one of many women’s fleeces and mid-layers available at GO Outdoors

A similar range for you guys can be found here.

The whole Berghaus range at GO Outdoors is here. (Why so much black Berghaus?)

Picnic perfect | FieldCandy.

I’d love a tent to look like this

Or this…

Home Sweet Home

Or how about taking a good book with you when camping?

Fully Booked

The sun dipped down behind the forest clothing the hillside about 3pm, heralding the onset of the dark hours. Living at 57° north you expect short winter days and long winter nights in December – there’s nae point grumblin’ about it! – but at least tonight the wee covering of snow made the final stretch of the walk brighter than it would otherwise have been.

As I approached the stone building which was to provide shelter from the northerly wind, I saw a faint glow of candlelight in the un-curtained window. This pale glow was like the rural equivalent of a neon sign, signalling for one to enter. Getting closer I noticed a line of smoke rising from the chimney and blowing away to the south (no mere ‘wisp of smoke curling upwards’ in this wind) and thought of the warmth that would greet me on entering the building.

I wasn’t cold when walking, but any time I had stopped to look for animal prints in the snow or try to catch sight of the birds I heard, I felt the chill. A lovely, hot wood fire would be the business tonight. I swapped the two dead branches I was carrying from hand to hand, hoping that shifting the weight around would somehow lighten the load. Never mind, the extra hassle of lugging the wood would be forgotten once I’d arrived, sawn it with the bow saw and added it to the fire.

I was greeted on my arrival with the best Highland greeting “The kettle’s on. Do you want a cuppa?” (I know some folks would prefer the offer of a whisky, but I don’t touch the stuff) and given a chair in front of the hot stove.

I quickly removed by jacket and hat, but kept my boots on as I knew a visit to the toilet would be a trip into the cold and the dark. In fact, going anywhere ‘ben the hoose’ would involve going into the cold, wearing my headlamp to find the way.

Sound familiar? I know many of my outdoors acquaintances like to experience the above and regularly head off to near or distant bothies, armed with wood or coal and food and drink. For the past couple of days we were lucky(!) and could do the ‘bothy experience’ from the comfort of our own home. Yes, thanks to the delights of the hurricane-force winds and the over-stretched engineers working for Scottish and Southern Electricity we had no power for 40 hours.

Thank goodness for our new Rayburn stove which provided heat in the kitchen (and a reasonably warm-ish room for DS3 directly above) and somewhere to cook. And thank goodness for warm thermal undies for those of us who’s bedrooms were below 10°C.

Now we are finally reconnected to the grid we can charge all the batteries for the torches and headlamps and get these back in rucksacks before we’re ‘caught out’ on the hill. We can scrape the last bits of candle wax from the kitchen table (why do some folks like to play with candles no matter how old they are? ) and we can return the milk to the fridge instead of keeping it outside the back door in a bucket of water.

Sometimes the simple things make a big difference.

After complaining about the one week of gey dreich weather I’m delighted to see the white stuff finally arrive. There is not much yet, but even the wee puckle we have makes everything brighter than a couple of days ago.

The only downside is I’m a bit busy at home to go out walking – although I may try to sneak off one day and leave the guys DIYing.

Are there any other Celtic Rock fans amongst the outdoors blogsphere? Anyone planning a visit to the Highlands to do a spot of walking and see the band? A couple of my friends are thinking of travelling north from England and one from the US; I’ve advised them they’d better by quick as I imagine the 7500 tickets will sell very quickly. The last two outdoor gigs in 2007 and 2009 at Drumnadrochit and Scone Palace sold about 18,000 tickets each time.

Here’s a wee slideshow set to the Runrig track, This Day. All the photos are from local walks, that is walking from the house, during the spring, summer and autumn.

To whet you appetite for the gig, here’s a clip from the rather wet gig in Drumnadrochit (or Drumnadrookit as it was renamed that day). As I said to a friend, the weather can only be better next August!

When most people in the UK talk about squirrels in their garden, they are referring to the non-native grey squirrels – and often referring to them as pests. Up here in the the Highlands of Scotland, we are still ‘grey-free’. Red squirrels are still fairly common in some parts, but still delightful to see for all that. I see them everyday at my workplace at my summer seasonal job, but had not seen them at home (on the Beauly Firth, west of Inverness) since last winter.

I’m delighted to see they’ve returned to the feeders we provide in our garden and I can sit and watch them as I eat my breakfast. Once the squirrels are settled on the feeder the birds soon ignore them and return to the seed feeder just one metre away from the peanuts. For the past couple of weeks I’ve seen one feeding on the bird peanut feeder or the squirrel nut box, but today I saw two at the same time. Strangely one went to the bird mesh feeder first – although why it would wish to dine hanging upside down and swinging about in the high winds is a puzzle to me. The second squirrel then hopped over to the nut box about one metre from its neighbour.

Look at those long fingers

I know it is not good to feed them solely on peanuts as a diet rich in peanuts may cause calcium deficiency. Now that they are regular visitors to our garden feeders I will change the food in the squirrel feeder box. I’ll buy some hazelnuts to supplement any they find locally.

I’ll share my first wee video clips with you. Excuse the shaky camera for the first 45 seconds, I wanted to include this as I think the squirrel is funny when it peers over the side watching the wee chaffinches feeding on the ground, pecking the seed that has fallen from the bird feeders. There are two bird feeders (the peanut one, that the squirrel is on in the last 45 seconds) and a seed feeder to the left of the squirrel nut box. All the ‘stuff’ you see falling to the left on the bird peanut feeder is the wee coal tits tossing the seeds they don’t want on to the ground.

Red Squirrels have been present on the British Isles mainland and some of the offshore islands since the last ice age. Grey Squirrels were introduced from North America by the Victorians and from two pairs have spread to most of the UK. The Highlands of Scotland is one of the few parts of the UK where the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) exists in the absence of the introduced American grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). The red squirrel is a priority UK Biodiversity Action Plan species. The most serious threat to the red squirrel is from the American grey squirrel. The grey is said to out-compete the red squirrel and can carry Squirrel Poxvirus (SQPV), which is deadly to red squirrels. There is an ongoing Highland Squirrel Survey which is working to map the extent of the still under-recorded Red squirrel population and to monitor for the appearance of Grey Squirrels in the region.

If you wish to read more about the red vs grey squirrel debate, there are hundreds of comments over at the BBC Autumnwatch Red Squirrel Debate.