It was a windy, cool morning yesterday and a definite feeling of summer winding down. Still very green, dark and dense but you can sort of sense a slowing down of the woods after the fast pace of spring and early summer. I was there to take delivery of some materials for my new shelter and make plans and preparations for it. The larch poles that I scorched last week and gave them black “socks” were to get a pair of wellies. I figured socks wouldn’t keep their feet dry for long so I coated them with some bitumen. Looking at them afterwards reminded me of giant versions of Sooty’s wand.

I spent a lot of time marking out the position of the shelter. The old shelter relied on three living oak trees as supports but as I don’t like screwing into live trees, all the roof spars etc were lashed to them with nylon rope. I don’t like that either, so the new one will be free standing using these larch poles and treated milled timber for the framework and roof. It’s going to be quite a bit bigger than the old one too but hopefully not too intrusive. The size of it is determined by the roof panels as I don’t want to cut them. There are four of them and they are three metres long and a metre wide, so I need to work out exactly where to place the corner poles allowing for the framing and panels so that the roof fits perfectly with a slight overhang. If you’re struggling to get your head around the concept, how do you think my head felt as I juggled with tape measure, bits of wood and the loose roof panels to try to draw out a plan?

As I sat eating my lunch I noticed a movement in the undergrowth. Eventually a young robin revealed itself. I know it’s a young one because the red breast hasn’t reached it’s full colour yet. I’ve seen it hanging around the last few visits and it looks like it’s going to be my new best woodland friend. It’s still not quite sure when I throw food for it, so I left some on a stone and later it had gone. It’s so special to have a wild creature come to visit you (apart from the ones that bite or sting).

There wasn’t much more for me to do, so I spent some quality time just wandering around with my camera. I’ll leave you with some of my best shots.