2020 - A year in review: Hi de Hi Campers, it's been a while!

Well it's been a year since I last posted on this blog, but, what can I say it's been a difficult year! Anyhow I think it's about time that I blow off the cobwebs on this blog and offer up a bit of an insight into what's been occurring.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I'm not one for doing reviews. But I thought I'd make an exception by doing a blog on 2020 and offer up a review of the year.

In a nutshell 2020 has been a car crash of cataclysmic proportions, a steaming turd, a fart that is so smelly that it makes you wretch.....the end. There you go, thanks for reading, please like, share and subscribe for future updates.....

Only joking, I really need to be more positive! 😜

Cast your mind back to January 2020, life was plodding along nicely. I was still getting my monthly camps in and had even started to create some more YouTube videos, I'll link into those videos below and throughout this blog.

In February I hiked into some local woods for a camp with friends - that was a very windy camp indeed but I cooked up some lovely bangers and mash and enjoyed a wonderful night sat around the wood burner in a friends tentipi.

In early March I got back out again to my usual woods for a camp in my brand new Dutch Army Hooped Bivi bag. This was a wet and windy camp, but we had a nice fire burning and I cooked a lovely loaf of bread in my little dutch oven. What a revelation the hooped bivi was though, I absolutely loved it and have been using it a lot more since.

And then at the end of March our lives were turnt upside down as the UK entered it's first lockdown and we all did our bit to prevent the spread of COVID-19, protect our National Health Service and save lives. This cruel virus had gripped not only our nation, but pretty much the entire world, unprecedented times indeed (how many times was that phrase banded about in the press!). So how was it for me, how did I endure through these torrid times?

To coin a wonderful Dickensian phrase; it was the best of times, it was the worst of times... 

It's fair to say that both my wife and I are very introverted people so the prospect of staying at home was not especially daunting. Indeed we're the sort of people who will do our best to avoid large parties and gatherings. I was fortunate in that I was able to continue my work from home and this occupied a lot of my time. In fact it's been my ongoing work commitments that prevented me from keeping this blog up to date. But, when not working, I kept myself busy in the sanctuary that was my little shed and enjoyed getting stuck into some carving and 'stove testing' (which translates as - tea drinking, lots and lots of tea drinking!). 

A real highlight for me was being able to invest some time and energy into hand tool woodworking. I had for a long time been wanting to practice some traditional joinery techniques using a collection of basic hand tools that I had been collecting and restoring over the years. I spent many an evening in my shed learning how to use the tools. 

I'd use the hand plane to flatten wood and square the edges. I learnt how to make dovetail joints and made a dovetail marking jig. I practiced mortice and tenon joinery by making a mallet and also crafted a vast array of other workshop jigs while learning how to maintain these lovely tools. I also went rather mad on e-bay and bought some more rusty old planes that needed restoring (I now have an impressive collection of old Stanly and Record planes). 

Perhaps my big achievement during this lockdown was when I put these new found skills to the test by making a new stool for my shed workshop. My existing stool was made from old pallet wood and an impressive number of screws. The new stool was made from some nice pine and an off-cut of Oak kitchen worktop, I built it using simple joinery techniques and a healthy dollop of glue. I'm proud to say that not one screw or nail was used in the construction process. I built that stool in the spring of 2020 and am delighted to report that it's still doing great and the joinery is holding up very well indeed.

Here's Digby photo bombing my snap!

However, I'd be lying if I said that things were going smoothly during lockdown. My health and fitness went well and truly down the pan. As lockdown begun, I was in good shape. I was running two-three times a week and had just achieved a new personal best at park run. I kept this momentum going into lockdown, but after two weeks of working from home, hunched over a laptop and sitting on a very crude Ikea office chair, my back was in a bad way. I started to feel this when I was out running because the pain in my back was becoming too much and it stopped me in my tracks. 

I took some time out from running so that my back could recover. I bought a more suitable office chair and spent the next few weeks living a pretty unhealthy lifestyle, eating and drinking too much. Alas I certainly put on more than my fair share of lockdown weight!! It  proved to be a real challenge to regain even a modicum of that fitness. I found it hard to get the motivation to go out for a run, and when I did it was frustrating that I couldn't maintain the sort of pace that I used to. I lost so much fitness that I basically had to start again, slowly building up my endurance by running short distances. It's only now, January 2021 that I feel as though I've managed to get back to the kind of fitness that I had before the first lockdown, it's been a long and tiresome journey!

Of course the elephant in the room (at least for me) during lockdown was camping and the fact that we all had to stay at home. Having been so used to getting out once a month, every month, I certainly missed going out for my camps. But hey ho, I accepted the reason why we each had to do our bit to protect the NHS and am happy that I did. The thing that I kept dwelling on during the first lockdown was that I missed bluebell season and the glorious dawn chorus - I shall look forward to that this year.

But as we got into summer the rules were relaxed and it once again meant that we could get outdoors for camps (and boy didn't the nation go loopy for camping!!). I picked up where I left off by continuing with my monthly camp and in July it was really nice to get out for a solo adventure so that I could 're-connect with nature' (which makes me sound like a right hippy!), here's a video of that camp. Grab yourself a cuppa before watching this one as it's my longest yet and I'm afraid it does include a rant about leaving no trace!

Meanwhile, my wife and I were also working hard down at the allotment. We had a lot going on down there and had planted a rich variety of fruit and veg. I must confess that my wife did a lot of the hard work, nurturing everything from seed. I did put a shift in with the watering though and constructing all the raised beds. It was always a nice opportunity to get out of the house (especially in lockdown!).

Perhaps one of my favourite things about the allotment though is the wildlife. I always enjoy seeing the resident foxes and they have grown quite used to us pottering about, sometimes they even pose for a photo!

As the summer started to fade, I was fortunate to squeeze in another couple of camping trips. At this time my 'camping mindset' (is that even a thing?) started to evolve. I craved simplicity and was starting to use good quality, basic camping kit that was going to be dependable. The first example of this was my Dutch army hooped bivi bag. As I said further up this blog, I was really liking it and it has become a mainstay of my wild camping set-up. To that I added a simple foam sleeping mat. As foam mats go, the Exped Flexmat Plus was a pretty Gucci bit of kit. But it is thicker than your average foam mat and much more comfortable. Add a poncho tarp and a sleeping bag to the mix and you have a very basic but effective camping setup. Here's a few piccies

And here's a video of that camp. In this camp I was also starting to practice some more basic firelighting skills, specifically I wanted to practice fire lighting with feather sticks and a ferro rod:

And here we are again in October 2020, back out on another woodland camp. This time I took my hammock out for a change. I'll be brutally honest and say that I think I'm falling out of love with my hammock and went on to sell it after this camp. There's nothing wrong with it at all, building on the point that I was making above, I just think I prefer the simplicity of bivi camping. The hammock can be a wonderful camping experience, but I don't particularly enjoy all the faff that goes with setting it up and getting things 'just so'!

This camp was a good test of our firelighting skills though as it rained...a lot! This is where the feather sticks technique comes in so handy because it provides you with lots of good dry wood.

It was good also to sit around the fire and do some carving. I still find this such a great way to relax and focus the mind.

And always it was great to sit around a fire, stare into its white hot abyss, sup on a beer and talk rubbish with like minded folk. I say that we talk rubbish, we're normally just talking about the latest 'must have' camping accessories! oh and plenty of hypocritical b!tching about the downfall of social media!!

 And of course, here's a video of that little jaunt up the woods:

As we headed into November, it was clear that a second national lockdown was looming so I acted quickly and squeezed in one more camp. 

This was an unusual one for me as it was a mid-week camp. I clocked off work and hour or so early, grabbed my rucksack and went for a 4 mile walk to the local woods. I got my bivi and tarp setup just before dusk and enjoyed a nice little fire in the Honey stove. I kept things super simple for dinner by warming up a tin of chilli con carne and some rice. 

I have to say that I really enjoyed this camp. I had to get up bright and early for work the next morning so it was short and sweet but a real breath of fresh air and a nice walk too. I think I'm going to do this a bit more often as and when the travel restrictions allow.

I enjoyed some glorious views as I walked home in the Autumn sunshine.

Wow this is proving to be a long and self deprecating blog! well done if you've made it this far. 

I spent the second national lockdown doing what I've been doing for much of the year - working from home, keeping my distance and respecting the rules. At this point though I definitely started to feel the strain mentally. I was getting stressed very easily and grew increasingly angry at how so many people saw fit to ignore all the rules. One thing that occurred to me during this year of discontent is how so many people have shown their true colours! With things starting to get on top of me, I took a break from social media and consciously sought to avoid watching/reading so much news coverage for it was doing more harm than good.

Thankfully that lockdown was short and we were able to get back out again before Christmas (when further restrictions were looming). Winter was definitely in the air for this camp and the temperatures were plummeting. I decided to set myself a challenge for this camp by sleeping out with nothing more than my wool blanket and a fire for warmth. I've never done this before and wanted to try it because I had rather foolishly signed up for the Winter Bushcraft Challenge at Joe O'Leary's Wilderness Survival School.  This challenge would require me to get through two cold nights with very minimal kit. I was apprehensive

but otherwise relishing the opportunity to put some skills to the test.

So once again, my camp set-up was basic but comfortable, I really have enjoyed using the poncho that you can see in these photos.     

While I was using basic kit, that didn't mean that I had to put myself on basic rations...

In all honesty, it wasn't the best night that I've had out in the woods. I was comfortable and plenty warm enough. But I found that I spent much of the night laying in front of the fire and just starting at it, getting anxious about when to put more wood on. I woke up feeling slight grumpy and dishevelled! I learnt a valuable lesson in that I should just let the fire be and load it up with wood as and when I felt chilly. Sleeping in the wool blanket was a nice experience though. 

And that was me done for the year. On reflection, despite the travel restrictions, I managed to get in a few decent camping trips and really can't complain. I'm writing this in January 2021, we're once again in a national lockdown, the virus is worse than ever and causing significant harm. My thoughts are with those that have been effected by this virus and lost loved ones.

With the current travel restrictions in place, I've obviously got no camping trips on the cards for the foreseeable future and the Winter Bushcraft Challenge has unfortunately been cancelled. My immediate 'outdoorsy' objective is to keep fit, carry on with the running and get some quality shed time in (it aint half cold in the shed at this time of year though!!). As and when we're allowed to get back out again, I shall be aiming to bring some diversity into my camping trips but venturing out of the woods a bit more and exploring some other areas.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to let me know how you got on last year and take care