Last month I went trekking in Snowdonia and was given the opportunity to try out my first pair of Mammut Hiking Boots the Mammut T Advanced GTX Men.  I received them the day before I was to drive up to Snowdonia, so there was going to be no bedding in time with these they were going to be thrown straight into the deep end!

It is always difficult to write about something without bias when you are already completely in love with the brand, but I will try my hardest. Waterfield likes to combine the super masculine look of distressed leather with practical urban bags, and the Rough Rider is no exception. Its naturally-tanned distressed leather core material contrasts wonderfully with a choice of five accent colours. Personally the Green and the Pine are my favourite as they complement the tan brown so nicely.

When we took the Neoair Dream out camping we also took out a bog standard blow up Argos basic air bed, once they were blown up, my partner, being a gentleman, asked me which I would prefer I looked at the Neoair Dream and then the thicker basic bed and choose that, epic mistake! In the morning my air bed had deflated so much my butt was touching the ground it was really uncomfortable and the material itself felt horrible if it touched my skin, so I made a big fuss and he gave up the Neoair dream to me for night two.

The Icemule Pro Cooler claims to be, “The World's Most Portable High-Capacity Cooler”. It has all the power of a hard luggage style cooler but in the form of a soft backpack, it has reinforced back-straps and ventilated back pads which make the Icemule Pro comfortable to wear for long periods of time. The Icemule Pro doesn’t muck about, it understands your need for lots of storage space, never again will you have to choose between keeping you BBQ meat cold or having an ice cool beer by the campfire.

I really like the visual design of this backpack, the model we had was Mono Mist, an attractive soft blue with light brown leather details which complement each other nicely, the inside pockets are also the same colour making it easier to find items in the depth of the bag. The shoulder straps meet across the back of the neck that at first I thought might rub but it is actually very comfortable and with the sternum strap it distributes weight making even heavy loads easy to carry.

The Neutrino Endurance Jacket is a technical down jacket for modern mountaineering and light-weight ascents, designed for UK and alpine winter conditions which has been recently revised for autumn/winter 2015. RAB use high quality 800FP European Goose Down combined with Hydrophobic Down technology that greatly reduces water absorption and maintains loft so the Down doesn’t clump into horrible lumps like normal goose down when it gets wet, it also dries out really quickly.

This is a rigorously tested bag, that has been used at least 3 times a week during the 6 months we have had it, it has travelled around London, been hiking in North Wales and Norway and recently went skiing in France. Apart from being a little dirty it still looks as good a new, there is no wear on the bottom from being dumped on the ground due to the tough nylon material, the stitching is still perfect and the padding in the back and straps remains full and supportive.

More and more of our creature comforts depend on being charged (sometimes on a daily basis) and as a result a wide range of outdoor chargers have hit the market using various techniques and giving you high hopes for your next camping/hiking trip. We have previously tested out the BIOLITE and have been somewhat spoilt with that as it worked very well, other products we have tested have fallen between working ok to not working at all.

EXO² is a UK based design and manufacturer of heat therapy & heated clothing products, they use an ingeniously designed material called FabRoc which took 30 years to develop and is a lightweight polymer that produces FIR (Far Infrared Rays) heat energy when a low voltage is passed through it. its flexible which means you can produce a light weight item of clothing where the only wire is the one the battery pack connects too.

We have friends, who shall remain nameless, that invite us over for a BBQ every summer, and every year without fail we all end up starving, we now prepare by having something to eat before we even leave ours. The issue is that they wait for everyone to arrive, make everyone drinks, sit down, have a catch up and then say, “should we start the BBQ?” Why isn’t it already lit? It then takes ages for the coals to light, burn down and then for the food to cook and EVERY year they will say, “we really should have started it sooner” but they never learn.