I spent a pleasant hour or so servicing my 13 year old MSR Dragonfly all fuel camping stove this evening. I'd dug it out a while ago and found that it leaked air when I pumped it (this test was before trying it with petrol). Initially I thought, it's 13 year old, of course it leaks. Then it occured to me that of course rubber seals perish and no one would make a £115 stove that was designed to be thrown away as soon as the seals went.

So I got on the internet and lo and behold, within seconds came up with MSR's annual service kit. It cost £15 - to get an otherwise fine, good quality, high powered and flexible stove up and running again. No brainer! In the same shop I found a compression sack for my Vango sleeping bag that dated from the same England to Singapore cycling trip in 2001. Suddenly, this too was a returned to a state in which it hadn't been for 10 years or so.

Having carefully followed the disassembly instructions (I considered just jumping in but thought I really didn't want to lose the stove at this late stage due to misplaced male bravado), I cleaned the leather pump cup, removed the old o-rings and replaced them with new ones. Then after putting it all back together again, I went outside, filled the fuel bottle with petrol and attached it to the stove. I pump primed the Dragonfly and then preheated the burner by allowing a little fuel to come through and lighting it with the valve closed.

And then came the moment of truth. A stove that hadn't been used for 10 years and had very recently been in pieces on the kitchen table mainlined to half a litre of petrol and ready to be fired up. I gingerly opened up the throttle and after a momentary spluttering, the old faithful roared - and I use the word quite deliberately - into life, sounding not unlike a jet engine with afterburners on full.

So the Dragonfly lives on. If drawing as little attention to yourself as possible is your goal, the MSR is not for you - it's loud and it's bright. But if you want to boil water quickly, in almost all weathers and have the flexibility to use a variety of liquid fuels, the Dragonfly scores highly.