I hate travelling during a Bank Holiday. You tend to spend more time in traffic queues than you do at your destination, so we tend to stay local.

On Friday, we visited Cambridge where the parking fee was more expensive than the mini-trangia I picked up in a sale. More about the trangia later.

On Saturday I went into Poor Park woods and, apart from a squirrel feasting on some bird seed somebody had left, I saw very little in the way of mammals.

I did notice that on the woodland floor, more plants were pushing their way through. Sweet violets and even some Ground ivy was coming through. Dog’s mercury was now about 7 inches high. Despite the promise of Spring, the weekend was cold with outbursts of rain.

When I got home I had a surprise waiting for me. A parcel containing the ATN Night Storm night vision monocular had been delivered. I’ll do a separate post on this later.

Sunday – I took advantage of the low morning tide at Walton-On-The-Naze and went fossil hunting again. This time I took Mrs P who thought the Tower might need propping up to save it falling into the sea. This time I did find a shark’s tooth and another piece of flint. On this occasion the flint is a flake and doesn’t look like an actual tool. We picked up more fossilised wood with the intention of showing it in our own Eocene display in the lounge.

Today, I wandered into Outfield wood. Again, it was very quiet. I tried out the mini trangia which really is an excellent bit of kit. I’m using meths cookers more this year simply because my local camping shop has closed down and it’s harder to get gas canisters. I must admit, I don’t mind meths stoves at all, particularly if they’re of this quality.

I was worried that Pablo’s Big Breakfast wouldn’t fit in the mini-frying pan. Of course it’s not as versatile as the Primus version but it could still do what was required, albeit in stages. Best of all the size is perfect for ultra-light and compact camping.

As I sat on the fallen log, I happened to look down to see a badger print. I deduced the badger had wandered over to scratch at the log to try and loosen some bugs and beetles for his own dinner.

It certainly wasn’t an action packed weekend, more of an idle one. Nevertheless it was a good break. I hope yours was as good.

Thanks for the visit.