Apparently it’s World Ranger Day.

If there was a gala dinner celebration i missed the invite and am currently looking for two bellends in balaclavas on SurRons in the Porter Valley.

Perhaps when i visit the Co-op later and have whatever is in the reduced fridge for my tea, i’ll pause and reflect on the 175 rangers who lost their lives in the past year across 42 countries.

Being a volunteer ranger for me is less about Smokey Bear and sweeping Yosemite vistas and more about using local knowledge, intuition, technology and teamwork to try and protect the countryside to the immediate west of Sheffield. Emphasis on the ‘try’.

Part car parking attendant, part tourist guide, part recce platoon member, part drone pilot, part wildfire operator, part puzzle solver, part evidence gatherer.

Mostly nocturnal. They never mentioned the sleep loss at the role interview i never attended.

Apparently there’s a thing called ‘The Thin Green Line’ where rangers show their support for rangers. First i’ve heard of it. I do the majority of my rangering in the dark with two other rangers. We support each other through the medium of chips mostly, and occasionally pizza. And being a wingman for each other on yet another long walk down to some woodland somewhere that some people from somewhere else seem intent on igniting.

Strange hobby.