I’ve just spent the last half hour writing this blog and most of the content has disappeared. I shall have to write it all again. So here goes.

This is the new friend, I think I’m going to call her Nina. It’s my new micro-camper van. Not brand new, she’s six years old. I don’t usually name my vehicles but a friend has persuaded me to so why not. It’s all kitted out with sink, double hob gas burners, fridge etc and a rock n roll bed which pulls out. I am planning to do some stays in the woods with it and traveling too. It’s not much bigger a than large car and so is easy to park. I wanted to give her a good run out, get familiar and try a few things. The pop up roof was easy enough but trying to fit the side canopy was very difficult. I lost my temper eventually and abandoned it.

The other job was to burn off the grease and gunk from this cast iron pan which I bought at a boot sale for £1. I will wire brush it and wash clean then oil immediately. To re-season you heat it up till the oil smokes and will blacken and protect the pan. Whilst I had a fire going I made lunch on another restored boot sale find. This little pan is ace for cooking on a fire, nothing sticks.

I found an owl pellet in my shelter. They are grey and furry and this was probably the remains of a wood mouse. When owls digest their food, all the fur and bones are rolled up into these pellets and regurgitated to dispose of.

Back in the 1990s some human remains were discovered in another neighbour’s plot. They were neolithic and the local archeologist were invited to excavate the woods. In my plot there is an ancient ditch and bank which they said could be neolithic or Roman or just medieval. They couldn’t tell. They dug a whole in my woods and left behind this metal marking grid tool. I keep it as a point of interest.

You can just make out the shallow ditch in the centre of this photo and the hole the archeologists dug.