So the weather has been on and off for the rest of the week. I had forgotten that it was a bank holiday weekend so my plans to go camping unfortunately were cancelled. Bank holiday is too expensive for taking out the tent. Had a week that was mainly buying equipment rather than using it, but it’s only a matter of time.
Cute new lightweight cutlery arrived, along with a new water bottle, compressed towels, and a cute little bag of very discreetly wrapped piss bags.
Did bare minimum gardening and way more chilling and relaxing, when the weather allowed.
Chimenea disposed of most of the old plant beds, and perfectly good excuse for bread and cheese.
Another unexciting week tbh, but it just means that next week will be twice as exciting. See you then.
So after very limited sleep, mainly due to a deflating sleeping mat, I actually felt pretty good and very much enjoyed my morning cuppa. I managed to use the cooker under the awning setup, and launched into my breakfast.
I had packed sausage, bacon, black pudding and hash browns into a cool bag with a freezer block. They were all frozen when I left the house. So hopefully stayed within safe temperature by the time I cooked them this morning. It was a stunning brekkie, but was too much for a camping breakfast I think. I just wanted to sleep when I finished it.
Quick shout out to my awning setup here.
I have tied para cord to the door flap, run it out to a peg you can see in the distance, and then run back to the tent, to another peg that I could tie it off. This means that without leaving the tent I could pull the door out like an awning to cook, and then untie it to close the door afterwards.
After eating and washing up, there was a rain pause, so I started packing up. Had to cram tent into a bag as got close to train time. Made it to station just as train arrived. Was pissing down with rain when I got off the train. Seemed like a very long, cold, wet, windy walk home.
Good news was that after checking the mattress for leaks, although it was the valve leaking, it turned out that it seemed to have a small thread through the stopper. I think this was causing the air loss, so will hopefully be fine.
I’ll end with a pic of the pitch and how surrounded with water I actually was. I was half expecting Shrek and Donkey to start shouting at me to leave.
So here we are again, another field, another tent, and yet another bad life choice. So I had debated hitting the canvas on Friday, but after a rough week, felt a day doing nothing but lazing was probably on the cards. I had packed bags though, so when I felt the call of the wild, I was nearly ready to jump straight in. However, I had planned to use a different bag, so by the time I was supposed to head trainwards, I had decided that it wasn’t gonna work. So one quick repack later I was aiming for the next train. As has been my previous experience, as I got if the train at Ashurst, it started drizzling. As per usual, it waited until I climbed the stile into the field leading to the site until it bucketed down.
Gave up on waiting for it to stop. Headed out to pitch. As I unrolled the tent, I realised I’d brought the wrong damn tent. This has to be the world’s smallest tent. Originally managed to pitch where there was a huge puddle just outside the door, so had to shimmy the tent a few feet to avoid falling in a pond when I left the tent. Currently everything I was wearing is soaked, and although I managed to cook, I still feel hungry, and it’s nearly impossible to cook as there’s no vestibule.
To clarify my accommodation, I have decided to name the tents.
Vinny the vestibule
Vinny was who I meant to bring, as its huge dry vestibule means it’s perfect for rainy camping.
Johnny Underpants
So-called as it looks from inside with both the doors open like the view if you’ve got a pair of Y-fronts on your head.
So waking up was a bit of a nightmare as it was ridiculously early and bloody cold. I heated up the penguin water and went back to sleep for a bit. Breakfast was eggs sarnie with black tea, as I had not brought any milk.
I went for a wander to take pics of trees and any available horses, but felt that my home bed was calling.
I left the forest to commune with my pizza and nap, but got another great ass pic on my way out.
This is a fairly short post add I feel I have covered most of my week in the other posts. Stayed tuned for next weeks instalment.
After waking up on Wednesday morning, it was cold. Like really cold, and had the realisation that I pitched up way too far from the toilet block. Was obscenely cold, but looked stunning.
Concerned that the gallery won’t have added the photos correctly, but fingers crossed. When I got back from my dawn walk and micturation, I managed to blag a teabag and some sugar and made breakfast. Sadly, whilst trying to fry my eggs, the frying pan fell off the stove and threw my egg all over the floor. I cooked more but I was left with an eggy mess on the entrance to the tent.
I tried to get a bit more sleep but became aware that there were noises coming from the vestibule of my tent. Turns out great tits were hopping under the canvas and cleaning all the food off my plates. One of them was also eating the egg, which feels wrong in some way; cannibalistic in some way.
Anyway, it was really cold, and only looked like getting colder, so I called it a day and made my way home.
Two days later and I’m here, this time with some new bits of equipment and most importantly, a hot water bottle.
I had a hotdog for snack when I got here and have just cooked a super rice that does not live up to its name, so I am prepared to try to get some sleep. As before I will update you if I survive.
Firstly, it’s worth noting that as I type this, the new forest ponies are having some sort of meeting just outside my tent. It has been a strenuous day, and I’m very glad to be laying in my sleeping bag.
I decided it would be best to be in a field by sundown, so dug out all my camping gear and packed up my bag. Tried packing light and completely failed. 17.5kg later, I went to find a train to Brockenhurst. Not a bad journey and was under the impression it linked straight to a bus that would take me to the campsite. This was incorrect. Had a noisy walk by the main road until I rocked up to the campsite, where it promptly started raining.
Rained intermittently until the present time, although sunny too. Had brought no food so had to walk back into town to pick up some grub. It rained. Got back and made some hotdogs and all was right with the world again. I pitched my tent way too far from the toilet block however, so will remember that next time.
The collection of food cost north of twelve quid, so will bring my own next time. I am going to attempt to sleep and will update you in the morning, or later on if sleep eludes me.
The week started off with a mug of hot chocolate made on the wood burner camping stove. Whilst pottering about drinking my choccy, and getting zero support from Flymo customer support in fixing Momo, I noticed that I had a leaky butt crack.
Had to drain butt, luckily one of the smaller greenhouse ones were empty. Needed one of the brewing barrels too, and now have a broken butt I don’t know what to do with.
Flowers are all looking amazing and although this is not very exciting, here how the garlic is doing.
Week progressed as they tend to, and the weekend appeared, bringing a huge loss on the grand national but some sunshine.
The greenhouse got nice and warm too, but sadly there’s a guerrilla slug in there attacking the cucumbers.
Anyway, I have a week off, so might go camping now that it is no longer Easter hols, although I am beginning to suspect I have caught a cold. Fingers crossed I survive, and I’ll update before next Sunday if I end up in a field.
I feel that it has not been a productive week, being spent mainly binge watching television. The mushrooms have been shooting up, and I am only marginally concerned that I am keeping the bathroom constantly steamy.
Considering I was convinced that they were all done for, I’m very impressed at this growth. They made a good breakfast though.
I may have witnessed some spousal abuse by Don Pigeone, and I was shocked at his behaviour. I have made an agreement with him that I will put out seed if he stops eating the blossoms from the cherry trees. I am not convinced he will honour this accord.
It’s been sunny for nearly an entire day, and I hope it will remain so for the next week.
I have leave from 1700 on Thursday, as indicated by the countdown on the homepage, and I am very much looking forward to it. May even go camping.
I will be back next week, if I am not in a tent somewhere.
Got Fallout 4 to work on my Mac, so that killed most of the day Monday. Weather has been horrible, and at one stage feared for the greenhouse. I think I saw Don Pigeone and his family on Wednesday morning before trekking to the office.
Momo gave the lawn a haircut last week, but now won’t charge. Contacted Amazon but years warranty will run out next Thursday. Flymo will call me Tuesday as everyone is closed for zombie Jesus weekend.
Have an aphid infestation on my birthday rose plant. So many that they just fall off if I give them a shake, so then had to hoover up hundreds of insects and their families. The garden flowers, however, are going from strength to strength. The cherry trees are flowering, although Don Pigeone has been eating the buds. Here he is looking guilty to check if I was watching him.
I bought a big firepit and finally burnt the garden waste. The downside was that the following day, at least 18 hours later, I emptied the firepit into the garden waste bin, and it turned out that it still hadn’t fully gone out. So Easter Sunday started with me having to dowse the bin with water to ensure it didn’t catch fire.
And bit of a surprise, mushrooms have sprouted again, so I will have a nice mushroom breakfast in the week.
To finish up, the apple tree, Eden, has been straightened a little and is covered in buds, so very optimistic of an apple or two this year. Bingewatching this week was Wednesday, and it’s pretty good.
So the front garden keeps getting brighter and brighter, but now it’s a choice between cutting off the flowers to have in the house or keep the front garden looking nice.
The mushrooms have made no effort to provide any more fungi, so not sure what the next steps are there. Want to start a new tub from the mycelium in the current tubs, but it’s such a ball ache sanitising the straw. Will give it some thought next week.
I set up a camera watching the catflap, as random cats are coming to stay over during the night, hence the kitty face.
Flowers are also coming out in the garden, and I made Momo cut the grass. I have a video but it’s not uploading from my phone yet so maybe I’ll add it as an update. Momo was noisy, as I was supposed to mow before they went out to do the robot thing. But that would require having kept the normal mower. The trees are all budding, so yet again, it looks like we might have a lot of cherries and apples this year.
Hopefully the weather will improve, and it will nearly be summer. Or at least a proper spring. Apart from a possible Momo vid update, see ya next week.