By: Blonde Two
Once upon a time, the blue-bag was a bag of blue dye (indigo and later ultramarine) which was dipped in the rinsing water of laundry to stop it having a yellow appearance.
I didn’t get one of those for Christmas.
Later, the blue-bag was a 0.6g bag of salt, designed to give the avid crisp eater control over the saltiness of his snack.
I didn’t get one of those for Christmas either.
These days, a blue-bag may well be an item of expanding size into which you are encouraged to put your Swedish furnishing purchases, strange shaped desk lights and mini-chocolates as you exit IKEA.
We already have plenty of those, so I didn’t need one for Christmas.
But I did get a blue-bag. It is much bigger than any of those described above; big enough, in fact, for me, Big Orange (sleeping bag), a sleeping mat and my many layers of sleeping clothing to fit inside. This is good news because it means that finally, I can have a go at the fine art of bivvying. A tricky to spell word which, I am hoping means, “Sleeping safe, secure and dry in a bag whilst admiring the stars.” but on Dartmoor is much more likely to mean, “Sleeping with a wet face in a damp bag, worrying about ponies trampling on you, whilst gazing into the mist.” We shall see, either way, I am looking forward to it!
Blonde Two: It was also called Dolly Blue, a phrase that could be used as a verb (eg: I’ll just Dolly Blue it.) No doubt I’ve been told many times (I’ve always been a persistent questioner) but I’d forgotten how subjecting white fabric to a blue dye could actually bring about an improvement. You are of course far too young to have ever seen a Dolly Blue with its little wooden handle and I’m even amazed that you know of it.
Your final para stirred up a Neanderthal memory dating back to when I shared your love of outdoor life. I yearned for a sleeping bag that was truly efficient and eventually thought I’d found it in the Blacks of Greenock catalogue. A double bag, possibly stuffed with eider down, long enough (ie, in excess of 7 ft) for the sleeper to reach out through the entrance orifice and awkwardly work a draw-string to seal himself in like sausage meat in a sausage skin. The price was astronomical which means it was probably £20 – way, way beyond my means.
Thereafter I caught references in outdoorsy books to heroic walkers/climbers who had such a double bag and I further yearned for news of how it protected them. But never got it. All I got was a variant on: The weather was so warm I only needed the one bag. Tell me, I screeched silently to myself, how you stayed warm with frost on the bag’s outer cover. Even if you risked sweating a bit. But answer came there none.