Carry on Sledging

As you know, sometimes manufacturers send us nice things in return for a review on the blog.  This is not one of those occasions.  Today we had snow in Grange-over-Sands and Steve came up with the genius idea of sledging but as we don't have a sledge we needed to improvise.  We raided the cupboards for plastic bags and, having come up with a good selection, decided to review them Gadget Show style in case you find yourself in the same situation.

The contenders are:

Windermere & Ambleside Wines

Asda bin bag

Keith Singleton Compost

CoOp Bag for life

Debenhams clothing bag

M&S coated canvas bag

5p Nisa carrier

First up Debenhams...

This had its merits but was, on the whole, disappointing.  The handles were on the wrong edge and the bag wasn't shiny enough to give sufficient glide.

Next the Co-Op bag for life...

I'll be honest, this was an early leader - a good size and nice and shiny.  Good effort from the Co-op and definitely a top 3 placing.

Steve showing his delight with the performance of the CoOp bag

Then came Nisa - and the least said the better.

Too thin, too flimsy and too slow.

Windermere and Ambleside Wines were next - we had high hopes for this one, a good substantial bag from a shop which stocks our favourite wine - and we weren't disappointed.  Good and shiny it flew over the snow setting a high bar for the others to clear.

I thought the plastic coated canvas bag from M & S would take the lead - the handles were good and substantial and definitely in the right place - but ultimately it failed the shininess test.  Too much friction and not enough glide.

It's almost like I set the entire blog up for the next line, but I swear I didn't.  The binbag was rubbish.  :-)

Which leaves us with only 1 - the winner by a good margin - Keith Singleton's 80 Litre compost bag.

It had everything except, perhaps, handles.  It was big and it was shiny.  Big was a key factor here - as you can see from the videos we had to lean back a lot and this provide excellent all round coverage.  A worthy winner and, if this really were the Gadget Show, this bag would definitely get 5Gs.

With the sensible and serious business of reviewing the sledges done, it was now time to have a little fun.

First there were races.

Then there were GoPro action shots without the GoPros.

His view...

My view...

And of course it wasn't without incident...

And just in case you thought we were only out there messing around in the snow, here are a few shots of the lovely views too.

Having provided this valuable public service we're both now covered in bruises and enjoying a well earned afternoon in front of the fire.