The Woods. Different ones.

Another weekend, another visit to the Outside.  Brrr.  Sky.  Trees.  Weather of all descriptions.

Mr WithaY was away all last week, on the final instalment of his 10-month training course, which will (assuming his portfolio is accepted) provide him with an excellent bushcraft instructor's qualification.  He's worked really hard at it for almost a year, and I am tremendously proud of him.

Sunday was billed as the Families Day, and the friends and families of the trainees were invited to go along and spend the day doing various bushcrafty things.  We were asked to bring a picnic.  I got up early, packed the picnic and headed off.  According to my satnav, it would take about an hour and a half to get there, and Mr WithaY had asked me to try and be there as close to 1000 as possible, as the day was due to kick off at about 1030-ish.

I had a very pleasant and uneventful journey, finding the location (almost) first time, where Mr WithaY met me with black fingernails, a five day woodsmoke aura and a huge grin on his face.

We made our way along a rutted muddy track (in a LandRover...well, there was a picnic to carry) to a seemingly featureless bit of woodland.  We'd arrived.

Mr WithaY proudly gave me a tour of the site.  And now I shall do the same for you.

A couple of the teaching areas, and the tea point.  They don't have a water cooler to stand around and chat, but the giant kettle did the job nicely.

I had tea.  In the woods.

Look.  Outdoor tea.  From some sort of metal tea-bucket.

This is a view of the kitchen.  There, far away, under that tarpaulin.  When I arrived, they were all washing up after a giant fry-up fat-boy breakfast, apparently.

Anyway, tea drunk and tour completed, more people arrived and the day kicked off in fine style.  I had a go at starting a fire using a bowdrill.

Fail.

It was very interesting to watch other people doing it though, and most of them managed to at least get some smoke, if not actual fire, so the chaps doing the instructing were pleased.

Then I went and had a go at making damper bread.  This is a very simple bread dough which you wrap around a stick and bake over the fire.  I made mine - made it a bit too wet, unfortunately - but I got it wrapped and placed over the fire, and wandered off to see what Mr WithaY was up to.

We chatted for a bit, and he asked what I'd had a go at.  I said "I'm making damper bread."

"Where is it?" he enquired.

"Cooking..." I replied.

"Yeah.  You need to go and watch it.  Make sure it doesn't burn."

Gah.

Anyway, I had added cinnamon and sugar to the dough, so in fact it is simply caramelising nicely.  Nom nom nom.

Here are some other people not burning their damper bread.

One of the trainees' family included a teeny baby.  They constructed a fantastic Bushcraft Baby Rocker device.

Every so often one of the parents wandered over and gave it* a gentle push, and she slept happily for ages in there.

Anyway, here's my damper bread, proudly held aloft before vanishing into my gaping  maw.

The picnic was a success.  Several years ago, when we both still had "proper" jobs, and therefore disposable income, we bought a ridiculously fancy picnic basket/backpack thing.

It contains a cheeseboard, napkins, salt and pepper pots, one of those fancy cork things with a silver top to put in your bottle of wine to save some for later, and all the crockery and cutlery you might expect to need when you're eating off the floor.  In the woods.

And a picnic rug.  We're not savages.

I do like the combination of mud-encrusted bushcrafting chap's boot, and dainty gingham napkins.  We went for a stroll after lunch and collected up some logs that needed to be moved from one woodland glade to another, and then it was almost time for me to go home.

The weather was perfect. The first properly sunny day for bloody ages, which made it a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Mr WithaY and I walked back down the rutted muddy track to where all the cars were parked, I changed out of my wellies into sensible driving trainers, said our goodbyes and I set off for home.  Before I left, I pressed the GO HOME button on my satnav.

The anticipated arrival time seemed a bit optimistic, but I decided that it was just due to traffic. Or roadworks having finished.  Or goblins.  Let's just say I didn't give it much thought, and leave it at that.

I headed off through the little country lanes, listening to the radio, and enjoying the sunshine.  I drove some distance, several times thinking  "I don't remember coming along this road on the way here..."

I have a bit of a track record re: navigating, though, so I suppressed my anxiety and put all my faith in my satnav.

Schoolboy error.

I had been driving for about half an hour, and still hadn't seen any signs to where I thought I was headed, and then suddenly I was off the tiny back road meandering through the pretty country villages, and on the A3, heading for London.  I swore.  Apparently I was on the Hog's Back, where there are no places to turn around.  My satnav was still insisting that I was heading in the right direction.

I did not believe it.  

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, I then went into the Hindhead Tunnel.  Readers, I had never heard of such a thing before, but I assure you it is a very, very long tunnel indeed.  I had to drive through it, with my radio and satnav both cutting out, the message on the display screen simply stating "Satellite Not Located" in a blunt refusal to help.

Once out the other side, I turned down the first side street I found, pulled over and looked at my satnav.

Readers, a valuable  lesson:

When you press the GO HOME button, please ensure that you have previously programmed it to point to your home.  If you have failed to do this, it will default, and send you to the satnav factory's home, somewhere in central London.

I arrived home some considerable time later.

Let's never speak of this again.




*The seat thing, not the actual baby.  That would have been unkind.

Slots

Oh yeah, I remembered what I meant to write about in my last post, before I got sidetracked by dull domestic trivia anecdotes. If you can call a pointless whinge about nothing much at all an "anecdote," I suppose.

Anyhoo.

When I went to see my friend in hospital last week, I was a bit nervous.  Partly because I was apprehensive about seeing her after such a catastrophic event, and partly because I was dreading doing or saying the wrong thing and somehow making her feel bad.  I know that's not entirely rational, but it was in the back of my mind nonetheless.

I was also a little bit anxious...maybe that's too strong a term....apprehensive, maybe, about the actual logistics of the journey.  It struck me that since giving up my hellish 6 hour round-trip commute last May, I have made far fewer long journeys than I probably ever have in  my adult life.  I've been down to visit my lovely Mum a few times, been up to Ragdale Hall a couple of times, and travelled extensively* around and about the local area, but it was the first time I was driving myself somewhere unfamiliar in a while.

I have actually driven around Southampton quite a lot, but not recently, and the last time I went to the hospital there was about 20 years ago, to visit Father-in-law WithaY after HIS catastrophic life-changing event.  So, it was pretty likely that the road layout would have changed.

I did all the usual stuff, like looking on Google maps and whatnot, and I have my trusty satnav now, following the Watford Gap Incident last summer.

Gah.

I'd arranged to get to the hospital at about 4pm, both to avoid the worst of the rush-hour traffic, and to be there at the same time as a couple of other people that I wanted to see, so I set off from home at 3.15.  It only takes 45 minutes to get to Southampton, and with my satnav glowing at me reassuringly, it was all going to be plain sailing.

Aha, well, yes.  It would have been, had I checked that the postcode I entered for the hospital was for the correct bloody place.   I got right into the heart of the city, driving all the way across it in fairly heavy traffic, arriving at the selected destination at 4pm on the dot.  Perfect.

But wait.  What's this?  No Accident and Emergency facility here?  Large signs in the carpark for the diabetic resources centre?  No ambulances? No people, come to that.

It turns out that there are TWO large hospitals in Southampton.  One is the Royal, which is pretty big, but not quite as big as the General, which is where I should have been.  So, thanking the powers that be for iPhones and 3G coverage, I found the postcode for Southampton General hospital, and made my shamefaced way there, arriving 25 minutes later than I had intended.

When you get to their carpark (much, much bigger than the one at the Royal, I must say.  And more ambulances) you take a ticket and the barrier opens and lets you drive into the multi-storey bit.  You park your car, go to the hospital, pay your visit or whatever, and then, on your way out of the building, you put the ticket into the machine to find out how much you have to pay for the parking.  Fairly straightforward really.

Well.

If it's dark, and you're a bit on the emotional side after visiting your very dear friend, and there is a huddle of dodgy-looking people hanging around in the shadowy periphery of the entrance area, it's easy to get flustered.

And if the ticket machine is badly-lit, to the extent that several of the electronic screens are unreadable, and the only bit that is brightly lit looks like a ticket slot, but it's dislodged and broken, it's easy to get a bit confused.  And, then, it's a simple matter of poking your carpark ticket into the slot, and realising the instant you do it that you have probably just fed your ticket down the side of the broken slot bay, and therefore into the bowels of the machine.

I muttered profanities, and then pressed the "Call the Assistant" button.

A crackly voice came through the intercom.

Carpark assistant:  Yerrrrrs?

Me:  I'm very sorry, but I can't get the machine to read my ticket.

Carpark assistant:  Just press the Cancel button, love, and try again.

(Note:  all of the buttons were shrouded in gloom, and impossible to identify.  I pressed a few anyway, just for the look of it.)

Me:  I think it's eaten my ticket.

Carpark assistant: (wearily)  Ok.  I'll come out.

A large, burly man in a reflective jacket** walked out of the hospital, causing the huddle of dodgy-looking people to scatter and melt into the darkness, much in the manner of a feral gang in an apocalyptic film set in a City Of The Future.

He looked at me.  I looked at him. He sighed.  I made a sad face, trying to look like I wasn't an idiot, whilst acknowledging that he would be within his rights to consider me thus. It was a tough expression to pull off, but I managed it.

Me:  I'm really sorry. I just realised what I did, I think I poked the ticket through this hole, and it got lost in the machine.

Carpark assistant:  Aaaah.

Me:  Can you recover the ticket, do you think?

Carpark assistant:  Hmmmm.  (He frowned, scratching his chin thoughtfully with the aerial of his walkie-talkie.)  I could, yeah.  But it's a right old hassle.  Tell you what, when you get to the exit, press the Call button on the ticket machine and I'll let you out.  What's your name?

Me:  That's very kind!  So...should I pay you?  (I had the right money in my sweaty paw, ready to pay my debt to the Southampton Hospital car-parking authorities.)

Carpark assistant:  Nah, that's alright, love.

He grinned at me, and his previously intimidating face lit up.

I scarpered back to my car, found the exit, pressed the Call button as instructed, and was released back into the mainstream traffic of Southampton on a dark cold night.












*I've been to Frome.  And Shaftesbury.

**It reflected light.  It wasn't asking itself thoughtful questions about the nature of causality.

Still unlucky

I love my car. I hate that it is causing me so much grief.

Gah. I am not giving up yet. Toyota will call me back because the girl I spoke to in their customer services section was a bit confused, and when I explained the situation she said "I need to talk to somebody else about this."

So. We shall see.

Other news: Was in London yesterday for work, and took some pictures on my phone, as it was such a lovely day.

Would have posted them on here but Photobucket crashes Internet Explorer every time I try to resize them to fit on the blog page. So fuck that.

I walked MILES. Mostly because the building I had to get to wasn't where I thought it was. Not it's fault, you understand.

But it meant I got to where I thought it was, and it wasn't. So I had to trot up and down the length of Whitehall asking various amused policemen how to get there. Made it in time for my meeting, but was a bit hot and flustered by the time I arrived.

Never mind, I'm sure the walking did me a power of good. I even ran, earlier that day. Haven't run for about 3 years, and didn't drop dead, so that was encouraging.

I was driving to Tisbury station, and remembered that there were signs up all along the road giving advance warning of tree felling, road closures and other assorted hasslery. I decided to avoid that closed road, and go the long way round.

It was nightmarish. There were no signs, it being teeny back roads in the middle of Wiltshire, so every junction I got to, I was guessing which way to go. It was foggy, icy and sunny, so it was like driving around inside a ping pong ball. And, obviously, it took me far longer to get to the station than I had expected.

By the time I got to the station it was a bit too close to train time for comfort. I had to run to the car park ticket machine (why don't they use the RinGo system there?) and then run back to the car, and then run to the ticket office.

I was handed my tickets at the same time as the train pulled into the station, so I took my seat with no small relief.

On the way home, a guy settled himself on the seat next to mine on the other side of the walkway. He was on his phone, having a work related conversation, and as he chatted he unloaded a laptop, a set of headphones, another phone/PDA thing, and a heap of snacks.

I watched (discreetly) as he finished his call, settled down, got the laptop up and running, put his headphones on and opened his sushi. I was impressed with his dedication to work, right up until I realised he was watching an episode of The Green Wing. Excellent.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the morning's whole Road Closed debacle and forgetfully went home along that road. Which wasn't closed at all, the bastards.