Woodlife

We arrived at the site to be greeted by a splendid white, orange and grey parachute. I was a little concerned that our little meeting in the Essex woods would be spent darting in and out of our respective tarps to avoid the rain. The parachute was a welcome sight and the prosepct of a good social weekend was in sight.

I set up just before the heavens opened. I’d taken the new 2008 DD travel hammock and the larger tarp. Unsure of the cooking arrangments, I brought along the Bushbuddy and trangia burner.

The lads had left the firelighting task to me and just before sunset, I used some birch bark and the firesteel to light the fire. This wasn’t all that easy with the wind swirling around even in the relatively sheltered spot between two hillocks where we had set up. It’s always a little unnerving when you have a bit of an audience as well. Nevertheless, it took no time to catch and I was pleased I spent some extra time gathering some drier kindling.

The rest of Friday evening was spent huddled around the fire, cooking on a greenstick barbeque and making arrangements for the larger planned meet early in the spring. Of course, the Horn of Plenty was passed around, filled with various concoctions of heart-warming beveridges.

Saturday saw even more rain, and we were joined by JP who kindly provided a rabbit for the evening’s stew. I had a minor mishap with my specs and elected for an un-bushcraft solution of popping down to the local garage for some super-glue. My eyes do tend to adjust to not wearning glasses, but I still need them to drive. Luckily I had some perscription sunglasses in the land rover. I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the garage window as I went in. Grey cargo trousers, grubby wax jacket, shemagh around my neck, green wooly hat and sunglasses. I looked like a mercenary from the Afghan region of Helmland! “Got any Superglue?” “Whatever you want,” said a dubious shop assistant.

Stewart duly skinned the rabbit and I chopped up the vegetables forraged from the garage. The shoulder of lamb was buried and the fire was built up on top of it. The stew pot was hung over the flames on the tripod hanger. Four hours later, it was all ready to go and we eagerly tucked in.

The short daylight hours made us all realise how little time there was to sort out the days chores. It is in this situation that you really have to divide up the duties with a pair gathering and chopping wood, another pair to hunt (at the garage!) and individuals to prepare food and keep the fire going. Still we only just completed everything before it was again dusk. The dour weather also did little to enthuse the spirits. We perked up as we ate the stew and it was another great evening chatting around the fire.

My colleague Paul tried out his new Highlander bivi tent and reported that it was really snug and worked well. My DD hammock also worked well as I thought it might. The mosquito net actually kept a lot of the draft off my body.

The morning brought a break in the weather and we decided to strike camp before the rains returned. John S. Had to be whisked home early as his eyes had swollen up during the night. We could only put this down to some particles in the smoke that had affected him. Pehaps an addition to the first aid kit in the form of eye drops might be in order.

I wasn’t really sorry to leave on Sunday. It was great to get away from my usual area, and of course great to see the guys again, but the damp and cold seemed to affect me more on this trip than on previous occasions.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.