KIT: Taking shelter – Tarps.

I’ve had a question asking me what tarp I use when I’m wild camping with a bivvi bag.

I own three tarps. Which one I take with me for any given trip depends on where I am going.

The first tarp I got is a British Army Basha. It’s 2.5m x 2.2m, made from Silnylon, and weighs in at nearly 1kg with guy lines. It’s a lovely tarp that covers a nice big area, but it is very heavy. If I am car camping and don’t want a tent, then this is the tarp I use.

British Army Basha in the woods – June ’14.

The second tarp I got is a Miltec Flecktarn Plane Tarp. This tarp is 2.6m x 1.7m, weighs in at 450g, and is made from PU coated nylon. This is the tarp I take when wild camping in lowland situations where perhaps wild camping isn’t entirely encouraged. The flecktarn camo pattern blends well with many of the areas I camp in, particularly in winter. This tarp isn’t as big as the Army Basha, but it’s half the weight, and provides enough cover for me in a bivvi bag.

Miltec Flecktarn tarp in the woods – May ’15

The 3rd tarp I own is a RAB Siltarp 1, this tarp is 2.2m x 1.5m, weighs in a 198g without stuff sack, and is made of Silnylon. It’s a beautiful light tarp that I got to use with a bivvi bag when wild camping in locations where stealth isn’t my primary concern. In some respects the lightness of this tarp has given me headaches with other aspects of the tarp setup. Add eight 12g pegs, and you’ve increased the weight by 50%… I use 1.12mm microparacord for the guys on this tarp, it’s under half the weight of the 2mm dyneema I normally use for my other tarps. The total weight of the guys on this tarp is 28.6g. I’m still searching for the best pegs.

If you ask on a bushcraft forum for a tarp recommendation, the DD 3m x 3m tarp will come highly recommended. I decided against it as being too heavy, and also too big. Camping in woodlands, finding space for 9m² of tarp is not always easy. If I was in the market for a new tarp to use when bivving aside from the tarps I own, the other that I would consider near the top of the list is the Alpkit Rig 3.5.

On all my tarps I use glow in the dark line loks on the guy lines. They provide just enough visibility at night to see where I put my guys. I currently have some spares up on ebay if anyone is interested.

Hopefully this post has gone somewhere to answer the question about which tarps I use, and what tarps I would recommend.

ADVENTURE: A January Microadventure

I hit a bit of a low point with venturing out following an assault on the way out to a trip to the woods. It left me a bit shaken and nervous about heading out.

After scratching a couple of planned nights out, either due to the weather, work shifts, or bottling out. Everything lined up and I finally forced myself out the door with the intent of a night in the woods.

The plan was simple, take the train a few stops, cycle up the hill, bivvi in the woods, enjoy the evening, cook breakfast, break camp (making note to fix it later), cycle down the hill, and come home. All pretty simple.

Step one was to load up my bike – a Brompton folding bike, with my camping gear, and as much water as I could sensibly carry. Before I added water, but including food, the whole lot came to about 7kg. To which I added 3.25L of water. 300ml to rehydrate dinner, and just under 3 litres to get me through the night.

Touring Brompton on the way out.

I arrived at my destination station, activated my buddy beacon, saddled up, and headed into the hills…

I had planned it all on the map, I’d even driven up the road a few weeks ago. So how hard could it be to cycle up there…

The honest answer is – very. The Brompton is a lovely bike, I’ve modded it to have 8 gears, and it’s a joy to ride. But it’s not really designed for hills… So I ended up pushing it up about 2km of the hill. To a max height of 190masl.

Elevation profile of my ride.

Having reached the summit, I then cruised down into the woods, past families returning from their afternoon walk. Past dog walkers, and deeper into the trees. Eventually I departed from the path and headed cross country in search of a bivvi site.

I found a spot in the shelter of a large mound, by some trees. I did a scan for widow makers, pulled out my sit mat, and collapsed by a tree. Phew. By now I had about 20 minutes until sunset and the sweat I had produced from the push up the hill was making me cold. Time to make camp.

I had brought with my my flecktarn tarp, along with a 10m ridge line. I tied one end to a tree, and walked over to the other tree I wanted to use for the other end. Stopping at the end of the ridge line about 1m short of the tree. With a James May like exclamation, I retreated to the original tree, and pondered my options. Rummaging in my bag I realised I had a pair of heavy duty bungees that had attached the dry bag to the rear rack, so I put these round both trees, and had enough ridge line to string it up between the two bungees. Phew. Tarp went up in a lean to config with one end pinned down to shelter me from the wind. The weather forecast was for no precipitation, and a light breeze, so the tarp was largely for concealment, as well as from the breeze. Tarp up, I folded the bike up, wrapped it in my old flecktarn poncho, and tried to lock it to the tree. Discovered that my bike lock wasn’t long enough, and sat down to have a cup of tea.

Making a cuppa.

Tea and rethink complete, I locked the bike to the luggage, making it unwieldy and noisy to steal, so that I should at least wake up if someone tried. Wrapped in the poncho, I stuck it in the back of the tarp, and set about making the bed.

At this point I was getting very cold even with all my coats on, the sweat from the hill climb was really chilling me down, and even tho it wasn’t yet 1700, I crawled into my sleeping bag stuck some radio 4 on, and tried to warm up.

My camp from up the hill:

My camp from up the hill

I was laying there listening to the radio when a light flashed across the inside of my tarp. Slightly confused I sat up and looked in the direction of the light. It shone around all over the place, flashing straight in my face again. It belonged to 2 dog walkers, who walked by about 50m from my position. I don’t know if they saw me, or realised what they had shone their light on, they didn’t disturb me. But it did get my heart rate going. The only other people I saw during the night were a couple of mountain bikers who cycled past 100m or so away.

A text from the friend who was monitoring my buddy beacon, informed me that he was in the area, and he would drop by to say hello. This would be a nice test of the buddy beacon technology, could my friend find me in the woods, in the dark, hiding in a DPM bivvi bag, under a flecktarn tarp…

Turns out, yes, tho he did walk past first, and then turned round to spot me… he’d very helpfully brought me a litre of water, and a bar of chocolate as “house warming” gifts. Both were very gratefully received.. We had a chat and warmed up with a hot chocolate. I was still fighting the cold, even in my sleeping bag my toes were numb, but that was nothing compared to the fight I was having with my meths stove.

I’ve only ever used the stove in the summer before, and it’s always worked fine. In the -2°C of the woods. It wasn’t working nicely. After a few minutes with the ferro rod doing nothing, I dug into my Staying Alive Cold kit for my lifeboat matches. This got the stove going and allowed me to make the hot chocolate. But I couldn’t keep doing that, I only had 5 matches in my SAC kit. After messing around trying to warm the meths up with body heat, I eventually had a eureka moment. My SAC kit has a US aircrew fire kit in it, this is a spark thingy like you get on a cigarette lighter, and a load of tinderquik. Using this I was able to get the stove going reliably.

My friend left and I went back to trying to defrost my toes. I nodded off for a bit and woke to a grumbling stomach. Excellent, curry time.

I dug out the curry pouches from my pack, and relit the stove using the tinderquik. It took me 3 fills of the stove to get enough hot water for the pouch of Korma sauce, the rice, and a mug of tea. Until I had the eureka moment, of using the second pot from my firemaple set as a lid. This made an instant improvement on the efficiency of the stove.

Unfortunately it turned out the curry was vile. After a few mouthfuls, I gave up and put it in the rubbish bag. Ew. I fell back on the chocolate my friend had kindly brought along. Very glad for the extra food.

Eventually I managed to get my toes warm, and snuggled down to listen to the owls. I counted 3 different species of Owl calling out.

I had expected that I would be woken by the sunrise, around 8ish. Not as it turns out by a full bladder, at 1030… oops.

It took me quite a while to summon the courage to crawl out of my toasty warm sleeping bag, into the freezing cold morning. Nature called, I returned to the warmth of my bag to plot my exfil. Only to wake up at half 1 and exclaim loudly. I packed up quickly, trying to stay warm. Reloaded the bike, and hit the trail.

The advantage of the 150m hill I climbed to get in, was the 150m hill I got to free wheel down to get home. Hitting in excess of 30mph on the Brompton on the way down, I cruised into the station for a train back to civilisation, and a fry up.

Not everything had gone to plan, I’d had trouble with the stove, had to deal with very cold toes, overslept, and forgot the frying pan to cook breakfast in. But I had managed a night out in the woods, on my own, in the middle of January, with sub zero temperatures. and survived! I’ve proved to myself that I can do it.

Now to unpack the map and plan my next trip…


This post was originally posted on Bushcraft UK forum

 

ADVENTURE: Wye not cycle Home? – a February Microadventure

Laying in a sand dune on the Sussex coast on the Winter Solstice ’14, I decided to set myself a challenge for 2015. To wild camp for a total of 15 nights between Winter Solstice ’14 and Winter Solstice ’15.

I returned home, and pulled out the maps from the local area and started plotting suitable trips. My first was a success. Bouyed by this I set about my ill fated second trip – walking the North Downs way, having to be rescued by a friend due to foot injury.

After weeks of feeling pretty crap, with various medical appointments to get my feet checked out. I had to reevaluate my plans for the year. The walks I had planned have had to be put back on the shelf for a later date. Instead my beloved Brompton has taken it’s place as beast of burden for my adventures.

I wanted to try and fit in another night out during February, but time was running out, what with work, college, and general life commitments. So when Friday the 27th showed itself as a sparsely populated page in the diary. The plan formed. I would have to drop the works van back to work, but that would leave me with 24 hours clear in which to fit in an adventure.

I loaded my Brompton up with my bivvi kit, I’m getting the hang of it now it seems, took me just 24 minutes to get the whole lot loaded up! I packed the bike and luggage into the back of the van, and hit the road. My intent was one of the very simple microadventure tropes, travel home from work by bike, bivviing on the way.

Fiddling around with the Cyclestreets journey planner, I had a route planned, 24km, including ascent from 43masl to 187masl, before returning to 6masl at home. The first 5km would involve climbing to the 187masl high point of the ride. I was a bit nervous of this, my January trip had ended up with more pushing the bike than I would have liked.

I parked up the van, loaded the Brompton with her luggage, queued up some Bitter Ruin on my headphones, and hit the road.
The gradient eased me in, almost lulled me into a false sense of hope. I climbed out of Wye in 2nd gear, singing along as I went. The gradient should be pretty constant all the way to the top, if it was going to be like this, then this was going to be more doable than I had expected.

Well, the gradient on the map and on the elevation graph didn’t quite match up with reality. I soon dropped to 1st as it got a bit steeper. But eventually after only about 1km, I had to get off and push. There was just 100m which seemed steeper than all the rest. Cresting this, I got back on the bike, and continued to pedal. I paused a couple of times on the ascent to let the lactic acid in my legs dissipate, and my heart rate to drop slightly. But with a euphoria and a loudly vocalised “I DID IT!” I crested the top of the Wye downs.

The view that greeted me was a bit hazy, but from here I could see down to the coast, Dungeness Nuclear Power Station on the horizon, and a squadron of wind turbines on Romney marsh standing sentinel. In the setting sun, it was beautiful.

I didn’t stop to take a photo, the sun was under a hand above the horizon, and I wanted to find a bivvi site in day light.

I pressed on. Down hill! I slipped the gears round to 8th and pedalled down the hill trying to carry as much of the speed as I could round the 90° bend at the bottom and up the hill on the other side, before realising that wouldn’t work, and grinding back down to 1st for a slog up the hill.

Spring felt like it may have sprung, in a quiet modest kind of way. Some verges were covered in snow drops, and here and there a daffodil stood yellow and hopeful.

I pedalled on, past a few bemused motorists, past ploughed fields, fields of brassicas, and flocks of sheep. Before plunging into the woods.

I continued for about 1km on the road through the woods before I was going to turn off the road onto the bridleway. I hit the bridleway at about 20kph, and rapidly came to a squelchy stop. We’d had a fair amount of rain recently, and the path was somewhat wet and boggy. My Brompton with it’s high pressure tires just came to a grinding squidgy stop. I tried fiddling about with the gears to get some purchase, trying to balance the torque to the grip, before eventually concluding that it wasn’t going to work. I got off and pushed.

Through the woods, and along the bridleway across the field, I pushed. I could see the sun, and it’s rapid descent to kiss the horizon. I didn’t linger.

Crossing the field, I hit the woods again. The ground felt firmer so I tried to cycle again. I carved a beautiful rut with my tyre. I got off and pushed it a bit further.

I had to find myself a bivvi site, and soon, there wasn’t much day light left. The first site I looked at was lovely and flat, not too close to the path, but when I looked at the big tree next to it, I realised it was a beautiful beech, I didn’t want to really camp under a beech tree, their propensity to get angry and throw limbs at passing campers doesn’t give you hope of a comfortable nights sleep. I pushed deeper into the woods.

I passed into an area of Chestnut Coppice. The stools were large, and the trunks were quite thick, a good 8″ or more in diameter. I found a flat spot. This would do the trick. I checked my phone, 6 minutes to sunset.

Normally I would sit and have a cuppa before putting up the tarp and rolling out the bivvi bag, but there wasn’t time, I wanted to get things up while I could still see. Looking at the terrain, I worked out where I wanted to put my bed. The nice flat bit, just the right length. I did a little naughty gardening with the potty trowel, removing a pair of bramble plants, so they wouldn’t puncture my bed. I planted them a few meters away.

Next I had to string up the ridge line. This is where I realised that my spot wasn’t as ideal as I had hoped. The axis of my tarp would run from one tree, to between two others. It’s hard to attach the ridge line to free space. This would require some creativity with the knots.

Eventually I rigged up the ridge line between 3 chestnut stools. I had an Evenk hitch at one end, a Bowline on another, then tightened it all up with a truckers hitch. I’m pretty sure it’s not a config that’s in any of the books, but it worked.

I threw the tarp up quickly, it wasn’t forecast to start raining until tomorrow lunch time, so I was using the tarp for concealment more than anything else, I quickly aborted my planned A pitch, and put it up 90° across the head of my bed, pitched low to the ground at the back, but high enough to sit up at the front.

I rolled out my bed, inflated the matt and sat on the bivvi bag. I’d done it! Twilight was giving way to night, and the moon was shining down from above. I put the kettle on. It was so still that I didn’t need anything by way of a wind screen on the stove. The flames rose true and vertical. This is when I realised there was one item I had forgot to pack. My pot lifter. Adapt and over come. A carabina, stick and cycling glove allowed me to get the pot off the stove without burning my fingers.

I snuggled down into my sleeping bag, steaming cup of tea in my hands, and surveyed the moonlit woodland. Beautiful simple pleasures. I sent a beacon message on my phone so that those watching it would know I was safe, before switching it to airplane mode and hiding it in my sleeping bag.

Snuggled in a warm sleeping bag, sipping tea, and listening to the owls. What better way to spend a Friday evening?

Warm and content, I drifted off to sleep, to awake what felt like an hour later, but turned out to be 0038. The owls were quiet. But the moon was even brighter, joined by a few stars. There was a high hazy level of cloud cover meaning that only the brightest of stars shone through. I had brought with me a couple of LWWF pouches to eat for dinner, but didn’t feel like cooking, so ate some cookies, enjoying the moonlit peace.

My alarm went off at 0700. It was daylight, the hooting owls of the night had been replaced by the songs of birds. I hit the snooze button and lay back to listen to the wildlife. Over the next 3 hours of hitting the snooze button. The wind picked up a bit, the songs of the birds were joined by the clatter of trees knocking against each other, the chatter of triffids.

Hours before the met office had said it would arrive, the first drops of rain resounded against my tarp. I rolled over, pulled my backpack under the tarp, and hit the snooze button. I was too warm and comfortable to leave just yet. Five more minutes…

The sound of rain on the tarp became more and more insistent, I could ligger no more. I was going to have to leave my safe warm sleeping bag, and venture into the cold.

Packing up didn’t take very long. I soon had the bike all loaded up ready to go. I pushed the bike through the under growth back to the path. In the clear light of day this section of the path was wet, but looked to be firm. I could ride it.

When the Brompton bike was invented, it was envisaged as a commuter bike. To cycle to the station and back. Something for suit wearing commuters. It’s fair to say that off roading down stony slippery woodland hills was not in their use case. For a commuter bike, the Brompton coped admirably. I descended the hill, gripping both brakes as I went, trying to seek out what little bits of grip were available. Avoiding the big logs and giant flints that littered the path. WOO! It might not be designed for this, but by eck was I enjoying it. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I launched out of the woods into a downland field. Where upon I promptly ground to a juddering halt. Sinking into the soft mud, I had to get off and push. Across the muddiest patch, I tried to cycle again, only to quite literally get stuck in a rut. It was just like the one I had been walking along on the North Downs Way 2 weeks earlier, only this was deeper and narrower. I tried to turn my pedals, but they hit the sides of the rut. Bah. I got off and pushed again. A few more yards and I was back on firmer, yet slippery ground. It was off camber, grassed, and wet. But firm enough to cycle. I slipped and slid down the path, riding the brakes as much as I was able to pedal. Descending with the bike about 30° to the straight on. I was having too much fun, and like all good things, it had to come to an end. A drive way and roads awaited me. This might not be as fun to ride, but it would at least allow me to eat up some miles. Head down and pedal.

The ride wasn’t going to be down hill all the way ( both literally and metaphorically), there were still a couple of stings left to bite.

The first was a hill. Down the gears, I ground my way up. I managed half way, before concluding it would be easier to push. I neared the crest where the gradient eased, and got back on to pedal. Now it was down hill all the way.

Hitting 30+kph, I cruised down the hill towards the village of Chartham, where I planned to join the river side cycle path (NCR18) all the way home. Having built up all my speed, I had to lose all of it with the 70° turn at the bottom of the hill. I settled into a sedate plod along the river.

Being that the cycle path along the river is designed by people with no real clue about cycle infrastructure, what should be a flat easy ride through pretty countryside, isn’t It is punctuated along it’s length by giant puddles (it’s built in places below the river water level…) and the most brutal cattle grids around. Hitting a cattle grid at 20, on a fully laden touring Brompton is not a pleasant experience. When the path was build 9 cattle grids punctuated the 5km between Canterbury and Chartham, two of them within 10 yards of each other. Fortunately 3 of them have been removed, but the 6 that remained gave a bone shaking jolt to an other wise calm ride.

Past joggers and dog walkers, I rode into Canterbury. As I climbed the gentle rise into my road, it hit me. I’d done it! I set out to have a night out in the woods, to cycle 24km home from work. I’d done it! After the failure of my NDW walk. It felt good. No injuries, no need to call for help. No tears, no pain. Just fun, relaxation, exercise, and owls.

Spreading the damp kit across my flat to dry out, a cup of tea in hand, I pulled out my maps and started to plan where to go next.


This post was originally posted on the Bushcraft UK forum.

 

Improving a winning formula.

A brief four wheeled excursion off topic…

A little know fact that often surprises my friends is that I am an Formula 1 fan. Next to space craft and fighter jets its a pinnacle of engineering technology. I’ve been a fan since Damon Hill was in a Williams, when my sister was supporting a Schumacher in a Benetton.

This week the Grand Prix Drivers Association launched a survey to solicit opinions on the how to improve F1 for in the hope of combating dwindling TV and race weekend audiences.

Before I cover what I think would improve it. A comment on recent improvements to the Formula.

I *REALLY* love the new engines. A lot of people have commented on how they are too quiet and how that is detracting from their enjoyment of the races. I have to disagree. You can hear the tyres squeal. You can hear the crowd cheer. It’s no longer a cat strangling squeal of pain and anguish orbiting a strip of tarmac. It sounds awesome. I sometimes wonder if I am the lone F1 fan that thinks the new engines are an improvement but hey. I was on the verge of giving up on F1 as too formulaic when they announced the new engines. They’ve kept me interested.

So what could be improved in F1?

Tracks

In the 2015 calender, 9 out of the 19 tracks have either been designed, or modified by the same designer. I don’t want to devalue the work and achievement of a guy who is obviously a great engineer – Hermann Tilke. But when you have one artist producing a body of work, you will see their handwriting, their style in all of it, and so you do with Tilke’s F1 tracks. This is compounded by the fact that many of the tracks lack the personality of the traditional tracks. You could pick up the tracks from Abu Dhabi, USA, and Bahrain, shuffle them and redeposit. You wouldn’t notice, they are just interchangeable strips of tarmac. You can’t say the same about Spa, or Silverstone, or Monaco, or Monsa. These are races with personality, with passion. They are the races we want to watch.

Tyres

Pirrelli were given a brief to make F1 more exciting. These tyres aren’t doing it. If you try to follow another driver closely so you can overtake, you sacrifice the rest of your race. Overtaking is what stops the race being processional, it’s what gets you on the edge of the seat screaming at the tele. Sure the pit stops give you a 2.3 second window of possible passing. But if the only way to explain an overtake as happening involves words like “undercut” and “track position”, you’ve missed a trick. The tyres need to allow overtaking, simple.

Redbull

I watched F1 in the days when Schumacher won every race and every championship. I enjoyed watching F1 during that period. I rejoiced watching him jump on the podium, conducting the fans during the Italian national anthem. He is a racer with charisma and personality. Ferrari pulled off a dominance of the sport without trying to own it. Sure there were jokes about how the FIA was Ferrari International Assistance, but F1 was fun to watch. The same can’t be said for Redbull. For starters, two teams? Two identical teams? Guys you’re taking the piss. Sure one is called Redbull Racing, and one is called Torro Rosso, but when they fly by at 200mph the only way to tell them apart is one has a gold nose tip and one is yellow. Redbull comes across as if they don’t want to take part in F1, but own it, as a means to sell their drinks. Clarkson was right when he introduced Webber as working for a soft drinks marketing company. I can’t begrudge Newey his brilliance, the guy is an amazing engineer, and a lot of RBR’s dominance can be put on his skill (tho not all, it’s a team game afterall). But 4 years of Vettel running round 30 seconds up the track from the other cars, is boring. It’s not helped by his arrogance off track.

Some will say “But isn’t Merc just doing what Redbull did?”. Honest answer – No. For starters, Rosberg and Hamilton are actually having a battle out in front. They are trying to pass. They also aren’t always at the front. Especially this year with Vettel playing in the middle. It’s giving some on track action that is fun to watch. They don’t have an arrogance about them. The previous 4 years you got the feeling that the only time a Redbull over took, a blue flag was involved…

Redbull have threatened to leave the sport if they don’t get their way on engines. Good. Perhaps we can have a team that’s in it for the racing, not just to sell their drinks.

Racing numbers

This is a tiny minor niggle, but it would be nice if the car numbers could be bigger. Trying to work out if that is Vettel of Kimi zooming down the straight would be easier if you could actually read the number, these days they are so small it’s hard to read, the space is given over to sponsors. Bigger driver numbers please.

Public broadcasters

In the UK, F1 has moved from BBC to Sky. If it wasn’t for the introduction of the new engines around the same time, I would have given up on F1 entirely at this. If you want people to watch it, Public broadcasters are the way forward. I don’t want to pay for sky just for the F1. I am not interested in football or cricket. The only sport I really follow is the F1. Make it simple.


 

I sincerely hope this post does not come across as a rant. I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a while. Perhaps, with the GPDA asking for feedback F1 will improve and we’ll be able to enjoy watching the racing together. Sorry if this seems a bit off topic, but I’ll be doing more biking, backpacking and beer drinking if it doesn’t work out, especially on Sundays…

Dear Labour, it’s 2015…

Believe it or not, there is an election on. I word it this way, as apparently, the candidates in my constituency (Canterbury), seem to have decided that it’s not worth campaigning. At least that’s how it feels.

This election is a curious one, as I am actually still undecided who I will vote for. For the first time since I’ve been able to vote in 2001, I’ve not made up my mind who to vote for one week out. So the campaign work of the local candidates could be what decides who I vote for.

Yet, with under a week to to til polling opens all I’ve received are some leaflets. So far those leaflets have been from:

  • Lib dems – curiously with a request for a donation to Name Surname…
  • Tories – These I won’t vote for…
  • Greens
  • UKIP – Disappointing choice of paper makes it uncomfortable to wipe your bum with…
  • Socialist Party of Great Britain

The astute among you will notice that there is one party who’s leaflet is conspicuous in it’s absence. Labour. Now a labour party leaflet has come through the letter box of my flat. But, it isn’t addressed to me, and as such I shouldn’t read it. It’s addressed to my male house mate.

The idea of personally addressing each leaflet to each registered voter in the building isn’t an inherently poor idea. But, this is 2015. Why then is the leaflet addressed to my house mate and only my house mate? A brief survey of anecdotal evidence via twitter (Yes I appreciate that the plural of anecdote is not evidence), suggests that this isn’t an isolated case. It seems that in 2015 the UK labour party are under the assumption that the head of the house hold is the male name on the Electoral roll. Now ignoring the minor aside that my house mate and I do not constitute a single house hold, it seems surreal that labour are stuck in some 1950’s gender model. What do they do in single gender households?

Labour, I wasn’t likely to vote for you anyway, but you really have thrown away any chance of me voting for you in this election through your inability to realise that it’s 2015, the world has moved on, and to stop being so sexist.

Maybe in the 2020 election ( or the Autumn 2015 is some predictions are correct) you’ll have stepped into the 21st century. But until you do, I’ll take my vote elsewhere.