It has been a week of ups and downs. The first flushes of mushrooms were very impressive, and those two groups weighed in at about 250 grams in total. However it became obvious that none of the other tub holes were going to give up any further mushroomy goodness. The battle between mushroom and mould was won by the mould, and no further action is expected.

Soooooo, ordered some more mycelium and a load of 5 litre tubs, and decided to try again. This time I will not uncover the holes for a fortnight, minimum.

In better news, moving the rhubarb, Ruby, has not resulted in her death, and she is already putting out shoots. Also some of the flowers are popping out making the garden seem a little more cheerful.

Other than this, not much else has transpired, a few pints, a failed music quiz, and a fantastic pizza from the local Prezzo kinda covers everything. May have buggered up the diet this weekend, but will be back to normal as of tomorrow 1130.

As usual, I will have to try and sum up 9 months of no posting in a few sentences. I have started growing mushrooms after a YouTube vid that I will link when I remember to. It is astounding how quick these guys grow. I have named these two Mike and Celia, for obvious reasons.

I have also started a new sourdough starter. Probably a plurality of starters if I am honest, trying to find the tastiest yeasts around. The current one smells like a Camembert that has been left in a cross country runner’s sock, but tastes amazing.

Since last summer I also brewed a batch of high end red wine, which is, and I shit you not, absolutely stunning. I also made twenty-five bottles of alcopops. That doesn’t taste bad either.

I am not sure if I have anything to add, although I feel I have done other stuff other than those three things, but I started using a cute app that rewards me for completing daily tasks, so have been getting more done., but if I was to try and explain what, it seems way less impressive.

However it does mean that I will add this to my tasks and ensure I post at least once a week about the excitement that is my life.

Well here I am, on the hottest day of July, at the train station with a rucksack that weighs only marginally less than a middle aged hippo who has recently got divorced and decided to let himself go. On the bright side, I have packed the bag with literally everything I could. All the stuff I don’t use will never be taken again. I have two mattresses, two camping stoves, and a shitload of food.

I think I will publish this as a live document and update as I go along. Currently I won’t arrive for another hour, so have a lot of time to kill hanging around in trains and their stations. I will keep you informed.

So, after a fairly uneventful train journey, I arrived paid for my pitch and popped the tent up. The picnic blanket that I have purchased was absolutely no use whatsoever. So I used the silver mat in my vestibule.

Made myself, Mac and cheese and then boiled a chocolate pudding for dessert. After I was all set up, I went for a couple of wanders around the campsite just to see what other options were there for next time I come here. It’s now about 9:45 and I’m finishing this and basically going to try and sleep. I’m actually still really hungry, so might wake up in the middle of night to cook some more as I forgot to bring any snacks.

Well, I didn’t wake up to cook, however, I did decide to inflate my double mattress. Now on the bright side, this is really comfortable and means I can roll over in my sleep, if I get any. however, it also fills the entire footprint of my sleeping compartment.

I managed to get up and use the toilets before it started pissing with rain. This means I could come back to the tent and then sleep for a couple more hours. It is now just past 10 o’clock and I think I’m gonna make a cup of tea.

As I won’t bore you with pics of every single thing I eat, I made some chow mein mug shot for lunch and then took a wander to the local shop. It is a horrible sweaty and muggy walk next to a busy main road. But I did get minstrels. Came back and went in search of sunshine to charge my power pack, as I’d gone to the effort of packing the solar panels. Sat opposite the pub writing this and trying to enjoy a little solitude.

It has not been a very exciting few weeks and although I do feel bad about not updating this very often, it is mainly because I have mostly been laying on my back and occasionally screaming. I am not entirely sure what set this off, although the repeated setting up and dismantling of my various tents may have had an impact. It is even more irritating as it has been perfect camping weather and I have not been able to really get as far as the garden, let alone a campsite.

Anyway, as often happens in these situations, I have spent the time pissing away money on camping gear that I have no ability to currently use. The highlight has to be this multi tool hatchet type thingy that is remarkably choppy and has a non locking blade on it so should be able to include it in my pack without going to prison for 6 months.

It also seems I have forgotten how to start a fire. This is quite big news as I have always been able to start a fire. Admittedly I was doing it on hard mode, using only a flint striker and some twine, but was still quite upsetting. Like everything at the moment, I will put it down to the intense pain and possibly the drugs.

I have ordered a water filter and am not sure if it was the right choice. I don’t expect to find myself in a situation where it is life or death, tbh I just want nicer tasting water wherever I am. Will update you when it arrives, and I may have to take a walk to the river to drink from its aqueous goodness.

Well I have some painful screams to elicit and some urgent laying on my back to do, so I will catch you later.

It’s not that I hasn’t been an interesting week, it is just very little that is of interest to the wide world. Not that boring stories have ever stopped me from sharing them in the past. I have decided to up my activity levels, so yesterday I even went and walked around the local park just to hit my goal. It feels like a very alien idea to me.

I had a glass of last year’s cider on Friday, and I had forgotten what a bad idea that is. One glass is enough to make you drunk, two is just manifestly a bad idea, and therefore by my third I was just giggling and went to bed.

Started the next day right though with a mug of tea and a mug of sausages. I haven’t been able to go camping due to train strikes and places being booked solid. Resisted the temptation to camp in the garden, but might do it tonight just for the thrill.

Quick pic of me on the High Street, just because it is the only thing worth sharing. Although you may notice some new playlists cropping up on the right of the screen so there is some new water flowing into the tune stream.

So it turns out I may have ‘accidentally purchased a couple of new tents. I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole regarding two Naturehike tents and could not decide between them both. Even now I have them, the jury is still out, however I think I like the Opalus best out of the two.

I am not gonna give a review of these tents, as there are a million and twelve reviews out there for them, and what I want in a tent is different to what other people want in a tent. I will, of course, share some pics and then move on.

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So that was the Opalus tent, weighs only 1.8kg thereabouts, as weighed on my kitchen scales. That is 400 grams lighter than my current wee tent. This one is huge, has a nice big porch to cook in when it is raining, and for storing all my crap. Actually, although I have not spent a night in it, I cannot think of anything disparaging to say about it

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So this is the cloud peak 2, which you could spend a day or two on YouTube watching people discussing. It is nice, looks a bit like a squished bug when you are setting it up, and absolutely love the twin doors. If you do fall down the YouTube rabbit hole about this one, I managed to find an older version of the tent with the inverted T doors. If you watch them you will know. It is quite a bit heavier, 2.3kg I think I got it at on the scales, but have seen vids of it standing up to some fairly punishing weather.

Anyway, that is enough about tents, as I am not going camping during the half-term, as it is bloody expensive and noisy. I have also spent a few days rearranging the garden. I am currently awaiting a ‘sun sail’ to provide a bit of shade as required, as I MacGuyvered one up yesterday out of some of the stuff from the two tents.

That should be exciting and I will if course keep you updated. Only other excitement was bottling up the Pina Colager on Friday and then drinking lots of the vintage beer as I have run out of empty bottles for brewing.

Just an additional, physically embarrassing vid of me putting up my original wee tent, as I wanted to hoover it.

So I guess I should list the disasters that befell me over the last 24 hours, just to prove once and for all that I am a cursèd man.

• Did not start raining seriously until I was crossing the field to the campsite.
• My new biolite stove, which I was very much looking forward to cooking on, is not allowed on the campsite.
• My watch charger, a cute lightweight item that can plug into either old style usb or usb c, does not actually work with power banks. at all. pick update having got home and tried it in a plug, it turns out it is just shite.
• I had taken a lightweight summer sleeping bag, this was not enough as it was freezing during the night.
• My dehydrated food all turned out to be a nightmare, the hot chocolate was an unholy crime against nature.

On the bright side, I have still not had to use the shameful item. Although I probably should have last night as it might’ve meant a better nights sleep.

It also cannot be denied, it’s a stunning day today, sunny, blue skies, not pissing it down or a thunderstorm; it seems that yesterday’s weather did not set the bar very high.

I have not decided if I am gonna tough it out for another night, but will certainly sit and soak up the atmosphere and sunshine until the evening.

In the end I got the train back home, cooked a Chicago town pizza, with the stuffed crust, and ate the entire thing before going to bed and sleeping like I was a hibernating bear.

Sooo I am back in the New Forest, after updating some of my kit and also just wanting to celebrate the start of summer. Cut down on all of the equipment to make it as light as possible and it was still heavy as hell. but on the bright side, I still made it to the train station just in time for it to start raining. And I do mean pissing it down.

My pack, although very much whittled down, still weighed about the same as one of the ponies that keep wandering past my tent door, but I managed to get it here, so I will look forward to the immense back pain kicking in tomorrow. As I have always packed the tent with a rainy repitching in mind, it was actually quite a quick and simple job to get the tent up. Downside was that keeping the door open to get rid of all the steam coming off my damp clothing meant that the rain just filled up the doorway. I MacGuyvered a kinda awning by borrowing a spare guy rope from the fantastic people as Ashurst Campsite

Once I was in the tent, makeshift awning applied and all comfy, it was quite nice listening to the rain come down while I sat in the warm and dry. Admittedly, it did make me wanna pee, but rain stopped play as far as that was concerned.

I will mention this as an aside to the main text, but I purchased last year a… well I don’t know how to describe it other than a pisspot. It came with a shewee attachment that I have been at a loss to know what to do with. The bottom line is that it extends so, I assume, it can take a voluminous quantity of pee. I have taken it on a few camping trips but have never had the courage to use it yet. I will refer to it in future as ‘the shameful item’.

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I has also taken with me a litre of my home brew cider, assuming that this would last me the evening, but by 1900 I was in the local pub as I had finished the home brew and decided more was in order. This decision was reached after two minibuses of kids rocked up and started pitching tents and gazebos opposite my pitch. I felt that and extra drop of cider would assist in ignoring them for the remainder of the night.