My first camping trip of the year – a one nighter. I arrived on Friday good and early, the prospect of two full days and a night at the woods was exciting. I had some projects in mind so plenty of time for work and play. The woods have really blossomed and the tree canopy has closed over making it a much darker place now. Plants and trees are looking lush with new growth and the birds incredibly active and vocal. After my usual walkabout and whilst putting out the bird food, I heard a loud crack nearby. Then another and another but no crashing sounds. Worryingly it was coming from the area where I park my car. It was a tall spindly hawthorn. A large branch near the top had split and fallen onto another splitting that too. Both were still hanging up there, dangling precariously and dangerously and issuing the occasional cracking sound. I tugged and pulled, hoping they would come away completely but no. They had to be made safe and I only had hand tools with me. Using my bow saw and wedges it came down ok but needed clearing away. This was a totally unexpected job but I’m glad it happened during the day. Imagine it happening at night when camping nearby, it would have been terrifying. There was no apparent reason for the branch breaking, no obvious rot. I guess it was just a combination of factors – the length of the gangly branch, the weight of the new leaves and maybe something like a squirrel on it just tipped the balance. That was half my morning gone already.
For a while I have been wanting to make a woodland chair. I saw the design on Youtube. It is made by lashing together poles to make two upside down V shapes. One has two more poles across making a sort of A shaped frame. The V shaped one is passed through the gap in the horizontal poles to lock them together and the two protruding pieces at the front have loose pieces balanced across them to form the seat. Get it? No, well a picture tells a thousand words so have a look at this sequence of photos. The poles have had the bark removed and laid out ready. The top insides need to be chamfered at an angle to form flat faces to fit each other, then lashed around the tops.
The upright piece has two poles lashed across the legs, the lower one on the front and the higher one on the back and spaced roughly the thickness of the poles apart. The other piece is passed beteen them, the point of it, forming the back leg.
Then logs are split and laid across the projecting pieces to form the seat.
It looks cool in it’s desert camo colours but is it any good? Not really! The thing pivots on it’s front legs like a seesaw when you go to sit on it. The back leg needs to be longer or pegged down so that it doesn’t do that and the backrest isn’t very comfortable and the seat moves around. Maybe that’s why you never see this design in furniture shops! Well it was fun making it and I might add a few mods later.
It was soon time to start making a fire and preparing for my evening meal. I bought a great little book on wild camp cooking and picked out a meal to try. A sort of simple, veggie curry. A pre-cooked jacket potato, a small onion and a few mushrooms are sliced and gently cooked in oil (or butter) until soft. Add a small tin of coconut milk, a stock cube and a couple of teaspoons of curry paste and continue gentle cooking for another 10 minutes. Meanwhile warm up a naan bread, or in this case a couple of pitta pockets (preferably not burnt on one side – oops) and serve together. Washed down with a beer, it tasted great and easy to modify with different ingredients. That one will go in my personal camping recipe book.
After doing my washing up, I had a nice walk around the larger woodland rides looking for wildlife and any signs of neighbours before settling in front of the fire. No neighbours but lots of birds. I read a little, drank a little and when darkness cloaked the woods, turned in for an early night. I had been awake since 4am and knew I would probably awake early tomorrow. Sleep came quickly but what would the night hold for me? It’s a natural environment but unnatural for us to be sleeping in it alone and in the past my subconscious has sometimes played nasty tricks on me, giving nightmares. I wasn’t afraid but was my subconsious “Chimp”?
Read The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters where he explores the workings of our subconscious. It’s the ancient part of our brain that is basically there to help us survive danger. He likens it to a chimp, excitable, quick to act and often fearful. It cant differentiate between real or perceived danger and is stronger than out conscious mind. As he says “You can’t arm wrestle a chimp”. When you hear about a road rage incident, it’s the “chimp” at work.
See day two to find out if my chimp behaved.
