tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38922892485615674682024-03-05T20:43:39.773+00:00Living in a boxHow to not live in a tentTorminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-22948164644896973192009-06-16T23:11:00.006+01:002009-06-17T18:00:41.400+01:00I'm backTLB and I have been living in the grounds of a stately home in the Purbeck Hills which has been very nice but all good things must come to an end. We are leaving because we want to pay our way in the world and we want our own home. We do not want to outstay our welcome but the tent is not an option at the moment as I need to be able to work from home. Thus, the house hunting started in earnest a few weeks ago.<br /><br />The reason that TLB and I first moved into a tent was to clear debts and to have an adventure. We have certainly had an adventure and debts have been cleared but I still have a way to go, on both fronts. We have lived rather too well over the last 6 months, getting functioned up with alarming regularity and commuting from Dorset to Reading weekly has placed different pressures on my perpetually dwindling bank balance.<br /><br />A few weeks ago some people that we know heard that we were house hunting and offered to let us a gorgeous little cottage on their estate. Being within walking distance from TLB's new job and within our budget we agreed instantly. We move in on the 4th July and have both vowed to make use of the tennis court in the garden to get fit. I do however think the role of ball boy will be well beyond the dogs meager capabilities, for he is a simpleton.<br /><br />The dog is in excellent spirits and has had the best few months of his life, with the last 5 months spent staring at a hole in the garden. At his disposal have been woodlands, gardens (walled and otherwise), fields and pastures to roam about in and he has ignored them all in favour of his obsession with the hole. On day 4 of living here, he managed to catch a rat, a rat which came out of the hole into which he now gazes longingly. He hasn't caught one since. On the occasions that he has managed to make it further afield he has been to a local conservative party meeting in the big house (alone I hasten to add), has diced with death on the edges of the cliffs and spent lots of time squashing bluebells. His new home is bound to have a hole so he can hone his staring and loitering.<br /><br />Between us TLB and I own enough things to fill one medium sized tent, which means we are starting from scratch. We have no TV, no sofa and no fridge. TV is very far down the list and I am going to start reading books and blogging more, first we are going to raid the auctions and freecyclers of the world so we don't have to sit on garden furniture in the living room. We do have a lovely wood burning stove, a trailer, some plastic crockery and a collection of lovely Afghan rugs.<br /><br />I now have about £4k of debt, having paid off about £6k whilst we were living in the tent, I have abjectly failed to save since living here but am newly enthused about clearing the burden. The house we are moving to is within our means but we will have to be sensible about things if we wish to thrive. The combination of budgeting and incredulity at the world around me* made me miserable enough to stimulate my creative urges.<br /><br />We have been incredibly lucky and have met some fantastic people along the way but now is the time to get serious about escaping from the shackles of debt and building ourselves a house. Key phrases to look out for will be vegetable box, on the wagon, joint account and dog grooming incident.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*Gordon Brown. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.<br /></span>Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-62984910413282495702009-02-18T14:32:00.001+00:002009-02-18T14:32:36.361+00:00Dear Boxshifters pt 2Dear IT Support<br /><br />Your swear filter is somewhat less effective that I thought it was. I have managed to call my colleague a cock muncher, shitbiscuit, gobshite, felcher, arse-eater, dog fluffer, wang daddy, cock beast, hootie mama, jizm gobbler, cum guzzling fuckslut, cumdrain, winnet eater, shitface, dog breath, bananaman, arsefucker and spunk bucket in the last few minutes alone.<br /><br />However jerk, faggot, bitch and arse are all illegal, all of which could quite conceivably have meanings that are not considered abusive.<br /><br />Muff diver gets flagged up as racist abuse but Paki and Nigger are completely fine. I cannot imagine what sort of perverse mind could mis-categorise so wildly.<br /><br />Should you require me to provide consultancy regarding the correct configuration of your swear filter I would be very happy to provide a comprehensive list of abusive terms, racist abuse and sexually discriminatory remarks, <br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />BenTorminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-67944516653251521092009-02-18T10:32:00.001+00:002009-02-18T10:34:59.184+00:00Dear Boxshifters...Dear IT Support,<br /><br />I have recently been having some problems with my dog in that he has been eating the cushions and soft furnishings in my house. When I was trying to explain to one of my colleagues what a little pillow biter he is, I was shocked to find that your profanity filter started flashing up worrying warnings about sexually discriminatory terms.Imagine my surprise when discussions about a friend of mine, a landscape artist who has been working on a number of uphill gardens, were flagged as profane. How very dare you!<br /><br />I am all for sensitivity to our sexually diverse colleagues but I think this may be going a little far. I have decided to spend a little time working out exactly what I can and cannot say so that I will in the future be aware of when I transgress the very sensitive and somewhat prudish communication filter. If you do find a strange upsurge in the number of ambiguous sexual terms going through the swear filter please excuse me and be aware that it is a very short term period of experimentation.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />BenTorminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-51428303649340902982009-02-18T01:10:00.003+00:002009-02-18T10:37:54.950+00:00TurnaroundOkay, so we moved house, to Dorset and have had a couple of weeks to acclimatise. I am going to have to change the name of the blog to something more suitable but feel that I should have sufficient adventures to keep what little readership remains amused.<br /><br />When I first heard of the prospect of a free stately pile in the country I was overjoyed. My tent had collapsed only a week prior to it becoming available to us and we had camped in laundry rooms and in the houses of sympathetic farmers for the duration of the snow. The tent is now back up and running, sat in the garden of our new home and we are installed in what is possibly the most peculiar circumstances one could imagine.<br /><br />TLB, the Dog and I are now part time house mates with an ex-General, a lovely chap who is equipped with the most dazzling array of stories and can name-drop for England, quite literally. He seems to be very close to the apparently small world of the rich and famous, the good and the great. He often talks about The Queen as if she were just another person, which to him I suppose she is. By virtue of TLB's job we now have at our disposal a cleaner and a gardener, a good supply of wine and endless supply of awesome scenery for the dog to piss on.<br /><br />So imagine our surprise, a week after having moved in to be told that the Stately Home, the grounds of which we have been living in has been sold. There are 13 houses on site, a few businesses and all of them are being vacated. We have our marching order and until August to enact them so we may well be heading back to the tent after a brief bout of luxurious living.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-31208126388784929912009-02-05T18:18:00.003+00:002009-02-05T19:10:12.066+00:00Oh no, our little home, what has the evil snow done to you?Today I worked from my friends flat where we have been holed up for the last few days, primarily because it had snowed and the journey would have been painful but also as it would enable me to go and check out the tent during my lunch break. I had not yet had a daylight opportunity to go to the farm and sort it out and today was a bit of a grizzly chore.<br /><br />When I arrived the old girl was in a sorry state. Covered in snow and ice, the entrance was the only think that marked it as a tent rather than a pile of snowy lumps. I got out my ice shovel (thank you snowboarding brother who abandoned his kit with me last year) and set about clearing it. Once I had shovelled all of the ice and snow from the top I could lift the sopping wet canvas just enough to be able to get out the things that we knew would not survive. We grabbed bedding, rugs and clothes. Tuff-crates, stoves, air beds and the like would be relatively unharmed by a couple more days in the drink and time was very short.<br /><br />The pole had bent clean in half. Monica (the farmers wife, I can talk about these things now that I am leaving!) came over and grabbed the pole insisting that it would be fine in 5 minutes and scuttled off with it. True enough, she appeared 5 minutes later with pole in hand. She had been to see Richard my welding buddy who had done a credible repair to the pole, chopping off the top that was bent and inserting a new, tougher bit of iron bar and welding it into place. Grand. We got a chance to quickly put it up to make sure it was strong enough and we then we laid it to rest for fear that it would collapse again under the predicted volume of snow.<br /><br />When up, we could see that the tent had quite extensively flooded and where one of the rugs had been sat in standing water for some time, it had leached some dye into the water. This made the tent look like the floor was covered in blood. Which was then traipsed across the snow as rugs and the like were removed. It looked like serious violence had been done upon that spot, I tell thee.<br /><br />So, we have been offered a bed tomorrow night on the farm which we are going to take up. We are going to get up nice and early on the Saturday morning and we are going to take down the tent and pack everything into the trailer, upon whence we shall bid farewell to our home since September last year. The atmosphere has been quite solemn since we got back after lunch. TLB remarked that she was sad and just wanted a few more days in the tent before we head off to Dorset. Life in the tent is just not possible now, bedding is with dry cleaners*, floor is flooded and there are not enough daylight hours available to sort it out whilst we are both working.<br /><br />It has always struck me as a bit of a vulnerability of tent life. We often considered cleaning the tent but to do so would take at least 2 days. Clear the tent, take it somewhere to hose and scrub, apply waterproofing gubbins, take it home, allow to dry, reinstall stuff. Any major changes to the tent environment hinge around the fact that we have to sleep in it. We couldn't send off bits of the stove for repair as we needed them on a daily basis to cook and stay warm. We are now on our third airbed and each time, we have had to obtain a new one** within a day just to ensure that we did not have a miserable nights sleep.<br /><br />I think what I am trying to say is thankyou to TLB without whom this whole caper would have been infinitely harder. Her day to day sprucing and stoking, hunting and gathering has given a dimension of domesticity to our little tent. Without her it would have been a great deal harder to maintain a reasonably civilised persona at work and at home. This has been her adventure more than mine and I am hugely looking forward to the adventures that she can take me on in our new home in Dorset.<br /><br />This all sounds very final. On the upside we have a fantastic but slightly weathered tent and stove, trailer and towbar, loads of memories, new friends and money in the bank. When we get to Dorset I am going to take up Morris dancing. The adventure is far from over.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">*It may seem to some that we are the epitome of middle class campers and this is probably not untrue, but we do require a certain degree of comfort in order to make this whole ventureworthwhile. When your £150 goose down duvet is stained and soaked through, I am inclined to give it to an expert to salvage rather than ruin it myself.</span><br /><br />**<span style="font-size:85%;">I have fixed many a bike puncture, but trying to get an entire airbed underwater when every drop within a mile is frozen to find the leak is not something I can recommend.</span>Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-23605478599015139392009-02-04T13:55:00.002+00:002009-02-04T14:08:40.939+00:00Crisis!Well, what an adventure the last week or two has been. I seem to have recently lost a bit of momentum with regards to the blogging, partially because I have had no peace in which to scribe my whitterings but mainly because I have not been doing much camping.<br /><br />I took a couple of days holiday at the start of this week and TLB and I decided to head down to Dorset for a long weekend and explore our new home. We arrived on Saturday morning, stocked up on cheese and bread from the local market and set about finding the beach, the garden etc. Sunday saw extreme weather warnings which we heeded and decided to cut short our trip to Dorset in case we got stranded. I had booked a day at a spa for TLB and I to celebrate her birthday which we very much wanted to get home for so we set off into the bright sunshine and clear skies, cursing the weather that had better come.<br /><br />We went to stay with a friend, knowing full well that if it did snow, the farm would be cut off from vehicular access and we would be stranded. On Monday we woke up to a blanket of snow. We got a call from the Farmers who were sad to report that our tent had collapsed under the weight of the snow. There was no way to get to the tent, even the farmers, with quads and a tractor had not been able to get out so we went snowboarding for the day instead. Tuesday was the day on which we had to go to the spa, which we did. Today is the day when we are going to have to go and rescue the tent.<br /><br />The farmers have done a little investigating and reckon that the canvas is not ripped and that it must be a bend in the central pole. The padlock that we fitted for security purposes has prevented them from investigating any further. My theory is that as the snow built up on one side of the tent, it caused the tent to lean which made the central pole slip on the cold ground and bought the lot down but until we can get there, there is really no way of knowing. All I am sure of is that all of my worldly possessions are currently in a large soggy pile in a field.<br /><br />In many ways I am counting my blessings, we are neither stranded at the farm, nor were we in the tent at the time of collapse, which would have been truly horrible. We have a house available to us immediately which we can go to at any time we choose. We plan to move in this weekend so our homelessness is very brief and a very good friend has been putting us up for a couple of nights in the meantime.<br /><br />It is absolutely typical that we have the coldest, snowiest winter for decades at the same time as I decide that camping out for Winter would be a brilliant idea. This may seem like a somewhat inglorious end to the camping odyssey and could mark the time we have spent in the tent as a failure. I do not believe this is the case for the following reasons:<br /><ul><li>We have now lived in the tent for 6 months in all but the most extreme weather, we have survived local flooding, temperatures below -10C and high winds, and have taken all in our stride.</li><li>My aim of saving money will be going from strength to strength as we now have a free roof over our heads and I will be working from home a lot more, saving further money on fuel and lunches and the like.</li><li>I have managed to pay off far more debts than I would have been able to living in the old house, and have not accrued any more.</li><li>We have both had a fantastic time, which we will one day tell our kids about, and hell, may even repeat when the summer comes if we fancy it.</li></ul>I sometimes wonder if we are chickening out by making a dash for the Dorset house but I think I would have given considerable ammunition to my detractors and their claim that I am insane if I were to forsake a warm, dry, free house just to make a point. As I have often said, if the sole reason that you are doing something is the principle of the thing, it is probably not worth doing.<br /><br />And for all those of you who need a top camp site, not too far from London but suitably out in the sticks, I can very strongly recommend Mellow Farm, near Dockenfield in Hampshire, James and Monica have been the best landlords we could have hoped for and we will miss them very much.<br /><br />Tell them Ben and The Lovely Bella sent you.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-35914358243664698032009-01-24T12:06:00.000+00:002009-01-24T12:08:10.949+00:00From the sublime to the ridiculous.This post may err on the scatological but I will do my best to keep it decent. As no honest person can deny, the clear up required after a hefty and satisfying discharging of ones bowels varies in it's involvement. On Thursday night I found myself at the wrong end of a serious clean up and decided that I would just skip the tissue and leap straight into the shower. As I went to get into the shower my family turned up and would not, despite my insistence, leave the bathroom. I remember the sensation of anger rising in me and I ended up screaming the house down, raging against my unwelcome intruders as I desperately wanted to get clean. Dreams can be most peculiar things.<br /><br />Feeling the separation of the buttocks caused by an epic klingon, all I wanted to do was to get clean. I hysterically battled with my mother to leave the bathroom, the location of which remains a mystery, until eventually she took offence. Then it was tears, recrimination and blame as all I could think about was cleaning my polluted posterior. I was aware of a shower nearby and being naked as I already was I left the room and headed into the middle of the high street, covering myself as best I could, to find this surreal open air shower unit. It was not working so I returned to the shower room from whence I came. The room was clear, the shower was functional and just as I was about to get into it, one of my colleagues materialised in the shower and blocked my entry.<br /><br />It was at this point that I woke up. Shocked at my sleepy adventure and pleasantly surprised to find I had not soiled myself in my sleep. My colleague was most surprised when I greeted him with a slightly harrowed 'I dreamt about you last night'. I am not usually one to read meaning into my dreams but I was acutely aware when I awoke that I do not have my own ablutionary facilities. No privacy in which to enjoy cleaning, it is all in public facilities, be they friends houses, the shower block or the shower at work. I cannot wait to have somewhere I can safely leave my soap.<br /><br />That looks to be approaching very quickly. TLB returned from her meeting last night very excited and keen to talk about our new adventures in Dorset. I have asked her if it is okay to blog about the subject and she has kindly allowed me to share my excitement, as long as I do not mention names or places. So, the plan as it stands is to pack up the tent in 3 weeks and transplant our lives to Dorset.<br /><br />TLB has managed to secure housing in a clock house in the grounds of a stately home on the Dorset coast. The house is the holiday home of a Knight who has been helping her to secure funding for a fossil museum and he has kindly offered to let us stay in it for the foreseeable future. The house, complete with walled garden, cleaner, wood burning stove, pool and horizon lake will be a world away from the tent. Wood will be delivered weekly and chopped for us and the track down to our private beach will make for excellent mountain biking. It would appear that we are going from the sublime to the ridiculous.<br /><br />It all seems quite surreal. For many years I have always been the instigator, in matters of housing (or tenting) I have always been in the driving seat and for the first time I get to sit back and enjoy the ride, and what a ride it promises to be. TLB and I will both be working from home for quite a bit of the time. We will be able to share lunchtime walks with the dog, who will continue to be in seventh heaven, evening strolls to the seaside and balmy summer nights in our rural idyll. The mind boggles, I can hardly believe it is true.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-27439585142877803452009-01-22T16:22:00.002+00:002009-01-22T16:29:01.770+00:00Up and down.TLB is away for the day finalising details of her new job in Dorset so the dog has come to work with me. At lunch time we set off across the fields over the road from work entirely unprepared for what we were about to witness. As we crested the first hill we gazed down upon a sight that simply took my breath away.<br /><br />5 Red Kites were playing over the fields, antagonising a flock of pigeons that were resting, chasing off magpies and bombing each other playfully. The dog trotted out into the field to see what all of the fuss was about and one of the kites hovered about 10 feet above him, giving me a perfect view of what has to be one of the most magnificent birds I have ever seen. I have seen them from a distance a few times but today I got a chance to watch them in all their glory and it has made my day.<br /><br />Back in 1977 Red Kites were all but extinct with only a couple of breeding pairs in the entire country, though there was a small population in Wales. Today they are thriving with an estimated 600 new birds being born each year in England alone. In the west country Buzzards are two a penny but they are most inelegant creatures when compared to the Kite whose long wings and relatively small body make for a very agile flier.<br /><br />It looks like, one way or another I will be moving to Dorset in the next few weeks, TLB's job is looking more and more like a certainty. My employers have said that I can work from home for a few days a week but I am starting to wonder about the logistics of doing it from a tent.<br /><br />The thing is, we have put in all of this effort to acclimatise to the winter and whilst it has been far from unbearable, it has been a learning experience which I will not forget. The thing that has kept us going, aside from the meagre cost of our day to day lives, is the promise of summer. The evenings are very slowly starting to draw out, the coldest of the weather seems to be passing and it is all downhill from here into a glorious summer or barbecues, parties and t-shirts.<br /><br />Living in Dorset and working from home will require me to have a desk and a stable supply of electricity and bandwidth. For all of the things that we have made possible in the tent, I suspect that these will not be feasible and it is all quite a disappointment. There is also the fact that I will be away from home for at least 2 nights out of each week and I would not like the thought of TLB being alone and vulnerable in a tent whilst I am away on a sofa or a spare bed. It seems that accommodation will be thrown in with TLB's job for free which means that I will be able to continue to save, pay my increasingly modest debts and so forth but I will miss the camping terribly.<br /><br />It will also relegate me to the status of a blogger waffling about my mundane ordinary life which I suspect would be rather boring. Therefore the options as I see it are:<br /><ul><li>Give up camping and blogging.</li><li>Pitch a tent in the garden of my new home and live in it.</li><li>Find a whole new and exciting odyssey to embark upon in my spare time and write about that.</li></ul>If anyone has any ideas let me know, meanwhile I will continue to try to amuse and inform my readers with tales of camping while I work on the sequel.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-80899237874504971662009-01-15T09:31:00.006+00:002009-01-17T00:42:03.619+00:00There but for the grace of god go IIt turns out that the people with the snappy dog were not in fact a young couple, nor were they on holiday. They are father and daughter who are homeless. They spend their days sitting in the car and their nights sitting in their leaky tent.<br /><br />Last night we invited them over for some food, thinking that the extension of a warm hand of kindness might make things a little less bleak for them and they seemed to relish the attention, being unusually candid about their situation.<br /><br />The father has never had a home, has been in and out of jail and after a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse, had finally pulled himself together just enough to be able to look after the only person in the world that mattered to him.<br /><br />He explained that when he reached his teenage years he found out that the woman he had always thought of as his sister was actually his mum and his mother was actually his gran. Dyslexia had made school unbearable at the hands of unsypathetic and spiteful teachers so, feeling betrayed and lied to, he left school early and hit the streets. He spent the next 20 years living in shop doorways and hostels, eeking out a living where he could doing odd jobs, fruit picking, labouring on building sites and rummaging amongst bins. When the minimum wage came along he could no longer find work that was not illegal so he became a beggar.<br /><br />I could tell that he has had drug problems the second a plate of food was in front of him. TLB rustled up a hearty sausage stew which he picked and prodded, never quite getting up the momentum to finish the plate. From what I could tell, on a daily basis he ate very little and his daughter lived on packets of savoury rice cooked atop their little gas stove. My heart went out to them so much.<br /><br />The daughter did not speak much, we managed to ascertain that she was 21, has never had a job and is fleeing from a violent relationship. She joined her dad on the open road as her only option about 2 years ago out of fear of staying still and being tracked down by her ex. They got a dog, a yappy little jack russell/staffy cross who they both dote on and they endure life on a daily basis, rummaging for new bits of cardboard to line the floor of their dilapidated tent as the old ones go soggy. They both sign on but their transient life makes even that hard. I have never felt so lucky in my life.<br /><br />The thing that struck me most though was how kind they were. They both automatically took off their shoes when they came into the tent. He had bought a few beers to drink so as not to have to take me up on my offer of a few of ours. We have a spare dome tent and a couple of camp mats which I offered them but they refused, somehow maintaining enough pride to be able to decline. They were profusely grateful when they left, I suspect mainly out of surprise that anyone would actually invite them into their home.<br /><br />It occurs to me that these two are just two of thousands of people in similar situations. And they are some of the lucky ones. The dad has enough wherewithal to sort out a car and a tent, to get off the drugs and to feed their dog but it is apparent that not all campers are born equal. I can see that if my family life had been different and if I had not enjoyed the opportunities that I have had, I could well be in the same situation. My brother is dyslexic (but thrives nonetheless), my father has had alcohol problems in the past (and conquered them admirably) and I live in a tent.<br /><br />I know that whenever I have problems in the future, I can look back at our nomadic neighbours and count my blessings. There but for the grace of god go I.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-47046667598303931282009-01-12T12:59:00.003+00:002009-01-13T13:51:41.279+00:00Strangers came...Wind sucks. This morning I was awoken at 3:30 by gusting winds that made the tent more akin to a boat at sea. The lantern on the central pole was knocking back and forwards, spurts of smoke were being forced out of the stove and into the tent, the walls billowed this way and that and the tarpaulin that covers my trailer was flapping and undulating in the gale. All in all not a very peaceful nights sleep. Cold is, by comparison, a doddle.<br /><br />We have been joined by various hardy (and not so hardy) campers in the last few weeks. The first was in the week between Christmas and the new year. He turned up with an improbably large tipi which took him about 3 hours to erect, he had a fire bowl which he started outside and then dragged in once he was all set up. We were told by the farmers that he had started to take his tipi down by about 5:00 am having suffered a bitterly cold night and I am sure that said tipi will be found on ebay any day now.<br /><br />Then we had a chap who was complaining that the cold snap had ended by the time he had arrived. I could only guess that he was going to Greenland on some mad expedition as he had a tent very slightly larger than he was and a sleeping bag that he boasted was manufactured solely from the down from 2.3cm either side the centre of a gooses breast. Clearly mad but fared very well.<br /><br />Last night we had a young couple and their snappy dog arrive on the latest leg of their holiday. They arrived after dark, pitched their tent and then sat in the car for the entire evening. I was quite surprised to see them still in their car when I left for work this morning. I can only assume that the wind has made life in their little dome tent a bit too uncomfortable and that they were rethinking the rest of their holiday.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-23418246636950435252009-01-08T20:52:00.003+00:002009-01-08T21:59:26.075+00:002009 has mostly been cold so far.The difference between -1 and -11 is astounding. I laid in bed the other night, took the sleeping bag from over my head and let the heat seep out of my face and into the freezing air. I could feel the cold sucking the heat out of me and my face felt like i was melting into the air. Creepy. I whipped the sleeping bag over my head to create a nice pocket to warm up with my breath as was as snug as a bug.<br /><br />Mornings are the hardest bit, we often have to break the sponge-scourer thing out of a block of murky ice and then defrost it on the stove so that we can wash up. We have to save the last bit of water in the container so we can get more water, which will go through a cycle of solid and liquid until it is used to defrost a tap.<br /><br />I have always rained scorn on people who dress their dogs up in coats. Cold has turned my dog gay. In the night he likes to snuffle about at all hours, and will often shed his blankets, which then need replacing or we will wake up to a meek looking shivery dog trying to get into our sleeping bag. In my defence, the pooch poncho is brown, aside from the maroon bits, and it is made out of 3 wale corduroy, in accordance with one of my demands. I found him trying to shred it the other day and though I scolded him, I was secretly proud.<br /><br />I have also become very aware of the variance in quality of tea lights. We use a lot of them and have even become sad enough to develop a favourite. We had some of them from the garden centre down the road and they required a great deal of attention to light and then died in about half an hour, with most of the wax unburned. Useless. Bolsius candles from the market will last for about 4 hours, almost to the minute, will burn all of the wax and are easy to light. Ideal.<br /><br />We are running out of heat logs which means either re-order or start using other sources of wood. The welding dude whose workshop is on the farm has a mate with a big pile of wood which we are investigating.<br /><br />Other than that, it has all been very laid back. We eat well, personally, rather too well in fact having put on a few grams since I moved in, we are warm in the evenings and nights and cold in the mornings, I have paid off more debts and we have not so far been mistaken for gypsies and hounded out of the neighbourhood on the wrong end of a pitchfork. We keep getting invited to increasingly weird dinners with the farmers and I have taken up archery.<br /><br />It is however illegal to hunt rabbits with a bow and arrow in the top field beyond the pigs. So I won't be doing that. A guy here who has recently closed his adventure sports company has a barn full of archery and mountain biking kit that he is flogging cheap so I intend to obtain a compound bow (very dangerous, myeh heh) and some of the associated gubbins (like arrows), and do some shooting in the field, at targets. A mans gotta have a hobby other than fantasising about women about land rovers.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-88068669899388921592009-01-07T14:55:00.001+00:002009-01-07T14:55:16.993+00:00LosablesAs a complete aside to my camping adventures, I recently discovered a new category of objects that I am trying to find a suitable name for. The definition of this group is 'Objects whose primary functionality determines that they are highly likely to be lost'.<br /><br />Being the mildly obsessive sort I have been looking for additions to this category and have so far found 4 items that I think qualify for the accolade of being included in my newfound clutch of items. These include Aerobie's, anything camouflaged, spectacles and marijuana.<br /><br />If anyone out there can come up with a suitable name for the group or any items that should be included in my eventual submission to the authorities I would be most grateful.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-2135201657627034932009-01-06T09:52:00.003+00:002009-01-06T10:41:01.464+00:00CoooooldThis morning my glass of water was frozen solid, the car took 20 minutes to defrost and the temperature was -11C when I left for work. The butane in the cannister had frozen and only a trickle was coming out when I went to light it first thing and the dog was most reluctant to come out from under his blankets. Winter has truly arrived.<br /><br />I reckon that this has to be the worst of the winter, doesn't it? Whilst wrapped up in a 15tog Goose down duvet, inside a fluffy double sleeping bag it is pretty much impossible to get cold, I am still sleeping without pyjamas, I have not felt the need to start wearing clothes in bed and I can't see it getting too much colder. Lord please don't let it get any colder, if for the simple reason that getting out of bed is a visceral and very determined morning gauntlet that must be run and it is not much fun.<br /><br />I have had a couple of weeks holiday from posting, sorry if anyone thought I had frozen to death, I have mostly been holed up in peoples houses enjoying luxuries like taps and electricity. Some good friends joined us, along with the farmers and we spent new years eve around a fire and were all remarkably comfortable, using the Romanian Grappa provided by the farmers to keep warm. Not to drink you understand, but to fuel the fire. A few days on a friends sofa doing laundry and one softens up considerably, I found that I was very reluctant to go back to the cold of the tent. Once back though you settle in pretty quickly, the old routines of fetching wood and water, food and fuel quickly returned and the romance has not been entirely frozen out of us.<br /><br />It is now only a matter of days before we have a firm idea on what TLB will be doing and when her new job starts in Dorset so I will soon be able to make some plans about what I am doing. Work have provisionally authorised a couple of days per week working from home so I may find myself out of the tent in a matter of a couple of weeks, a fact I am slightly sad about on the quiet, as is TLB she tells me. Will post more tonight when I have some more time and in the meantime, wrap up out there!Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-80237578590160072222008-12-26T12:12:00.002+00:002008-12-26T12:56:11.562+00:00Cool YuleThis morning my brain feels very well connected to my body and that is something of a shame. If it were not then I might be spared the churning stomach, pulsating head and generally over indulged feeling that plagues my freshly awakened senses. It is boxing day, Christmas is over and save for a few new year festivities we are over the hump. Life can start to return to normal and I can start making new plans for the forthcoming year. I have quite a few plans blossoming in my withered brain and I should be back up to full power in no time.<br /><br />There are quite a few people booked to come to the camp site on New years eve so TLB and I have taken it upon ourselves to bulk up their numbers. We will have fireworks, a BBQ, loads more brain rotting booze and a few good friends joining us, it should be a very good night and anyone feeling a little hardy would be most welcome. To be honest it has been incredibly mild so camping should not be a strain at all, a thick jumper and a good sleeping bag should be all that are required.<br /><br />TLB is away for a couple of days this week as she is hoping to secure her new role as fossil queen of the UK. The job is based in the west country and is accompanied by a free house. It is too far to commute on a daily basis so we have been discussing the options should it all come together. Part of me is really quite disappointed that our camping odyssey may be cut short through the arrival of a pesky free house but if it means that TLB has a chance to thrive then it can only be a good thing. It is also rather good for the purposes of saving money, being cheaper than living in a tent, if such a thing is possible.<br /><br />I am going to angle to work from home for a day or two a week and then camp and sofa surf for the evenings I am going to be required to be in the vicinity of work. We shall see, suffice to say my adventures are far from over.<br /><br />As of the 1st of January, the company policy regarding non essential company car users is changing and at the expiry of the current lease, we will be required to hand the car back and have a car allowance instead. It would appear that the Lexus' days are numbered. I have opted to return the car as soon as possible as the combined relief from tax and the generous car allowance would make quite a difference to my monthly income, a Lexus is a nice if you like that sort of thing but it keeps getting stuck when off road and has all sorts of practical limitations, I cannot fit my bicycle into it, I cannot sleep in it should I want to and other annoyances.<br /><br />I have been considering my next vehicle move and have been feeling myself irresistably drawn towards land rovers. For many years I have poured scorn onto the owners of SUV's, considering it to be much more of an image based decision than a practical one. In my former house, a school laid between myself and the main road each morning and a fleet of seven stone women in seven ton trucks used to play bumper cars up my road in order to deliver their precious offspring for the day.<br /><br />It would appear that the seething resentment that I had for these creatures is now to be turned upon myself as a large landrover would provide me with a place to sleep during my weekly attendance at work, would allow me to permanently keep my bicycle with me and would last pretty much forever. It would probably also provide me with a chance to use the welding skills that I hope to acquire in the new year! It would go off road and it would play very well to my sense of adventure so I intend to take a test drive in the coming days to see if the sloth, discomfort and lack of sparkly buttons would be acceptable.<br /><br />It would appear that the new year will be ushering in plenty of change, TLB and I have resolved that we are going to have a big party in the new year once everyone is recovered from Christmas and the spring starts to creep in. As a perfect opposite to the camping party that we had in my old house, we have decided to have a black tie coctail party in a field. More details of that to come when we have banished the post Christmas malaise. In the meantime, a very happy Christmas to you all and a merry new year.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-77882332770435334282008-12-15T19:20:00.004+00:002008-12-15T21:11:08.872+00:00ConnectednessCamping is often referred to as getting back to nature. I am not sure if people mean that it represents a communing with the ways of our ancestors, honouring the ancient behaviours of huddling around fires and sleeping in the open or whether it is to do with our proximity to spiders and other bits of nature. Both are accurate and since I started living in a tent I do feel a lot closer to nature in every sense. For some reason this makes me very happy, even tonight on a cold winter evening, surrounded by spiders, I am feeling quite perky.<br /><br />Through my life I have had a few notable experiences that have immersed me in a feeling of utter joy, chance happenings that have made me feel euphoric, ecstatic beyond reason and utterly overwhelmed with emotion. I am a pretty level headed chap most of the time so these incidents stay in my mind. The catalysts to these states of mind are various but the ones that instantly spring to mind are sexual, musical and natural experiences.<br /><br />One instant that I will remember to my dying day was when I was about 17 years old, I took my video camera out onto the moors where I lived, it was about 5 in the morning and I intended to film the sunrise. I set up the camera on a tripod, sat back and awaited the appearance of the sun. As it rose I found myself feeling incredibly small and was overwhelmed with the power and majesty of the enormous glowing orb before me. I remember laughing uncontrollably and saying aloud to myself, 'everything is going to be alright.' I knew to my core that no matter what happened in my life that the sun would keep on rising and falling and any trivial fears and aspirations I had meant nothing. The thing that I remember most was the feeling of connectedness, that I was only a tiny part of this huge universe but an important one nonetheless. An eye of nature looking back at itself with love.<br /><br />Without wishing to get carried away, I have rarely experienced anything so powerful. A few other experiences are comparable, the intimacy that one feels whilst making love to someone you care about, the rippling cheer of an enraptured crowd or a deep immersion into the vibrations of music. These are the things that not only make us feel happy but make us feel fulfilled, connected to the world and all it's beauty.<br /><br />It can't be bought, it can't be drunk or injected, it can't be given or taken. It is in all of us all of the time and only one thing can make us feel it. Nature. Be it an insight into our own nature or a connection to the earth, it is the realisation that we are all one entity, made out of the same stuff, endlessly feeding back on ourselves to greater levels of complexity. If you accept that, then how could you wish to harm another? When I look back on my life, it has been the sole source of solace in what can seem like a cruel world, the only reason that I have any faith in mankind and the only real way to experience uncomplicated joy. <br /><br />The reason that I am writing about this is because in the last week whilst I have been on holiday I have felt this connectedness to TLB, my family and friends, the dog, the earth. It has reminded me that despite all of the evil in the world there is an overwhelming power that cannot be taken away by greedy banks and fraudulent governments, it is much bigger than them. That power is the power of Chuck Norris.<br /><br />Erm, no, sorry, it's not Chuck, it is Love. As Captain Beefheart so sagely sang, 'the stars up above are running on love' and the more people realise it, the less likely we all are to end up, remortgaging our children to pay for our ipods. Life is simple and getting back to nature would do us all a lot of good. Buy a tent, you won't regret it.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-78947582963833988952008-12-15T10:17:00.005+00:002008-12-15T11:13:05.008+00:00Back from HolidaySorry for the lack of posts in the last week but we have been on holiday. We made it our mission for the week to take in some of the finest views available to man from around the west country, we spent the first half of the week on Exmoor and were very pleased to be able to upgrade from the tent to a shed in my fathers garden. When I say a shed, it is actually a wood panelled out house full of carpets and paintings with a glorious view of the sea, from which we could stage our various ascents up the hills in the area. The only notable failure was from the top of Dunkery Beacon where we found ourselves shrouded in cloud for our whole visit, other than that it was a most uplifting visit.<br /><br />The second half of the week was spent visiting our mothers, reassuring them as to our well being and catching up on the gossip. It surprised me how much I have adapted to living in a tent in a relatively short time. Seemingly trivial things like taps and power sockets were amongst the most adored facilities, allowing us to run baths, charge phones and laptops and wash up with surprising ease. I have never been the most disciplined washer up but having spent a few months heating water on top of a wood burning stove, I will never again take for granted the convenience of taps.<br /><br />By the end of the week both TLB and I were starting to miss the tent and we were very pleased to get back on Saturday to find a pallet of heat logs awaiting us and that nothing had been stolen from the trailer which had been left on the farm. All in all a very satisfying holiday with minimal cost incurred. I have now only a week or two until the Christmas season kicks on in earnest and can enjoy another healthy dose of leisure time.<br /><br />I must admit that the fire logs feel like a bit of a cop out, they do exactly what they purport to do, but there is something of an artifice in their use. Without considerable facilities it would be nigh on impossible to manufacture them myself, but I can justify this through my lack of storage space to season and process my own wood. During my holiday I bought a fire steel, I have decided that whilst living in a tent it would serve me well to use some of my new found spare time in developing my skills as general wild man.<br /><br />I have found the best thing to catch the sparks from the steel are those small cotton wool pads. One of these will very quickly take the spark and provide enough flame to catch the kindling. I look forward in due course to finding material that will replace the cotton wool pads with something that I can forage myself so I may spend a little time this week, gathering some different types of bark and seeing which will shred into the best sort of spark catcher. There is no huge shortage of disposable fire making apparatus in Hampshire but it does keep me entertained nonetheless.<br /><br />In one of the buildings on the farm there is an metal artist's workshop. He installed a wood burning stove a couple of weeks ago and I popped in to say hello and enquire about the possibility of having a fire bowl made. I knew I was in good company when I spotted that he was wearing a Hendrix shirt whilst banging away in his workshop and we started to talk about the merits of US vs UK psychedelic rock and types of wood best suited to stove use. It turns out he is needing some work done to his website and is greeted by a barrage of tuts and um's everytime he seeks professional advice. I had a quick look at his website and he was very pleased to hear that I thought it would be a doddle to fix him up with a system he could easily manage himself. We have in principle agreed to do a skill swop, I will teach him to manage his website, and he will teach me to weld and to make my own fire bowl. No tax, no inflation, just good honest trading and sharing of resources. I very much look forward to starting my apprenticeship.<br /><br />TLB looks like she may have found a job, which is excellent, but I am a little scared it may bring my tent oddessey to a premature end as it seems to be bundled with a free house but all of these details are to be ironed out in the new year but that is enough for now, I shall post a couple more entries in the next few days between the Christmas barrage of champagne cocktail parties and canapes.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-58911409817138315452008-12-04T20:39:00.003+00:002008-12-04T21:21:01.230+00:00Coldness ensues.The dog is a very weird creature, he loves nothing more than chomping through a bowl of ice cubes. We have been known to sacrifice perfectly good G&T destined ice cubes to satiate his habit but the recent cold snap now means that he now has the monopoly on what is a very scarce resource. With glee he will toy with his newly frozen water bowl, taunting it with his nose as the dawn light emerges, daring it resist his attentions.<br /><br />TLB and I of course have very few options when it comes to ice, we can buy it in bags only to see it dwindle away into slush or we could in theory leave a tray of water out overnight to freeze in the arctic cold that has befallen us. Sadly we are not that organised, though even if we were it would have melted away by the time the sun has passed the yard arm and we were actually allowed to have a booze. So it remains that the dog, each morning will wake up and check his bowl for ice, carefully removing it and then settling down to crunch his way through the cold morsels.<br /><br />We have not yet gotten to the point where his bowl will freeze inside the tent which is most fortunate as I am not sure I would like my night time drooling to freeze on the pillow and rouse me from my sleep with a jump when I find it breaching the borders of my ear. We have employed a gas heater to subsidise the heat from the stove, not because it is vital but because it is nice to be able to relax without having to huddle too close to the fire.<br /><br />The quality of wood has become of increasing importance, where before we could get away with slow burning wood, the variance in the combustibility of wood from local wood suppliers has become too hit and miss to risk so I have ordered a quarter of a ton of <a href="http://www.woodpelletsupplies.com/pages/homepage/products/category/default.aspx?CatID=2">compressed sawdust blocks</a> from a company on the internet, which should see us through the next couple of months in the utmost comfort. For £150 I am expecting to take delivery of 240kg of consistent, dry, highly flammable bricks which, whilst not having the charming personality of their tree based opposition will guarantee rapid cooking and heating.<br /><br />Despite the cold TLB and I are very much enjoying freedom from the rigmarole of daily life in a rented house. I hear people at work complaining on a daily basis about the cold and it would seem that us tent dwellers are far from the worst off. Our only real priorities are to ensure we have enough wood and food to survive. Aside from that a small amount of money for our monthly rent and fuel for the car is all that is required to keep us capable of meeting our external responsibilities and thriving. I am currently sat in the tent wearing only a t-shirt and it is perfectly warm, the smell of fajitas cooking on the stove is making me hungry, the celebratory wine I am drinking tastes fantastic and the bed looks very cosy from here.<br /><br />Bedding has also become a little more of an issue now that winter is upon us proper, the most satisfactory solution we have found is to use a large double sleeping bag (thankyou Mother) and then put my sumptuous goose down duvet inside. We have on occasion found ourselves over heating and had to fold back the top layer of sleeping bag but our feet are never exposed to the cold night air and we can zip ourselves in should we find that things are getting too chilly. Failing that, TLB has remarked that I make an excellent hot water bottle on the coldest of nights and I am very pleased to be of service.<br /><br />I have made a few investments this month to ensure our continuing comfort. Aside from the gas fire (which was very kindly contributed by a friend) I must confess that I have been getting a slightly bad back from all the crouching and kneeling so I have bought a therma-rest camp chair to ensure that we can both sit in comfort when we need to. It is a bit of a comfort revelation and renders the cushions that we have used to prop ourselves up so far somewhat redundant. It also means that we have a spare bed for when visitors drop in to stay the night which I am sure will be most appreciated. Who'd have thought it, we have a sofa-bed!<br /><br />For anyone who doubts that it is possible to be warm enough in a tent during the winter, I can very happily inform you that with a little preparation it is perfectly possible to be too hot, despite the limitations of our dwelling. To be honest I am rather looking forward to a decent dusting of snow, it would be the closest thing to curtains we will get and will no doubt provide a superb lie in.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-60808628686216760572008-12-01T20:20:00.005+00:002008-12-02T09:33:13.614+00:00SecurityI got home from work today to find TLB suffering from a headache because she had spent the day fretting about security. A couple of weeks ago her phone disappeared at about the same time as the charger vanished. This morning I decided to leave my phone for her to use so she could call me if she needed me to bring anything home from my travels.<br /><br />When I got home she fixed me with a serious gaze and confessed that she had not got me my phone. It also seemed that the internet dongle was no where to be seen, which was a mixed blessing as I had been cursing her name for taking it away for the weekend and leaving me disconnected from the world. So, two phones, 1 charger and internet dongle down we were starting to realise that there has been a thief in our tent, not once, but 3 times.<br /><br />She also reported that the other day while she was sitting in the tent, the dog had started to go nuts, barking and raising hackles and carrying on like he was some sort of Baskervelian hound. She decided to go and see what was going on and she saw a young guy running across the field away from the tent. The dog dashed off across the field in hot pursuit and apparently caught him, said hello and then decided to go and have a snuffle about in the wood pile. The dog is losing serious credibility with every week.<br /><br />At this point I started to contemplate strategies for dealing with our unwelcome visitor, scowling and plotting the disposal of my car, dog and lover so I could sit in the tent and wait, for as long as necessary, until the scallywag in question came calling and I could use my fire extinguisher as a burglar suppository.<br /><br />TLB was most relieved to hear that when I had put on my trousers this morning I had, by habit, picked up my phone and taken it with me to work without even noticing. I was still however rather worried that her phone and charger had simultaneously gone walkies and that the internet dongle was nowhere to be seen. She had been asked by the farmer to give him a lift to a local planning meeting this evening as he does not drive and Mrs Farmer was otherwise engaged so while she was out I started to tear apart the tent to see if things really were as bad as we thought.<br /><br />Within 5 minutes I had managed to find her phone charger in one of the tuff crates and the internet dongle in her bag. Somewhat relieved that the only missing thing was her phone and that in all probability she had just lost it, I started to calm down. My violent mental tirade started to abate and the red mist cleared, reasoning that there are several emminently stealable items in the tent if you had time to rummage and they were all present and correct. Much better to have a scatterbrained girlfriend than a regular robber.<br /><br />We have however had a chance to consider the worst and tommorow I will be buying a padlock to secure the tent door. At least that way if someone wants to break in they will have to cut the tent and we will be in no doubt that we are attracting unwanted attention. Meanwhile all is well in tentsville and I have a fab smelling sausage stew to eat. mmm.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-10651615314162737292008-11-26T09:36:00.005+00:002008-12-01T09:54:30.820+00:00If only...Dear Mr Brown,<br /><br />It is with regret that I now find myself unable to continue my role as a citizen of this country and have decided to redeem my contractual obligations to the country and go it alone.<br /><br />The reasons for my decision are various, I find the prospect of imprisonment should I continue to work and not pay tax rather disturbing, and quite bizarre when I consider that should I stop working, you would then give me money. I am no scrounger so I do not find this at all satisfactory, nor do I consider your efforts to make the world a safer place by engaging in wars around the globe to be very convincing. We are surrounded by allies and sea and think that we are in all probability quite safe.<br /><br />I understand that you very much wanted to be prime minister, we all have to have ambitions, but I think you may better serve this country in a more community based role where you can do a little less damage, maybe as a lollipop man or a town crier. If you did this then maybe people would be pleased to see you, and I mean real people, not the political classes or your friends at the golf club. I suspect that if the real people formed a queue to put a cream pie in your face, we would all be busy for a very long time.<br /><br />Your persistent disregard of the advisers that I have so very kindly paid for does very little to convince me that you are prime minister material. To be honest I do not really think that anyone is so you shouldn't blame yourself. I would think my friend Chris very arrogant were he to assume that he knew what was best for me and he knows what sort of pork pies I prefer and how I like to cut my hair. I like to think I know best too and am always finding myself dispensing advice where it is not really wanted but I am sure that I should not be given the power to imprison people if they don't take it. That is not just arrogance, that is lunacy!<br /><br />Sorry if I am rambling on but I think I have paid enough of your salary to be allowed to bend your ear a little. If you would like me to attend an exit interview before I leave I would be very happy to give some full and frank feedback, though considering your treatment of the various committees on detention without trial, ID cards, the economy, drug classification and tax bands, I am not holding my breath. I guess for some people it is much easier to be able to blame you and settle back into slavery and reality television, I however have bought a tent and a trailer and am going to try my hand at some archery and subsistence farming.<br /><br />With regards to the settling of outstanding matters, I would be very pleased if you would forward details of all monies paid to yourselves over the years so that we can start to negotiate a mutually beneficial settlement. My uses of your services thus far constitute:<br /><br /><ul><li>1 poor education.</li></ul><ul><li>1 effective treatment for a twisted bollock, which may I add has been the high point of my interaction with your government.</li></ul><br />I know you have racked up rather a lot of debts over the years in our name but I do not feel I am really to be held accountable for them, after all, I have paid my taxes and done what was asked of me, so I shall consider that policing, waste disposal, road provision and the like were actually covered by the cash I paid up front like council and road tax.<br /><br />I do not expect to make use of my pension so I am expecting that quite a serious amount of money has accrued in my account which I am sure can be used to offset the costs incurred above. Any money still owed to me can be paid in gold, index linked to the date of our final settlement. I am afraid that I can no longer accept sterling as a form of remuneration as I suspect that it will simply not be worth the paper it is printed on before long.<br /><br />I have attached a document detailing my national insurance, bank accounts etc to ease administration at your end and I very much look forward to receiving the relevant forms.<br /><br />Yours Sincerely<br /><br />*** ****Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-4161552249999277512008-11-23T18:37:00.003+00:002008-11-23T18:43:23.368+00:00Tea and cake.We have just returned from what was supposed to be tea and cakes with our favourite farmers. We got rather more than we bargained for, with a delicious soup to start made from the pigs that we shared a field with. Excellent I thought, racking up mere food metres for a delicious feast. Then came the scary bit. Mrs Farmer emerged from the kitchen with a chopping board on which there was a strange looking sausage.<br /><br />It was about a 14 inches long, sheathed in plastic and about the thickness of my arm, tied at each end with string. It, we learned was something called Brawn. When the pigs were slaughtered, 7 pigs worth of meat was returned from the abattoir, including heads, hearts, livers and all. Mrs Farmer has been diligently making pate, brawn, sausages and a huge variety of other pig based products, nothing from head to trotter was wasted.<br /><br />We got to sample the head, which had been boiled until all of the meat emerged from the lips, cheeks and heaven knows where else. After establishing that there was no brain or tongue within this daunting looking parcel, we were instructed to put our allotted slice onto a bit of bread, smother it in raw onions and vinegar and then chomp away. TLB was not entirely enamoured by the idea and was looking quite green by the end. I actually quite enjoyed it, remarking that it was not unlike a multi textured pork pie. I was quite disappointed that there was no brain to sample, purely because I could have decided once and for all whether I preferred brains over brawn. I'll get my coat.<br /><br />We talked about straw bale buildings and shower blocks and the farmer seems pretty keen to go and have a nose about at the Sustainability Centre so I reckon we may be onto something, I shall keep you posted on the result. The farmers do seem to be very forward thinking about the use of their land. They already have a sizeable wind turbine and though most of their farming activities are barely beyond subsistence, they could quite happily survive on veg and pig heads were the revolution to turn up unannounced. <br /><br />We have asked about extending our stay here beyond the initially stated duration and were very warmly invited to stay for as long as we wanted which is really good to know. I have already bagsied a Turkey from amongst our neighbours and now all we need to do is work out how to roast the bugger in a tent. How exciting. It would appear that Christmas in the tent is a goer.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-82053208195418163782008-11-23T16:23:00.001+00:002008-11-23T16:27:16.652+00:00SchemingIn the latter half of my weeks holiday I have been scheming. TLB and I went to visit the <a href="http://www.earthworks-trust.com/">Sustainability Centre</a> (home of <a href="http://www.ben-law.co.uk/">Ben Law</a>'s publishers, <a href="http://www.permaculture.co.uk/main2.html">Permanent Publications</a>) in East Meon yesterday to walk the dog and see what sort of projects they currently have going on.<br /><br />Our friendly farmer popped in just before we left to ask if we could pick up any literature about reed bed filtration systems whilst we were there and this got me thinking. It turns out that they are planning to build a new shower block for campers next year and they would like to do it with an environmentally sustainable twist. At the moment they are thinking about turf roofed semi subterranean buildings and are starting to think about planning permission and the best technologies to do this.<br /><br />To my surprise, when we arrived at the sustainability centre they were in the process of building a shower block to service their own campers. There are a few yurts on site with hard standings and a few other projects in various stages of completion. A large pile of solar water heating units were stacked up next to the shower block ready for installation and one of the managers of the on site hostel informed me that they had the instruction manual and a little expertise and were going to wing it and see how they got on. Admirable.<br /><br />The construction of the shower block was from straw bales with a south facing slanted roof, a design which I thought would be perfect for our farmer. The merits of building with straw bales are many but the main benefits to my mind are that they are very cheap and very quick to construct. With a little know how and a lot of effort it would be possible to knock up a straw bale house (or shower block) in no time.<br /><br />I do not have the know how to be able to design and build such a thing but they sound like really useful skills to have so my plan is this: I intend to find a suitable teacher to run a course on straw bale construction. The course will be a week or so, or maybe split over a few weekends (to be honest I have no idea yet). The course would be spent building the shower block with eager volunteer aspirants like myself doing a lot of the hard work and learning how it is done in the process. The farmer would pay for materials and enough money to make it worthwhile for the expert, skivvies like me would earn knowledge in exchange for our labours and everyone is a winner. Not forgetting that TLB and I would get a newly souped up ecotastic shower block to make our lives a little easier.<br /><br />The first stage in the process will of course be to persuade the farmer of what a groovy idea this is and my initial pitch to Mrs farmer was met with enthusiasm, we are in fact going round for tea and cake shortly.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-58847156735353774592008-11-19T20:47:00.000+00:002008-11-19T20:51:37.508+00:00HolidayThe last couple of weeks have been very stressful, work has been the main issue with a very high pressure project but it didn't help that I was ill for the last week, which combined with the pressures of living in a tent made life feel hard. <br /><br />This week is holiday. Hooray, finally I can spend my time with TLB and the dog, walking, camping, drinking and generally relaxing. Or not, as the case seems to be. TLB has also been under the weather so we had long weekend of snivelling, sleeping and hiding from the elements. The foul weather and the maladies ailing us both have gladly abated in the last 48 hours and in a bid to treat ourselves we decided to go to the local spa.<br /><br />On arrival at the place we could tell it was not going to be the decadent indulgence that would have been ideal but the merits of a building full of warm water are not lost on two people who have lived under canvas for approaching 11 weeks. Having bought ourselves some swimming costumes we trundled in and made the most of the sauna, steam room, pools and relaxation lounge (3 loungers surrounded by very bad murals of lurid tropical fish). Languishing with your lover in a jacuzzi for an hour with not another soul about is heaven.<br /><br />Sadly I was naive enough to make conversation with a man in the sauna. He turned out to be a fellow computer programmer and was all too eager to continue a conversation about SIP and TR/87 protocols in the jacuzzi. From now on, I will ensure that I maintain a gruff exterior when at the public baths in order to avoid that pernicious and predictable question, 'so, are you two, erm, together?' Sling yer hook pal, she's taken and now you have effectively announced your intentions toward my lover while we are all taking a nice friendly bath. Now I have to kill you, creepy man. And no I will not see you in the cafe, oddball.<br /><br />We then preyed once again on the hospitality of my poetic friend who fed us G&Ts and popular media. Life would be a great deal more difficult without his assistance, his home is our favourite port in a storm. I keep asking him when he will purchase his tent, he retorts with 'If I did that where would you put all your stuff?'<br /><br />The rest of the holiday, in accordance with my frugality drive will be spent walking and relaxing, with a day trip to the seaside somewhere on the cards. The frugality drive is hard. I have managed to pay off about £500 worth of debt and save a few hundred quid which is all good but once again, I am not awash in the surpluses of my efforts. If I am to be debt free and saving for some land, I will have to up the ante financially to make this all worthwhile, I do not want to be living in a tent in 5 years time.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-65551208944020263402008-11-12T20:44:00.003+00:002008-11-12T22:41:08.291+00:00Hard workTLB has left me, I am ill, I have a huge deadline for Friday and the tent has blown down. <br /><br />I know that the only reason that anyone reads this blog is to find out whether or not I develop some ghastly wood smoke based respiratory disease or get mauled by badgers in the night. Well, I am glad to say that today is not that day. TLB has gone back to stay with her father for a few days to catch up on some social engagements which has left me lots of time for clearing up snot and complaining. The huge deadline has been quite stressful but it was only the toilet tent that blew down. I thought a bit of drama might not go amiss as this blog does seem to be a bit mild most of the time.<br /><br />I often wonder what my colleagues must make of me. Whilst TLB is away, I have been taking the dog into work with me. He spends the day in the car, though I hasten to add that he has three good length walks and half a dozen fag breaks today, before the animal rights crowd arrive and start ruining things. At work I always look like I am about to set off on an expedition but have thus far managed to resist the urge to rush back from the shower to my desk in a towel to retrieve the pants that I have stashed in my desk.<br /><br />Some are genuinely interested and I know of at least a couple who may be reading (Hello!) but the comedy opportunities are not lost on a few. I sometimes hear people complain of the smell of firewood (which I rather like) and I am known as swampy in some departments, which in fairness I think completely misses the point but hey, it is with affection. <br /><br />The new MD for the company turned up not long after I did and I had not once had reason to speak to him before a few weeks ago when he sidled up to my desk and asked how I was doing. I introduced myself and told him about the progress on the project, we chatted for a few minutes and then he said, 'So, tell me about your new digs.' <br /><br />He is a Canadian man and seems very personable, though I am a little nonplussed that he doesn't look that much older than me and is in charge. Knowing that the Canadians are largely a pretty outdoorsy bunch I showed him a couple of the photos on this 'ere blog and let him know of my motives regarding saving and the like. He seemed to approve, which is good as I am sure he was trying to find out if I was a threat to the project.<br /><br />As a computer programmer I am almost expected to be scruffy and have no taste in clothes, which is very handy when you live in a tent and have no taste in clothes. It is generally assumed by those in the know, the less a person appears to think about their hair, the more time they have to consider technical matters. So, with a sense of slight anarchy, I am throwing myself into my work and learning loads, tufts and all. For the last couple of months work has played far heavier on my mind than anything the mild British autumn could throw at us and I desperately hope that the terrible and inevitable crash of the world creditocracy won't put me out of a job.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-2990740112636397142008-11-05T22:03:00.004+00:002008-11-05T22:19:16.342+00:00HousematesA few weeks ago we had bestowed upon us a box filled with all sorts of pan related goodies. They were packed in paper to offer some protection and the box was discarded in a quiet corner for later disposal. It must be hard to believe but we do actually have a few quiet hinterlands within the tent, areas infrequently visited and it was into one of these that the box sat untouched for a couple of weeks. The weekend just passed was tent relocation time, we had an extra week on the last spot because it was wazzing it down all last weekend and we couldn't face moving.<br /><br />During the move I grabbed the box and started to take it outside. The box started making scrabbling noises and I saw beasts scampering about within, to my shame I made a sound like a shocked girl. TLB found this most amusing. I took it outside and deposited it on the grass. Gingerly I peeled back the lid of the box and peered in. Nothing.<br /><br />At this point my money was squarely on a mouse, but I had considered the possibility of a shrew or a vole or, horror of horrors, a rat. Please not a rat, I would certainly have to kill it with a hammer and would have to show no mercy when I eat it to strike fear into the hearts of its evil besnouted comrades. Hammer primed, safety glasses on, I lifted up the top layer of paper from the box. A tail darted about in the shredded paper that was clearly their home. Then came a bulging set of eyes. It is a mouse dammit, thank god. It was a field mouse I think, it froze and locked onto my gaze. There was a glint in his eye telling me to make my move, daring me to cross the line. I thought he was rather cute and resolved not to eat him.<br /><br />It turned out it had a spouse as well, also cowering in the box and they had not yet worked out that they could jump free from the box so they sat there, staring at us. It was at this point that the dog bowled in wondering what all the fuss was about. The mice, previously inert were now fighting for survival. One of them burrowed into the paper and the other made a break for it. <br /><br />It was at this point I knew that it did in fact have to die, because the little bastard was running back to the tent. I was there holding back the dog to ensure the little free loaders survival and he makes a dash for my food box. In a last minute save by TLB she managed to scare him away from the door so he burrowed under the tent and hid from the dog whom I had given up restraining. Meanwhile TLB managed to herd the other mouse into the hedge away from the attention of our somewhat over zealous amateur hunter-prancer.<br /><br />The little swine must have been in paradise. There was quinoa and cous cous, rice and pasta. Vegetables and of course, cheese. What disappoints me most is the dog. When I bought him it was on the understanding that he would be excellent at killing small cute things and insects. It would appear that he can quite happily co-habit with whole families of furry fiends for weeks at a time without so much as raising a hackle. He has been in disgrace ever since.<br /><br />It does raise the question of what I can do about vermin, or gorgeous little furballs as TLB would have it. It has become very apparent that we need to keep the food box closed and clean up spills quickly but what can I do about dog food? It gets put in his bowl each day and sometimes he saves it. I have never met a dog that saves its food before but Sometimes I can give him a sausage and he will squirrel it away for later use. He can't exactly stash his worldly morsels in Tupperware and would be stuffed with a zip lock bag. He can't even work a knife, let alone scissors, which has the fortunate upside of making him very easy to trap in a tent. So we have to accept that we may get the odd nocturnal visitor. The quiet backwaters of the tent are to be made useful so as to provide the maximum disruption to the nesting instincts of the neighbors and the dog will be required to meet strict targets on rodent rendition.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892289248561567468.post-30854113403637175062008-11-03T20:11:00.002+00:002008-11-03T21:22:51.631+00:00My mumMy mum has a camper van that she calls Bridget, the first vehicle she has ever named she hastens to add. She arrives with cakes and casseroles, dips and delights amid a flurry of furry jumpers and warm approval. A combination of motherly concern and camping zeal have bought her in our direction a few times since we arrived and it is always a joy to see her. Bridget represents my mothers freedom and her individuality. I have never seen her happier than when at the helm of her mobile domicile. I am dead proud.Torminalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126042677958763768noreply@blogger.com0