As I sat in the garden this morning having a cup of tea I heard the throaty crackle of machine gunfire from the neighbours garden. Reaching for my browning high-power I put nine rounds down range and ended up winging an alien that had infiltrated the neighbours shed. We argued over who got to keep the body, but I ended up putting it in the garden waste bin that was picked up this morning.
In other news, the roses have come out and I have tried killing all the slugs with biological warfare.
So the night felt colder than I expected, but I guess because I wasn’t completely cocooned in my bag as I would be when it was really cold. When I woke, the birds were giving it all they had and there were no other sounds. Until the trains started.
When I fully regained consciousness, I assessed the tent to find all the slugs that had crawled all over the tent during the night. I also spotted a wee fella making his way across the roof vent.
No idea who he was, but the first thing that sprang to mind was that he was a leech. Everything was soggy but it was a bright morning, so made a cuppa and started getting packed up.
Hopped on the train and it was already sweltering. Instead of changing trains to go one stop at the end of my journey, I decided to walk home by the lakes. It was a fairly enjoyable walk, but the heat and weight of the backpack made it tedious pretty swiftly. I did get to see goslings and cows though, so it was totally worth it.
Got home, ordered pizza and called it a day, it was an exciting 24 hours, and front garden flowers are looking amazing.
Sunny day and two new pillows to try out, guess I better go camping then. Definitely seemed like quite a light pack, especially as everything was inside the bag, with the exception of the foil mat and a cool bag with some frozen sausages. This time I was headed to Moreton, famous for the Top Gear episode where they set light to a caravan.
Longish train journey, but only one change, so quite chill. Campsite is about as close as you can get to the train station, and great people running it, dude wandered about with me helping me pick a pitch. Tent up and had some Mac and cheese, as I’d forgotten breakfast. Mug of hot chocolate for dessert, and went off for a wander. Met a cat on a leash, lots of cute doggoes, and saw part of a deer. Had a cheeky splash through a stream too, mainly to see how waterproof my new shoes were.
Got back to tent and cooked my sausage and mash. The mash was portioned and vacuum sealed over a year ago, so hoping I survive eating it. Dollop of brown sauce and I was done.
I have done all the washing up, got ready for bed and got myself comfortable, so obviously I now want a pee. I will let you know how that worked out in the morning.
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.
Nothing really that exciting to update, however, finally have strawbs on the go. Have also planted out the tomatoes into new troughs. Have a load of plants for the front garden too, and a couple of lavender plants, as the last ones did not survive the move when the old beds were taken down.
May have enjoyed a glass or two of cider while planting the strawbs, which may end up being named after Jacob’s sons. So I either have to get two more strawbs, or Joseph and Dan get left off the list.
There was not much to fill this post, however, I felt the flowers alone made it worth the effort.
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 was who I meant to bring, as its huge dry vestibule means it’s perfect for rainy camping.
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.
The name says it all.
I will update you tomorrow on whether I survived.
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.