Yesterday’s main job was to continue cutting back the brambles with the brushcutter. This year they have gone crazy and although I am changing my attitude to them, they do need controlling in some areas – mainly my paths and where I have planted saplings. I realise that there is no way I can eradicate them to any significant degree and that they are a useful habitat for a lot of wildlife. Food for insects, birds and small animals and shelter from predators too.

Walking about afterwards I spotted quite a few small young amphibians, I hope I didn’t mash any up! This one is a common toad and was only about 25 mm long. I’m puzzled as to where they breed. It wasn’t my pond and the nearest one I know of is several hundred metres away. I know they can migrate away but why would they not just disperse into their immediate woodlands?

The woods were incredibly quiet on the bird front. Hardly any to be seen or heard. I guess a lot of the summer visitors like the Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs might have returned to where they came from and also after breeding season, there is no need to advertise their presence with songs and calls.

I was keen to have another session with the metal detector and the recent rain has softened the ground a little making it slightly easier to dig. As well as the usual junk – spend cartridge caps, nails etc I found my first coin. Now don’t get too excited, it was just a 2007 penny but a significant find for a beginner. A little more exciting were two small brass buttons. They are tiny and I wonder what type of garment they might have come off and how old they are. They look to be the same type but were actually found in different parts of the woods. Could they have been shirt buttons on a woodland worker who got snagged on a branch or even the brambles! I’ll do some research and see if I can find an approximate age.

I was really dismayed to hear a story from another woodland neighbour. He is a keen nature lover and often walks the rides looking for wildlife to spot and photograph. He came across a distressed female fox calling out and went to investigate and found a young one had been caught in a box trap, set in another neighbour’s plot. He released it. Technically I suppose he was trespassing but in my opinion it was absolutely the right thing to do. He said he had spoken to the owner later and asked why he was trapping them. He said there were too many in the woods and they were killing the chickens and ducks that some neighbours down the road were keeping. I know they can be very destructive in that way but I believe it is the duty of the owners to make their property and birds secure from predators and not to feel they should annihilate them. I have said it before, the woods are not ours, they belong to the creatures that live in them and they have the right to exist there. It makes my blood boil.

Till next time – a few photos.

This year the brambles have gone crazy. Was it the rainy winter followed by early sunny weather we had in Spring? I’ve decided that trying to keep them down to any significant degree is impossible. .o my strategy these days is just to keep the paths and work areas clear, keep them down around any plantings I’ve done and blitz the areas where I am intending doing any felling. It’s clear that wildlife benefits from them. Hiding places for small birds and mammals, frogs, toads etc. Food from the flowers and berries and places for certain butterflies and other insects to lay eggs. Whilst clearing one of the paths I came across this old nest. Possibly a robin. So there’s some proof and also to make sure cutting is done before or after nesting season. Pretty sure it’s finished now.

You can see from the photo below where I have cut it back compared to the area behind and to the left. Still some more to do there. It’s the area I felled and replanted, so the extra light has given the bramble a massive boost but that will compete with my saplings for water and nutrients.

I was supposed to be camping on Wednesday night but earlier in the week the forecast showed thunder and rain all night and all day Thursday. So I cancelled. When Wednesday/Thursday came it was wall to wall sunshine. Despite all the satellite and computer technology available to meteorologists, they still can’t be relied on more than a day before!

Where I plan to pitch my tarp/tent, I need to erect a ridgeline to hang it on. It needs to be very taut. There are various special knots which allow you to pull the line tight but the one I had normally used (as demonstrated by Ray Mears) wasn’t as good as I wanted. I saw a better one on Youtube called a Trucker’s Hitch. You anchor one end to a tree with a simple Bowline and toggle, then run the other end around the other tree and use the Truckers Hitch. It works like a sort of pulley system. I’m not very good at learning knots but I practiced at home, running a line between the front door handle and the newel post at the bottom of the stairs! So it was time to try it out on the trees. Here’s some photos to clarify it but if any campers/bushcrafters want to know exactly how, then just search for them on Youtube. It’s too hard to explain in simple words.

Here’s the static end using a toggle and bowline

Here’s the Truckers Hitch (sorry it’s blurred)

and here’s the whole thing in situ. It worked very well

Now what about the special find whilst detecting? I dug up about eight finds. The usual rubbish – wire, a staple and a long threaded piece of steel bar with string around it which had been left by the student archeologists who dug here in the 1990s.

But the little gem was this thing – can you tell what it is?

It’s a leg ring from a small bird. I was well impressed with the sensitivity of my detector to find this tiny object and even more amazed that I actually found it! The inscription says INFORM BRIT. MUSEUM LONDON SW7 and there’s a serial number on it. A bit of research tells me the Natural History Museum used to be called the British Museum up until 1992 but actually they parted ways in 1963. So the ring must be at least pre 1992 and even pre 1963. I have informed the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) who now request any ring findings, so I am hoping they can supply me with some interesting data – what species of bird, when and where it was ringed etc. I’ll let you know what they say.

Intriguing title eh? I’ll come to that in a while. It was a very still and quiet woods when I arrived. Quite surreal, hardly a bird sound and even the noise of traffic on the A1 a few miles away, which can often be heard, seemed absent. It’s rare in our modern lives to be anywhere where there is no sound at all and apart from the occasional wood pigeon cooing, you could have thought you had gone deaf! There was no whisper of a breeze even, to set the leaves rustling and I sat for a while just enjoying being there in the moment on my own (apart from the millions of other little lives that surrounded me and some of which enjoyed a free meal on me).

I was pleased to get several visits from an adult robin. Could it be Bertie, the one I had feeding off my hand? I don’t think it was but I didn’t try offering food and simply left some on a tree stump next to my chair to get it accustomed to the idea.

So what about the treasure? For a while I have toyed with the idea of getting a cheap metal detector to investigate what is under the surface. Small pieces of metallic scrap are always turning up on the surface on my walks but the area in and around the woodlands has a long history of occupation – medieval, Roman and Bronze Age. After losing my knife a couple of times I started looking into it. Turns out that any new machine under £100 is a waste of money, so I ended up buying a decent second hand, entry level machine. Having no garden at home to try it on and finding out that metal detecting on public land is banned by the metropolitan councils, I was really keen to have a go with it at the woods.

There’s a big learning curve to become proficient but I picked up a few lessons. A casual sweep around brought dozens of beeps ringing out of the machine. It didn’t surprise me at all as that area was used for pheasant rearing and shooting before I bought the woods and I am always finding spent gun cartridges and random bits of wire. What I did learn was that digging in woodlands is hard work due to all the roots (actually I knew that from planting saplings). Also that the machine doesn’t lie. I almost gave up on finding anything in some holes but after persisting and actually finding small pieces of aluminium foil a few times, realised that for every bleep, there is something metallic there. There must be hundreds scattered around and I know I shall only dig a small percentage. Anyway here’s a photo of what I found, all of it trash but there was something exciting about finding them.

That wasn’t the only “treasure” I found though. Recently I have been looking for Oak galls, sometimes known as Oak apples. They are caused by a small parasitic wasp which lays an egg on a leaf or stalk. It causes the tree to grow a round ball of plant tissue around it. The egg hatches and the grub feeds on the plant, protected until it reaches maturity, then bites a hole in the gall and escapes. The next interesting fact is that the “spent” galls were used to make ink and many of the old historical documents were written with it. The process involves crushing the shells and soaking them to release the oak tannin, then adding ferrous sulphate (rusty nails will do it) and then reducing it down and filtering it. It produces a very dark brown/blackish ink.  Being the type of person I am, I’d like to have a go at making some. I have found quite a few tiny ones but whilst walking around yesterday, I found these newly formed ones. They are huge compared to most I’ve seen. They are still young and I will have to wait till Autumn when the wasps have escaped and the galls dry up before I can pick and use them. So that was the real treasure find!

The final bit of treasure, if you can call it that, was finding thousands of Daphnia in my pond. Also known as water fleas because when magnified they resemble fleas. In fact they are microscopic crustaceans, pink in colour. Tropical aquarium buffs will know them because you can buy them in pet shops to feed the fish. I read that they also help keep algae down in your ponds and keep the water clear. So I took a jam jar and brought some home for my small garden pond. I left the unopened jar in the pond overnight to equalise the water temperature so they wouldn’t experience thermal shock when released. Let’s see how they fare in their new home.

Yesterday was a window of opportunity of a good day between the wet weather we’ve been having, so off to the woods I went. Hadn’t planned much in the way of work but ended up doing some heavy log shifting. Toward the end of Winter I had felled quite a few sycamore and cut them into 4 foot lengths for stacking to season for firewood. I’d moved quite a lot of them but then lockdown occurred before I could finish it. Then the bluebell leaves and brambles covered them and it was a case of waiting till they died back so I could find them again. Now the bluebells have gone they are starting to be visible and there were two large logs close to the ride. So I thought I’d just move them to the log pile. I soon started seeing lots more lying there, so what was going to be a ten minute easy job turned into a mammoth task. Hard work but enjoyable.

One thing I wanted to do was get out the rocket stove that a friend had kindly given me. I’d hidden it away for safety and forgot about it for over a year. Shame on me! I fired it up to make a brew. I’d forgotten how fantastic this stove is. You feed it a few sticks and it roars away and boils the kettle in no time. Much easier to light than the Kelly Kettle stoves and you can cook on it too.  This is going to get used more regularly now I’ve rediscovered it.

I notice the birds are very quiet, now that breeding season is over. They don’t waste energy when it’s not needed for attracting a mate or claiming territory. I haven’t put food out for a few months as there is plenty of insect life around. I decided to fill the feeders again to see what was around and get them used to it being there. Visitor numbers were low but there were numerous young birds among those that did come. Nice to see an adult Nuthatch with a younger one and a young Robin taking an interest in me. I’m hoping this one will eventually become confident to take food from my hand just like little Bertie did.

What about the title – the beautiful visitors? There are lots of them in reality but it’s the ones I particularly noticed that I refer to. This year the bramble has gone crazy and right now there are lots of berries forming but some are still in flower. I found a patch in a sunny area and it was teeming with butterflies. Mainly Peacocks but also Commas and small White’s. The colours on the Peacocks are stunning in closeup. Here’s a selection of photos.

Comma

Small White

Peacock

The star of the show for me was catching the Tawny Owl on video. I told you I thought there was one roosting in my shelter after I found the pellets. I set my trailcam up to see what was going on and I was over the moon to get several clips of it. It looks smaller than they actually are. Typically 14-18 inches tall. It’s feathers look puffed out and it’s preening itself so I reckon it’s having a bath in my nearby pond, then sitting there to dry out. I feel really privileged to have it as a visitor. Because the shelter is relatively dark, the camera quickly switches to dark mode which is just monochrome but you get a second in colour at the start. Just enough to see what an amazing colour it is. Here’s a compilation of the clips.

New growth hazel.

I desperately needed another woodland therapy day and was keen to try to find the knife I lost last time. It really bugs me when I lose something, knowing it is still there somewhere. I had an inkling as to where it might have fallen and spent a long time searching to no avail. I carried on to other places and decided to have a look at my bees. As I waded through the bramble to get back onto the track, there is was. the orange cord was showing through the undergrowth but I must find a way of making it more secure. this is the second time I have lost it. It’s so good when you find what you lost though. Almost worth losing something on purpose just to get that mini “high” when you find it again.

The last few trips have been low key, taking it easy and just absorbing it all. Yesterday was a step forward to getting more active again. Covid 19 has sapped motivation and had a big negative impact on my mental health. Earlier in the year I was looking forward to doing some camping but it takes a fair bit of planning and a sense of confidence to spend a night alone in the middle of the woods. I’m thinking about doing another one soon and for me, the key to feeling confident is planning and preparation. There were a few small jobs that needed attention. It is a year since my last camp there and I only managed just one last year.

First up, check over the composting toilet. I gave the seat a good clean up (there are all sorts of creatures that will use it as well as humans ha!) Next, stock up the log store. When you have made a fire, you should think about your next one. So whilst it’s dry, collect kindling and small logs, give them some shelter ready for the next fire. It might have been pouring down the night before.

I have a new spot for my tent which I had cleared earlier in the year but my old tent area needs to be kept clear for potential guests and it was looking a bit overgown with small brambles and bracken. So an hour spent pulling them up and a general camp area tidy-up was another useful job done. There were a few things needed tying up with new cordage as the old natural fibres had rotted away. It’s satisfying to get a lot of small jobs done which you might tend to put off normally.

It was a good day for amphibian spotting. While working in the area I must have disturbed a small toad and watched it crawl away to safety. I also spotted a small frog hiding near my fireplace – not a good place for a frog, so I picked it up and transferred it to the edge of my pond. This one I found earlier and just let it be (look away now Lynn).

Did I mention last time that I think a Tawny Owl is roosting in my shelter? Well more poo and “pellets” were evident. When an owl swallows an animal like a small bird or mouse, a part of it’s stomach (the gizzard) digests the flesh and then turns the bones and fur into a ball which is then regurgitated. They are very light and don’t smell of much. I found a large one and opened it up. It was full of tiny bones. I would say the contents of three mice judging by the number of easily identifiable jaw bones. The brown bits are fur. Strangely there were no skulls and few vertebrae. At first I thought maybe they bite the heads off but if that were the case, those jaw bones wouldn’t be there. If you have any theories please leave a comment.

My final encounter with animal life worthy of mentioning, was a young robin. My very friendly “Bertie” disappeared in Spring and I fear he was either predated by a bigger bird or just died. I haven’t seen many adults around since but yesterday a young and rather scruffy looking Robin was hanging around where I was working. So hopefully, it might learn to trust me and take food from me. Winter time is when they get bolder, when food is scarce, so I shall look forward to a new birdie companion. Overall it was a very satisfying day, lot’s of wildlife interest and useful jobs done.

It’s been a few weeks since my last visit. We have had almost continual rain since then, so yesterday was a welcome break and some much needed nature therapy. I had a few jobs I wanted to do. For a long time I have been wanting to repair the roof of the little logstore that I have near my campfire. It’s made from old pallets and logs. The roof covering has always been some cheap plastic tarp which is far from ideal. It disintegrates after a few years and was providing no waterproofing for my logs. After a sort out of my cellar at home, I found some pieces of roofing felt and rough wooden planks. The structure of the roof was a bit shaky too so the planks were used to strengthen it first and add a small shelf area for storing various fire irons and metal grills for cooking. I’m pleased with the result and the roof should last a long time now, keeping the logs for the campfire nice and dry.

Whilst working, a robin came to suss me out. I haven’t seen many since Bertie disappeared in spring, so it was nice. Later, I noticed three or four rather scruffy ones bobbing about and I reckon they are young ones. So hopefully they will get to know me and maybe become the next “Bertie” who I trained to take food from my hand.

One of my tables, also made from a pallet, had started to rot away. It’s a useful table that I use regularly, so the next job was to try to prolong it’s life with the remaining wooden planks. Now I am a bit of a perfectionist by nature but I I didn’t have enough matching planks to replace the whole top or for them to match. But needs must and at the end of the day, I have to remind myself that it just needs to be functional and on that score it fulfills one of William Morris’s requirements when he said “Have nothing in your house that is neither useful or that you believe to be beautiful”. When I look at it, it makes me smile, more Heath Robinson that William Morris.

Another woodland project I am playing with is mapping my woods. I have a basic one but after watching a fantastic video on making your own personalised and artistic map, I started to plan my own. It’s not meant to be Ordnance Survey standard, merely a visual picture of features and where they are. Still I wanted a certain amount of scale and accuracy so I downloaded a GPS app on my phone so I could take co-ordinates of the various key areas to use as a starting point. Not sure if it’s going to be of much use though because the relatively small area of the woods means that the variations of readings from one place to the next are tiny and probably not usable. I’ll let you know how it worked out but here’s a link to the video. I really like this idea.

I managed to lose my bushcraft knife again! This time the whole sheath with knife in it detached itself from the belt coupling. Despite having a bright orange cord loop through the handle, the black colour of the knife is hard to spot on the ground. I spent about an hour retracing all my movements but to no avail. It’s not an expensive knife but is useful and it really annoys me when I lose anything.

Anyway, overall it was a very enjoyable day and did my mental state a world of good. Here’s a few photos taken on my walkabout and the mapping link I mentioned.

Honeysuckle flowers in the top of my Crab Apple tree

Well, June has almost gone already! The Summer Solstice has passed and days will gradually shorten, yet I still haven’t done with Spring. When lockdown occurred, it seemed like each week would crawl along as we eagerly awaited it’s end. Strangely though, the time has flown by even though each day seems like an eternity sometimes. Restrictions are easing, yet we still face the exact same threat with no cure or vaccine. The uncertainty and frustration encountered every day has taken it’s toll on my mental health and visits to the woods are even more valuable. So yesterday was an eagerly consumed day of just being there in nature, no jobs to do and just taking it all in slowly. The temperature has soared but the cooling effect of the trees losing water vapour act like a sort of fridge making it a comfortable place to be.

Everything is lush and verdant and growing rampantly now. My pond looks like strong tea due to the large amount of dead leaves. Mosquitoes danced on the surface and apart from millions of daphnia (water flea), there is little sign of other life. It’s too dark to thrive as a healthy pond but it serves it’s purpose as a drinking and bathing place for birds and other creatures.

The feral honey bees are still in my Little Owl nest box. I am surprised they have stayed so long, especially in this hot weather when they are most likely to swarm.

I met a young man, the son of one of my neighbours. He was on his own and had spent the night sleeping there without a tent or tarp. He was busy constructing his camp and we chatted for quite a while. He is learning bushcraft skills and seemed very keen, so I spent some time showing him how to make cordage from the fibres of nettles and brambles. He was amazed how strong it is and it was satisfying to know I had passed on a useful skill. I enjoyed his company.

Time for lunch and what can be more enjoyable than sitting in the sun, surrounded by birdsong and watching “woodland TV”? Most of my time was spent just wandering around with my camera looking for photo opportunities and seeing in detail what I have in my little woodland. This is some type of Campanula. Just an odd one growing next to a Hazel sapling.

For a while I have been looking for specimens of Field Maple around the town where I live. The leaves look similar to Sycamore but smaller and more rounded but as there is so much Sycamore around, hard to spot. They seem to be quite rare in my part of the country and it was a sort of mini-mission to find one. Well during our early lockdown days, I had been doing more walks in our local public woods and found one. I was pleased that I could tick that one off my list and having seen one in the flesh rather than books or internet, I can now ID them for definite. I was delighted to stumble across a medium sized one in my woods. Easily overlooked as it’s a part I don’t spend much time in. Searching around nearby I spotted another smaller one that had blown over but resprouted. Here’s the bigger one and a photo of it’s leaves. Notice the rounded lobes as opposed to pointy ones on Sycamore.

I left the woodland feeling peaceful and refreshed in mind and soul. What a lovely day! Can’t wait to get back there.

photo – Male Fern

Yesterday was all about just relaxing again and enjoying the healing quality of spending a day in a woodland. There were no particular jobs on my agenda. The lockdown situation has ramped up my stress and anxiety levels and this is the medicine I need – we all need. Scientists are now recognizing that there are actual chemical reasons why being in woodlands makes us feel so much better. There are certain chemicals given off by trees and plants that trigger the production of seratonin and dopamine in our systems, the hormones that make us feel good. For me though, the beauty and peace I experience does that anyway.

One of my objectives was to have a fire and cook a simple lunch but … to light the fire using my home made bow-drill. Sorry no new photos but this photo shows the kit used when I first learned about them. The bow turns the spindle rapidly in the hole, causing friction which creates charred sawdust and eventually starts to glow as an ember. That is then used in a ball of some combustible material – eg dried grass, honeysuckle bark, natural twine etc to create a flame to light your fire.

Two woodland neighbour friends called around whilst I attempted to use my bowdrill. I have to say it is very very difficult to do. Firstly the spindle and bow have a regular tendency to part company. Secondly, it takes a lot of energy to reach the point where you have a pile of charred dust (known as the coal) and then to get it hot enough to ignite. My bushcraft teacher and now friend told me at the time, “When you reach a point where you are tired, keep going. When you reach exhaustion, keep going and when you feel like you are about to pass out, go even faster”. How right he was! After several failed attempts where I got close to an ember, my friends decided to part company, joking that when someone is watching you try to perform something, it often seems to “put the mocker’s on it”. A few minutes after they left, I had my ember and fire and a welcome coffee break.

One of the woodlandy things I have struggled with is identifying the two types of native oak. There is Pendunculate Oak (also know as English Oak) and Sessile Oak (Quercus Petraea). I have numerous oak trees but never sure which variety and I wanted to know. So a bit of Googling told me that there are two main recognisable differences. The acorns and the leaves. The word sessile refers to the acorn and means without a stalk. So the acorns are attached directly to the twig in a small bunch with no visible stalks. With English Oak, the acorns are at the end of a stalk. At the moment there are no acorns so the next way to ID them is the way the leaf is attached to the twig. It’s the opposite way around. On the English oak there is virtually no stalk to the leaf but on Sessile oak there is. So armed with that knowledge I examined some of my trees and found both species present. Here is a photo for comparison. Notice the one on the left, the base of the leaves have no stalk (English Oak) and one on the right has small stalks (Sessile Oak). Now if only I can retain that knowledge!

Sometime later ….. it was lunchtime. A veggie bean burger and fried egg on a bed of ketchup in a breadcake was the only thing on the menu. Yummie. The cast iron skillet performed well as usual though the beanburger was rather fragile. Tasty though. Lighting a fire using only a bow drill and your own energy then cooking a meal over is so satisfying.

Some other neighbours arrived too and it was good to catch up and swap notes. They agreed that sometimes, as woodland owners, we can get too focussed on work and doing jobs. It’s simply enthusiasm that drives but we need to take a step back now and then and just enjoy our woods for what it is and that’s just what yesterday was all about for me. here’s a few more photos from the day.

The weather continues warm and dry so yesterday was a good day to just relax without too many jobs, spend time taking a very detailed look at what’s going on and reconnect with my woodland on a deep level. There are two ways that lockdown has affected my relationship with it and my love of nature in general. Not having been able to visit the woods for several weeks has driven a small wedge in my connection with it. I have been denied watching how the woods came to life through spring and the lack of recharging my familiarity with it, tends to loosen that connection that makes these woods special above any other woodland that I might visit. But that has pushed me to doing daily walks in my own neighbourhood woodland and riverside and becoming much more familiar with what trees and other flora are there on my doorstep.

The second affect it has had is in encouraging slower walks, taking more time to stop and examine unfamiliar species then trying to identify them back home. So my local knowledge of wildlife has increased and my range of ID skills too. There are two tree species which do not exist in my woods and which I was not familiar with, not knowingly having seen them anywhere before. Neither are particularly common around here but I wanted to find some – the Field Maple and Aspen. I have found three Maples and a grove of Aspen in my home locality, so now I am familiar with them on a first hand basis, I shall know them easily when I encounter them again.

Another aspect of taking more time to study wildlife at close quarters has been to increase my awareness and appreciation of the small things which are often overlooked. Having built a small pond at home, I am enjoying watching the process of the aquatic food chain building up. First the small insect larvae – midges and mosquitoes, now a couple of tiny beetles have arrived and the best so far was a Large Damselfly landing on a Marsh Marigold leaf.

With that extra keen awareness now, I wanted to take a really detailed look at my woods, maybe find some birds nests. There was plenty of birdsong going on around but I failed to find any natural nests. The bramble and nettles have grown very abundantly, so to be honest I didn’t spend much time looking and just enjoyed the whole experience. The coppiced hazel area is still very light and open and the long tailed tits seem to love it there. I spotted what looked like a family group of them preening and sunning themselves in a tall Hawthorn tree. I counted at least eight of them. Hard to get good photos from that distance but here are two of them. They are such pretty and delicate looking birds.

One of my main plans was to have another practice at erecting my new tarp/tent. Last week I struggled to work out some of the fancy fittings so didn’t get the whole thing configured properly. I’ve worked out most of it but still playing with methods of securing and tensioning the two pieces onto the ridgeline. The weight and pressure of them both, tends to make the line sag. I’m using paracord which is very strong but has some stretch to it. So I have a few more things to try before committing to camping with it. Below a better set-up than last week with the flaps and sides guyed out.

Well I spent loads of time just sitting, looking and drinking in the whole place and it was just the medicine I needed. Fantastic to be able to go when I want again. How long will this warm dry weather last I wonder. To be honest I wish we had a good few days of rain again to water the woods and top up the pond.

Yesterday was my second visit to the woods since the lockdown rules were eased and I went to meet a good friend for a nice chillout day. He’s an expert bushcrafter and fellow spirit of the woods and nature. He’s suffered much stress and anxiety and I know how a day in the woods surrounded by all it’s natural goodness gives us a boost. I know he loves to sit around a fire, boil the kettle and have a brew and chat. So that was the main reason for the visit and pretty much what we mostly did. It was a beautiful sunny day. The birds were singing their little hearts out and for a while, all seemed good and wholesome. A world apart from our fear-ridden, uncertain and restricted lifestyles that we are having to deal with at the moment.

I had an objective too. My wife bought me a new tent for my recent birthday. It’s unique in style, having no poles to thread through awkward loops etc. It’s basically a fine mesh tent with a specially shaped tarp to cover it. It seems the perfect all round solution to camping solo in all seasons. The mesh tent allows maximum ventilation whilst keeping flying, biting insects out, but also allows clear vision out into your surrounding if you want, by lifting one half of the tarp. It can be configured in lots of variations and seems easy to erect. Before embarking on my first camping trip with it, I wanted to do a dummy set-up run just to see if it would fit my my preferred location (between several oak trees) and accustom myself to how it all fits together and what extra pieces of kit I might need to get it right.

So while I cleared the area of brambles, dead leaves and branches, I left my able friend to make a fire and get the kettle on. As a bushcrafter and wild camper, it’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of starting your trip. The smell of the woodsmoke, the flames dancing on the black kettle is sure to trigger some feelgood.  Photo above is the area for my tent after some serious clearing work. Here’s the tent roughly set up. We had a few issues figuring out how some of the fancy tensioning clips worked on the guy lines, so it’s not fully set up here but it was mainly to see how it would fit into the space and I’m pleased to say it just fits nicely and has a good feeling to it as a place to sleep.

This will be the main entrance. I like the positioning of the three trees there. The flaps on the tarp can be stretched out to form a small canopy so you could sit in the entrance with a small stove and cook or have a brew, nicely protected from any rain. What I really like is that the long side seen on the first photo, can also be lifted and with the use of two or three poles, create a much larger canopy. The mesh tent inside (you can’t see it here) will unzip too opening the whole side of it up. If anyone is really interested to see the whole thing in it’s various configurations, this is a good video to show it off.

Not much else to tell you, just how good it felt to be back in there enjoying my little piece of woodland.