I haven’t updated for a while. I’ve not forgotten about you, blog friends.

I’ve started writing this post in Edale, so this will be the first of two posts. The second once I’ve edited the images I’ve taken, which is the second reason for me coming here.

The first reason was to get out of Manchester for a weekend. As much as I love it I also miss living in the middle of nowhere from time to time.

And so I packed my tent, two camera lenses, some food, couple beers and a 38 minute train ride later, arrived in Edale.

One of the main reasons I wanted to come here was to get out of Manchester’s oppressive night time glow. If you’ve ever tried to photograph the sky in a city then you’ll know exactly why I’ve come to a small village. Edale isn’t particularly out of the way but it’s far away enough that light pollution shouldn’t be much of an issue.

However I didn’t account for cloud cover and as I sit here outside the Rambler Inn drinking a lovely plumb porter, I can see the clouds rolling in. I’ll set my camera up once I get back to the tent so hopefully there’ll be a few minutes of clear skies. Time left for a couple more pints before the farm shop down the road closes though.

So, what have I lugged all the way to Edale?

• OEX Hyena II tent
• Sleeping mat
• Sleeping bag
• OEX stool
• a set of rechargeable bicycle lights. Red for inside the tent, white for outside
• some coffee in a thermos
• food
• camera gear
• kobo, for readin’
• change of socks, pants and some thermals just in case, massive warm coat
• toothbrush
• phone

Food wise?

• Smoky red kidney bean pate, made the night before, looking forward to this – recipe below
• a baguette
• smoked cheese slices
• skittles
• big bar of chocolate
• Bombay mix from Unicorn
• four of Morrisons finest cheapest lagers

And my camera gear, again just taking the essentials this time.

• Wandrd PRVKE 31L Backpack (honestly this camera bag is superb)
• My trusty Sony a6100
• 1.4 Teleconverter
• 70-200mm f4 OSS II lens
• 16mm Sigma f1.4 lens
• two batteries
• tripod*

And what did I forget?

• toothpaste

*I won’t be lugging the tripod next time, it was heavier than my tent and sleeping bag combined and defeated the point of trying to travel light. It didn’t make it up Kinder Scout as I left it in the tent. We’ll see if Father Christmas has space in his sack for a carbon fibre tripod this year but until then I’ll carry on shooting handheld.

Hopefully I can fit a couple more trips in before winter hits. And now for the pate, super easy recipe:

1 tin of kidney beans (drained), a white onion, 3 cloves of garlic, juice a lemon, deseed a chilli, a teaspoon of little olive oil, cumin, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. Wizz it all together in a food processor. Pop it in the refrigerator over night.

Told you it was easy.