I came to, around 5am and it was light. I tried to go back to sleep but it wasn’t possible and the prospect of sitting in my wood and a campfire coffee at that time day was sufficient to get me out and about. The trail camera I had set up where deer appeared to have been resting recently, showed nothing but to be honest I didn’t expect it to with me being there. Breakfast was fruity bannock and banana which I had enjoyed last time.

The previous evening I had spent some time carving a billy can pourer. It allows you to hold and tip/pour the hot can withough burning yourself. A simple but clever idea.

I had a few “proper” jobs planned for the weekend – erect deer netting, split some large logs to try to make stakes for it and possibly planks for making a shaving horse. The forecast looked abit iffy – possible rain between 10-11am and thunder in the afternoon. I prioritised my tasks – first pack my camp away and anything I’d left around that wasn’t essential, ready for a quick getaway if necessary. Next, try splitting some wide, six foot long logs for stakes. It worked quite well using steel wedges and the technique learned on my green woodworking course.

I headed around to the neighbours for a social then bang on 10.30 the rain started, just like someone turning the shower on. I scuttled back to mine but it had almost stopped ten minutes later. Back to work before the storms. I pointed-up the stakes and drove them into position around four newly sprouting hazel stools. There was thunder nearby and a strong wind was brewing up and the sky darkening. Time to pack the last things away and head for my shelter to sit it out. It might be an early finish today. There were several loud claps of thunder and the trees rustled loudly in the wind but surprisingly, very little rain fell. I was disappointed, hoping to witness a terrific storm in my woods and water the trees too. After it passed the sun shone again and I managed to put netting around the stakes and finish the job.  I headed home, tired and happy. A great weekend I shan’t forget.

The weather forecast was looking promising so I decided to take advantage and try another one-nighter last Friday, using the car to sleep in. I got an early start, had my usual walkabout and as you can see, the new spring growth has really flourished.

My day camp area has become quite overgown with grass, weeds and some brambles. So first job was to clear the area. The brambles are pulling up very easily after the recent rain and I got quite carried away with this job. Hot and uncomfortable but hugely satisfying to know you have defeated a small part of the bramble army.

I then set-to finishing the underground fridge, which just needed the lid making. I cut some hazel rods laid them out on the table and attempted to weave them into a grid. It was like fighting an octopus. The rods kept wriggling about and falling out of weave. So tip one is to lash the first row where they cross first. After that it was relatively easy to thread the next ones through, the tension between rows tending to hold things in place. You need to make two of these woven grids.

Next, layer some small branches and leaves onto the first grid. I used pine brash from a neighbour’s felling because they should resist rotting too quickly.

On top off that, layer a thick covering of moss.

Then put the second grid on top and lash the two together. You now have an insulating “sandwich”. I sprinkled water on the moss because it’s the evaporation process that draws heat out of the hole. Here’s the finished lid in place over the hole. I took the temperature inside and out first to see how effective it is. It was around 72F outside and 65F inside. A couple of hours later, even though the outside temperature had risen, the inside had dropped to around 60F. Not amazing but I think it proved it was working.

Time to set up my car “tent”. I inflated the air bed, positioned my under blanket and sleeping bag, pillows etc then slung up the tarp over the roof to form a sheltered porch over the back door. It took about 45 minutes. Slightly quicker than erecting a tent but it was the tarp that took the longest. You could just use the car without it which would have only taken about 15 minutes but the tarp gives protection from small falling debris, rain etc allowing you to undress/dress outside (a real struggle doing it lying down in the car) and if you need to get out during the night.

Time to get the fire going ready for heating the lovely casserole my wife had made for me.

Early evening is a lovely time to relax a bit after a hard day’s work and just enjoy the unique experience of sitting in a sunny glade of the woods, listening to the birds and taking in the shear beauty of nature in it’s many forms. An unexpected visitor landed on my arm and my reflex was to brush it off. A closer look among the floor litter revealed this beautiful beetle. I mus try to ID it later.

I put some more logs on the fire which created a fair amount of smoke. The setting sun rays were slipping between the trees, lighting up the beech leaves and as the smoke lazily drifted around, the smell of it and the magical images created, seemed to conjured up primeval feelings deep within me that is hard to describe. If you have experienced it, you’ll know what I mean and how comforting and “right” that feels.

As the light started to fade, I decided to take a walk around some of the rides. I was pleasantly surprised to find some neighbours and friends were also camping and had already demolished a bottle of wine. They kindly invited me to stay a while and offered me a shot of whiskey. They even had ice with them! We spent a pleasant hour chatting then I headed back to camp, stoked the fire and sat with a hip flask of rum just to enjoy the nightime before taking to my bed. Whether it was the knowledge of nearby friends or the effects of alcohol or both, I had no fears of intruders this time and enjoyed a pretty decent night’s sleep. See part two.

What a fantastic, glorious and sunny day yesterday. The hazel coppice where I felled the big sycamore is a real suntrap now and I’m looking forward to seeing how the hazel comes back with all the extra light. The bluebells are still around and everything else is bursting into life. I noticed two of my birdboxes had a lot of blue tit activity so I guess the eggs gave hatched. I filled the feeders and within minutes the birds were on them. The robins are always the first, bobbing around nearby as soon as I approach the feeders, almost impatient for me to finish. The Male Fern dotted around the woods are unfurling their fronds.

I had two main jobs on the list – carry on building the screen walls around the composting toilet and finish the underground fridge.  After a long wander around, I decided to carry on digging out the fridge hole. I was aiming for about two feet in depth but I’ve settled on around 18 inches. It’s just too hard a job, having to chop through roots and bend right down to scoop out the soil. It’s only going to be used when I occasionally camp there anyway. The lid is to be made of woven hazel rods packed with pine brash. I don’t have any pine but I know a man who has – loads and loads of it, where he has been felling in his plot. I asked permission to take some and he kindly allowed me to. A little shrew scuttled across my path, running for cover, as I dragged a few branches back. I didn’t have time to make the lid yet but here’s the fridge so far. The stone surrounds are left-over scraps from our new garden paving. The whole thing will be covered with the brash lid but I wonder what adventurous animals might find their way in? The sides are rough so they should be able to climb back out.

The two new walls for the toilet are finished. I ran out of suitable logs to do the other two but I might just build them up with some of Chris’s pine brash. Another neighbour has been using some of it for nesting sites for his birds, piling dense bunches between the forks of low branches. He also uses piles of dead bramble, an idea I might copy come Autumn.

It will be a couple of weeks before my next visit, the wood is getting darker as the canopy leafs up and it will look completely different. I guess the bluebells will have gone so here’s one last photo until next spring.

This is going to be a long one, so you might want to make a cuppa tea or coffee first! It’s been a while since my last visit so I was pretty excited to be going again with a one-night camp planned. I was keen to have another go at sleeping in the back of the car on the plywood board I fashioned last year. I’d bought a good quality inflateable sleep mat, the main issue the first time was using a cheap foam one which gave little cushioning to my old bones. I have also cleared a better area to position the car. It’s a bit more private, surrounded by some very tall hawthorn trees and away from the sycamore which had covered my tarp with sticky aphid goo last time. To use the back of the car for sleeping, I have to climb in through the rear passenger door, so I strung a tarp over it to provide a sort of porch and  to provide protection when I get in and out of it or undress/dress. The arrangement worked pretty well.

When I arrived, there was evidence of some minor vandalism. The marble slab that formed the back of my camp fire had been smashed and a mature oak had been gouged with my mattock tool. I talked to a neighbour later who told me a bunch of teenagers had been visiting another plot of wood, earlier in the week and had inflicted some minor damage to his property too. It’s always going to be a possibility that intuders will enter the woods and steal or do damge. So far I haven’t had any incidences and I think this was a typical, bored-what-can-we-do-to-show-off-to-the-lads mindless activity that teenage boys often do.

Onto more positive things now. The woods are looking at their finest. Fresh new growth everywhere. The bluebells are at their peak of flowering and many other plants have sprung up and the trees are in their first flush of leaf – vibrant, fresh greens.

The two day trip meant I could also crack on with a few jobs and projects. I saw an idea in a book that appealed. An underground fridge. Basically a hole in the ground with a stone slab in the bottom. You make a lid by weaving thin branches covered with small brash and damp moss. The evaporation draws heat from the pit and keeps it cool. I started digging it and got about a foot deep before running out of steam. Much harder than it sounds. The ground is quite dense and roots here and there to contend with. I didn’t get to finish it so I’ll report back later.

Other jobs on day one – I netted off four large, coppiced hazel trees that have been nibbled off by deer last summer, just as they were regrowing nicely. A job that’s been nagging me to get done. The coppice area where I felled the big sycamore trees was a real sun trap and a joy to work in now. I had a go at splitting some large logs for making the seats for three-legged stools. A skill I learned a few weeks ago on a green woodworking course. Here’s a photo of the stool I made and would love to have a go at some more, using my own timber. I managed to get three nice straight pieces. I just need the time to make them now.

Time for my evening meal – a fry up of potatoes, onions, mushrooms and veggie sausages with baked beans. A lot of work goes into cooking in the woods and you need to be well organised. First to forage for dead wood to make a decent fire. Keeping it going is a job and a half as you need to keep feeding it for the first half hour to create a nice bed of embers. A cast iron pan is what you need on an open fire. This one was filthy and rusted when I bought it for £1 at a car boot sale. Most people would not even consider using such a thing but you can retore them with a bit of work. First leave it in the hot embers of a fire for an hour (take the handle off first!). All the old grease and muck will burn off and leave it as bare metal. Rub it down with wire wool to remove any scale. You can wash it in hot water and washing liquid but make sure you dry it straight away or rust will start forming. That’s the only time you should wash a cast iron pan. Next rub it vigorously all over with cooking oil, several times until no more dirt comes off on the cloth. Then either put it in a very hot oven for about half an hour to season it. The oil will change chemically and form a sort of non-stick coating. When it’s cooled, a light rub of oil and your ready to cook and when done, just scrape any bits off and rub it lightly with oil again. It will get better the more you use it but never, never, wash it now.

I spent the evening doing a few small jobs ready for the nightime, then sat down in front of the fire, whittling a few tent pegs for my tarp, sipping some spiced rum and listening to the birdsong as dusk approached and the last bird (a thrush) finally stopped to say it’s bedtime. I was tempted to turn in early as I knew I’d be awake early too but decided to embrace the peace and quiet and unique experience of sitting on your own in a woodland, in front of a fire, in the dark. There were mixed feelings – contentment but some trepidation. Being on your own and having heard my neighbour’s tales earlier, of “lampers” (guys who sneak around woods in the dark, looking for deer to hunt. They use torches to show up their eyes in the dark). Some were spotted a few weeks ago, it tends to put you slightly on the nervous side of relaxation and the very word, lampers, sounds sort of spooky. Your primitive, primeaval brain kicks in and your senses are heightened. “Fight or flight”.

I thought I saw a flash of bright light in the distance. Yes, another one. I kept watching to see if it moved. I saw some more and yes they were moving. Adrenalin started to negate the effects of the spiced rum. I didn’t want to go to bed without knowing what the lights were. I switched modern man’s part of the brain back on, forcing neanderthal man to listen to logic and reason. Could they be car lights from the minor road that runs parallel half a mile away, glinting occasionally through the dense woodland trees? That makes sense but neanderthal man kept objecting. There’s only one way to find out. Head stealthily toward the lights, in the dark (without a torch to give myself away) to investigate. There was just enough light in the sky to make out where the main tracks were and knowing it well, I could easily find my way toward the edge of the wood, where I could get a clear view of the road. The earlier spiced rum helped! Of course it was car lights and I headed back slightly more relaxed. Neanderthal man was still trudging along, somewhere behind me so it wasn’t the most relaxed sleep I’ve had.

After a rather restless night, I emerged around six o’clock and relit the fire, kettle on and a fresh coffee to kickstart the day. A nice time to reflect, relax and enjoy the new day. I packed my sleeping gear back up then made some breakfast – raisin bannock bread and jam and a banana. Today’s main job was to start building the log-wall, privacy screen around the toilet. It’s only half finished so no photos yet. I planted a few alder saplings that I grew from seed and chatted to some neighbours who turned up late morning. Some welcome human company. I headed home late afternoon, completely knackered, dirty and smokey but very content. A successful and memorable mini adventure.