The Possibles Bag.

In the world of Bushcraft many practitioners carry their ‘possibles’ in a small bag or pouch ; small items such as one’s flint and steel, KFS or ‘racing’ spoon and often a small bag of dry tinder. It can get a bit silly of course ; I knew one Bushcraft instructor that claimed to be out there doing his stuff only carrying a day pack sized ruck and a possibles pouch – when I saw him though his possible pouch was the largest waist pack that could then be bought and needed near explosive tension at the waist strap buckle to keep it in place.

This possibles bag is a kind of catch up for things that don’t need an entire post but which i’d like to talk about anyway.

Blog time, Midsummer 2026.

As I write, or at least edit some posts, we’re on holiday at camp near Weymouth – Dorset UK for those unfamiliar with UK geography. It’s alternately decently warm and then surprisingly cool when the clag rolls in again. It’s warm enough most of the time that there’s an awful lot of flesh on display : in my mind I immediately turned that statement around and said to myself ‘there’s a lot of awful flesh on display’. It’s not just women either although can I just say that bad tattoo’s and pink hair don’t make fusy women (fat, ugly and stupid) suddenly attractive. Not only women but this week it seemed to young men with gunts and beer bellies – not a good look and what it shows is just how bad the state of health has become in the UK,

Workshop Project progress.

Also as I write, iv’e finished my part of the work at this stage ; the whole workshop is paneled out and the roof insulation sheets are in. Iv’e even managed to mostly seal the dusty concrete and laid down a barrier sheet of plastic to suppress and contain the concrete dust. While we are away Mark the Sparks will move in and do his stuff ; i’m aiming to have as much light and as many power points as a bed space in my last ICU. There’s nothing for me to do at this stage apart from a rough plan of where I think I need power points, area lights and tool spotlights. When I get back in there the next stage for me is to lay the insulation sheets and heavy plywood that will be the floor and only then to fit the place out. In a new thread of posts i’ll have many that are infrastructure days and hopefully soon some actual starts of projects.

Lights, Camera ; Action – my sawhorses and a sheet of plywood standing in for the large farmhouse table that will be my central workstation.

An Ebay rant.

In several recent posts I enthused about the idea of building another boat but only if I could start from a kit of plywood parts. Two of my prerequisites were to have enough cash in hand to initially buy the timber, obtain a cutting file and have the parts CNC cut. Thus far iv’e not met and of my preconditions to even start the actual planning but I did make a determined start by listing 5 things for sale or auction on several sites ; including Ebay of course. Rather than selling everything I didn’t sell a single item although what I did get was a big stinking pile of Ebay time wasters ; despite having posted several photographs and clear descriptions iv’e been inundated with numb-nut questions and even had a pair of potential buyers that put in a low bid only in order to come and view one of the items for sale – even then it didn’t sell.

Other questions and potential buyer attitudes suggest to me that what people want, and the only thing that they want is an absolutely low cost bargain rather than anything close to an item’s secondhand value. I don’t have a great desire for ‘stuff’ and would happily see most of the things currently listed go to someone who gets use out of them but this week has been a long way beyond a joke. As of this week iv’e abandoned the idea of building a SCAMP and instead I plan to use any funds to go towards the workshop rebuild and a couple of projects in the house.

Ebay edit.

A welcome surprise but one that became increasingly difficult to deal with as our holiday continued was that my recumbent trike sold in that it was the subject of an only just bid, the buyer paid and only after he’d paid and come to collect did he he do a minute inspection – obviously looking for any small thing that he could pick up on – and then immediately tried to chisel a bit more money out of the deal. In my opinion he was somewhere between an actual fraudulent buyer and chancing his arm……which got bitten had and fast !. Anyway, it’s gone which means I can put that money towards new tools. Right at the end of our holiday we happened to be in mostly middle class Dorkchester for the day and their was a car boot sale going on – I happened to see a couple of nice looking wood and brass marking gauges and some wooden planes but didn’t have time to stop and offer some cash – a decent offer I would have hoped.

Ebay question ; can it be converted into an E trike ? (Answer is ; no because it already is one)

Main Project News/Update.

Had I weighed myself this morning I may well have seen the bathroom scales telling me that iv’e crept up (Or down) on 10% total weight loss so far. As it is I wouldn’t have believed the number as i’m either moderately dehydrated this morning or more likely heavier because i’m retaining a lot of what I drank the day before – maybe by as much as 2-3 Liters thus Kg’s. To my maths that’s an average of 10 Kg in 5 months, just going into 6 and if anything it has accelerated rather than slowed down with less walking. I’m still trying to keep up a daily step count of 5-600 per day on dodgy knees – it’s looking more and more likely that I need a second operation to give me new bearings !

While that sounds like cause for celebration all it really tells me is how much further I have to go and in the next short section one of my discoveries is that possibly I should be trying for fast weight loss rather than slow. For clarification i’m just approaching a body weight of 100 Kg (from the wrong side though) my initial goal was anything less than 90 but my thoughts now are that my end point should be to get below 80 Kg. Having just written my own half term report and said that ‘Steven is lazy and could do better‘ I also realize that rather than halfway through it’s more like Easter break than end of term.

Weight loss edit.

Iv’e written and re written this part so many times that it really needs filing in the delete post bin : in today’s version of as I write i’m something like 14 Kg down but that’s at the end of a fast and I was probably dry from the drive home.

Iv’e often said that I don’t regard my weight loss number as hugely important ; what hasn’t changed very much is my waist circumference. What has changed are some of my health problems that might be associated with weight although better stated as my weight or percentage visceral fat. I still haven’t measured or estimated that as an impedance weight scale hasn’t reached the top of the budget yet. What I can say is that at 7 % weight loss my prostatitis disappeared and at around 8% I was having to reduce my anti hypertensive medicines.

Side Projects.

Not Another Diet Book Surely ? – Yes, Another Diet Book & Please Don’t Call Me Shirley.

The star of the show this week – at least in this house, is the late Dr Mike Mosley. Last week, having been surreptisiously watching what shoppers put through the checkout a la Mike Mosley I saw that he’d written, not one but two diet books and my reaction was along the lines of “does the world need yet another well meaning but ultimately useless diet book” ? One of his books though seemed to be an espousal of something that was being talked about among people that practiced fasting and that was adopting FMD or Fasting Mimicking Diet ; the idea of which is to get the metabolic benefits and rapid weight loss of fasting without the concomitant muscle loss.

It’s kinda funny but when I started my own fat loss project I had accepted the idea that the best thing to do was to go slow and steady – accepting low but consistent weight loss. As it is my weight loss now sounds quite rapid so I bought one of Dr Mosley’s books to see what his ‘diet’ was all about : as you’ll realize i’m beyond cynical when it comes to celebs and their diets. Something that I only briefly touched on in my post Qui Bono (who benefits) is that we’re living in a post trust culture and that even extends to science and medicine. In my case it really grinds my gears when experts keep repeating the mantra that ‘studies show’ or scientists/experts now think that – whatever it is they’ve been already paid to release a paper about and only received funding because they’ve found the right (correct as in politically correct) result.

Survival Mode Engaged.

Stupid Mode Engaged.

Later that day and sat inside a nice cool house on a warm and humid day it seems that both summer silly mode and it’s serious twin ; stupid mode, have both been activated.

Surprise Visitor.

This week’s surprise came when I went up into the back garden – iv’e no idea what for – and as I looked around I saw an Adder slithering off towards our woodstore. It was a warm and sunny day so I presume it had been basking in the sun and I suspect it has a nest under the open fronted wood store. The strange thing is that having lived and walked in the south west, where they are said to be common, iv’e never seen one in the wild.