I admit I’m a rubbish cook but want to improve. Simon suggested making a rissotto with fried scallops. Sounded ambitious to me but he’s done it before. I also wanted to try out my new cast iron Dutch Oven over a fire. Simon started prepping the meal and I made a fire. He made a nice Greek salad for starters. Who said camping in the woods is roughing it? The new table came in handy.

The rissotto consisted of rice, onion, carrot, celery, peas and asparagus tips, topped with fresh paremesan. It took longer to cook than expected and the heat was inadequate by the time we got to frying the scallops. The fire was too young and should have been started earlier in order to build up more hot embers. The meal was delicious though. Here’s my chef working hard. The dutch oven performed perfectly, nothing stuck at all.

Simon has an electronic bat detector which was something else we wanted to try out. As dusk settled, we took a walk with it out to the woodland edge where it joins a farmers field, the sort of area you might expect to find the bats foraging. Nothing on the radar but but it was a beautiful view, looking across the newly ploughed and deeply furrowed field, watching the sun drop below the horizon.

Back to camp and time to kick back around the fire with a few beers for Simon, a bottle of red wine for me and some chillout music from an Ipod docking station. John Martin and a band I can’t remember but had the word Cowboys in it, provided a surreal but relaxing mood. Lots of campfire talk, good laughs and star watching took us effortlessly to 1.30 am when we turned in for the night. I settled quickly and no scary dreams this time. The new camping spot felt good, maybe there was some psychological benefit from nestling between the oak trees – feeling less exposed and safe in the womb of the woodland. O.K. I’m sounding a bit weird but I know some folks will get it and what’s wrong with weird anyway? Some of my best friends could be described that way.

Sleep was a short experience, the woodland alarm clock went off around 4am. Birds were doing their best to wake everything up. I drifted off but by 6am I gave up on sleep and emerged to a beautiful warm and sunny morning. See part three for more woodland fun.