Yesterday was my first visit as an owner. I’ve been twice before to view it but now I have a key to the gate, so I can drive into it, taking all the things I think I might need. I’ve been “chomping at the bit” for a few weeks now whilst the legalities were sorted out. I had all sorts of ideas of what I wanted to do first. I’d made a rough and ready sign with the name of the wood on it and that was going to be my initiation ceremony – staking my claim symbolically. It’s was the one thing I forgot to take!

I had intended taking lots of photos and some video. I did a walk-round of the perimeter and videoed it and was going to do the interior but it has grown so much since last visit, I couldn’t access half of it without needing to do some heavy undergrowth clearing. So I came away with few new images.

I decided I should pace myself (I’m no spring chicken) and didn’t want to overdo things. It was hard not to go crazy. What I did achieve was; clear the litter and debris in the entrance so I could safely get my vehicle in; clear some bramble that was starting to invade the rides; cut a couple of boxes of logs from a fallen tree to take home for the fire; rough clear the start of some paths just to get access to the eastern side.

I while ago I bought a small wood burning camping stove. It’s just made from sections of thin stainless steel which are stored in a flat pouch and you connect them together to form a sort of open topped box which you can light a fire in with twigs. A grid goes on the top so you can place a billy can or pan to cook or boil water. Hadn’t used it yet, so that was high on my list, to light a fire in it using dry materials gathered on site and a firesteel to ignite it. I had brought some char-cloth I’d prepared just for the initial ember. Birch bark contains a lot of oil and is supposed to be easy to light. I collected some of that and various dry twigs. It worked! I brought some ground coffee and an infuser with me. I boiled some water in my ex-army stainless steel mug, filled the infuser with coffee and dipped it in the water for a couple of minutes. Then poured the liquid into a mug to drink. Perfect – another “first”.