PlatyPreserve:There comes a time on most weekend hikes when there's a hastily wrapped ham and cheese sanger to be eaten. Or the perennial favourite: egg and onion.
Maybe even some posh class of a gourmet confection featuring hummus and roasted peppers will be proffered about. If only you had a crisp Sauvignon Blanc to wash it all down . . . so you whip out your PlatyPreserve and start pouring.
It’s a wine preservation bladder from Platypus, best known for its quality backpack reservoirs and hydration packs which let walkers, skiers and cyclists sip away on-the-go. Now with the PlatyPreserve, you can tipple on-the-go too. But it’s best enjoyed sitting down with the view washing over you.
Able to take 750ml, it obviously cuts down weight and because it’s flexible, you can seal it airtight by squeezing up the pack and capping it again keeping it protected. That’s on the basis that you and your fellow walkers haven’t polished it off, of course. Yeah, right. Great for camping, festivaling or simply as an outdoorsy way to preserve an open bottle at home, the PlatyPreserve does what it does well.
Of course, you’ll probably need another for that cheeky red too.
Cost:£13.99 (€15.55) from amazon.co.uk
Casio Pathfinder 1500-1V
With the domestic sailing season well under way and sail-cations becoming increasingly popular family hols, perhaps here’s a bit of kit that you deserve, something that says you’re a veritable warrior of the waves. It’s the Casio Pathfinder 1500-1V. Apologies for serial numbers here, but these Pathfinders must be voracious breeders as there are about 20 lookalike cousins in the family.
And it needs more than a casual glance to tell them apart. Lots of rubberised black, plenty of big buttons, dials the size of side plates. But then that’s what you need when you’ve got to impart as much info as a Pathfinder. ABC, of course (altitude, barometer, compass), but that’s only for starters: it has yacht timers, 200m water resistance for scuba, tidal graphs, moon phases. Even the watch part has multi-band atomic accuracy. Couldn’t do without it you say. Basically, six times a day the time is calibrated by up to four signals from across the world. You are the talking clock. Oh, and all this watch-porn is solar-powered, so the battery won’t let you down and you’re doing your bit for the planet. Admittedly, you might need wrists like a second row forward to make it look to scale, but you’ll be well-informed and ready to bore.
Cost: £274 (€304,50) on casioonline.co.uk
Fanbrella
We must be uniquely fond of travelling with our umbrellas judging by the insistent enquiries at Irish airport X-ray security. Could it be the historical conditioning of our climate or are we thinking more parasol?
Where there’s brolly there’s brass apparently. You can see how it all came about: sometimes carrying your umbrella, you start to feel unfashionably hot. The rain may be bearing down, but you need to chill. Or it’s the heat-oppressive sun. If only it had a fan too.
And you thought it couldn’t be done. What genius scientist could ever conjure up such a gadget, mounting a fan in the dome of an umbrella? Power it with a half dozen AA batteries. A click and you’re whizzing at 650rpm.
Not quite enough to suggest a Mary Poppins take-off, nor perhaps even to give you a bad hair day, but there is a gentle down draught.
Then the fan blades fold away neatly with the rest of the umbrella when it’s down.
Now, what ever will they call it?
Cost: $79.95 (€53.80) from hammacher.com