It was my birthday Tuesday.

My aunt and uncle generously gave me an Amazon voucher as a present that was put towards getting a Silva Compass 5.

I’m a gadget geek. But when heading out into the amazingly beautiful British hills you can’t rely on those gadgets for navigation.

Yes technology has not stood still in the years since I was last out in the wilds.

Yet it should never be your only way to find your way around.

I did already have a Silva compass. It’s been in “hibernation” under the stairs.

But. And there is always a but. I really liked the look of this new model.

I liked the wider variety of romers on it, luminous markings, built-in adjuster for magnetic declination (including permanent local adjustment), a clinometer for measuring slope angle. Plus! its lanyard can act as a detachable scale that works like a ruler. And it comes with a slope card.

However it doesn’t matter how fancy your compass is, if you don’t know how to use it then it’s a fancy expensive paperweight.

So YouTube has been my refresher on the core skills. But they need to be practiced enough times they become second nature again.

I also got a British Army protractor!

I already had one of these too!

There is a reason I bought a second. I’ve had the first one all my life, or it’s been in the family all my life. Which currently is 56 years.

The first one was my dad’s. It’s the one he had while as a para.

I consider that one a family heirloom that is kept safe and not to be used.

But why buy this new one?

I want to be better at planning my routes and making notes before hand. Which includes adding bearings.

The drawback of this military compass is its in mills. When I want degrees. So a bit of maths is required to convert between the two. It’s not an easy bit of maths either. By that I mean multiplying or dividing by an easy number like the conversion between metres and feet. Something you can do quickly and roughly in your head. The conversion between mills and degrees is a small decimal number. A calculator is definitely needed.

Why don’t I just get a US Army protractor clone that uses degrees? It’s that dad thing. Dad used one. Even now 26 years after dad’s death doing something like this somehow feels like it’s keeping his memory alive.

Although I do seem to be quoting dad a lot lately at work! The quote being “size doesn’t matter when they are on the floor”. Nico and Loki prove this everyday playing mum up while she is lying down. And it’s in relation to them it’s mainly said.

I do like regaling folks with tales of how two little dogs play mum up.

Right time to close off this post. See you in the next one.