jibba jabba

Like Samantha and the Woodland Trust crew I am spending every spare minute working on Wednesday's Party. Many details to finalise and promoting to be done and so I have not really had the chance to write much Blog this week.

Last night there was a good inch and a half of snow on the ground when I got back home, it was about 6 degrees C so there was a constant dripping as it melted. That did not last long though as very shortly after I got back the temprature plumeted, I had only lit a small fire to quickly cook some pasta and make a brew over, and sitting next to it I could feel no warmth at all.

Over the last few nights I have gathered kindling and tinder on my way home and used most of it to light a fire, a small bit each day I have left aside under the shelter for use in emergencies - like last night when everything was soaking wet and not suitable to light a fire with. Not having a light (my head torch having gone completely disapeared and my torch being "somewhere safe") I scrabled around in the dark to find the dry stuff. Just enough to get a fire going, no chance for any mistakes then. Fortunately the fire lit first time and I built it up with the remains of last nights branches and Elder which burns hot and quick, just right for boiling water. Water, would have been handy if I had some. Fortunately there was, as I mentioned, a thick layer of snow all around and so I went and gathered enough to cook pasta. It was lucky that only the day before I had been reading in Ray Mears book the right way to melt snow and soon enough I was having pasta with cheder and broccoli. Lovely.

This weekend I'm going to get amongst roasting a leg of lamb with oak smoked garlic and rosemary, this I will have with onion marmelade, baked potato and parsnip and carrot fritters. That's the theory anyway.

Best go I have to get to the laundry in teh next half an hour, if I don't I won't get another chance for a week and that does not bare thinking about, certainly not for the other people on the bus.

take care