Solo Woodland Hammock Camp. Campfire Cooking. Ribeye Steak. Twig Stove Bannock.

Hi folks and welcome back. I'm out for a crafty little overnighter tonight. I've got my hammock with me and it's a really warm and muggy day so I think being in my hammock beneath the trees in the shade is the best place to be. That's me all set up. I've got my Hennessy hammock here. This is the one I modified with the zip conversion. Yeah, it's nice and comfortable. It's big and it's asymmetrical so I can sleep on the diagonal slightly and I can just get a bit more flat that way and it's just more comfortable in a hammock and it's got a bug net so I can zip myself away in here and protect myself from the biting insects overnight. I've got a tarp over the top here. I've just folded half of it over so I can get a bit of air in there for now. There's a nice breeze coming through this woodland so I want to make the most of it and I can just fold that over when it's time to go to bed and peg it out just in case we have any rain overnight. I've not bought a sleeping bag with me or a quilt, underquilt or anything like that. I've just bought my wool blanket and I think that'll be just the job for tonight. It's not cold overnight at the moment and in fact it's quite muggy and warm so I think a blanket will be all I need really. I'm going to fold it in half and have half of it underneath me so it'll give me a little bit of insulation during the early hours of the morning when it does chill down a little bit and then the other half I can just fold over the top of me to keep me warm. That'll do just the old job. This really is a lovely little corner of this woodland. It's shady but it's right on the edge of the woodland, just at the edge of the trees so I've got views out across the open fields and it's allowing that breeze to come through which is really welcome on a warm afternoon. It's quite delicious. I'm feeling quite comfortable now. It was a bit hot earlier on. I'm going to have to gather up some firewood shortly. I'm going to need a fire for cooking, certainly not for warmth, that's for sure, but I've got a big steak I'm going to cook for my dinner so I need a fire for that. I have got some firewood stashed away in this woodland. I do come here quite frequently so I'll go and grab some pieces from there but I'll have to grab some smaller bits just to get the fire going and get some coals because I'm going to need them for cooking the steak. Right, I'm going to get my fire lit. It's just gone six o'clock and I'm starting to get pretty hungry. One of my good old wood wool bundles. They're just like a waxed wood fibre, like wood shavings basically, but being waxed you do have to get quite a few nice hot sparks on them. I think sometimes the smaller ferro rods don't quite create enough sparks and they're not hot enough so if you can get yourself a nice big one you'll have better success I think. While that fire is just building up some coals ready for cooking I need to make myself a little stick which I'm going to cut a notch in and I'm going to put my grill in the notch. I've got my little flat titanium grill, you may have seen in previous videos, and I need that to rest my steak on so that it can be warming through before I cook it. As you probably know I like my steak barely cooked at all but I also want it warm, do you know what I mean? So I like to give it some time up high above the fire warming through so that you know it's not cold and the fat kind of renders down. I'm just going to take the thorns off this little bit of hawthorn here then I'm just going to cut a little notch about halfway through. Right here's my steak fresh from the butchers, nice big thick ribeye so that's going to be nice and that is my dinner. I've got a bit of garnish to go with it some tomatoes and onion and mushroom but that basically is my dinner. Cherry tomatoes whole I think and then I've got an onion which I'm just going to have to chunks I think, that's a little bit on the thick side for this sort of work. All right I'm going to transfer my garnish onto my plate, I'm going to get this skillet really good and hot again, put my steak in for the steak. All right my steak's looking good that fat's all rendered down nicely and it's warm but not cooked so I've got some steak seasoning here, I don't want to go too mad with it because there's already loads of flavour in the meat itself but a little bit of seasoning is good. Once that pan is super hot I'll get that in there and then I'll season the other side while it's having its first side done. Back up on his perch to rest. Smells divine. To go with this I've got a beer here, Knotted Roots which was sent to me all the way from Colorado in the US from Ken, thank you Ken. I think it's an IPA, no leave my glasses on for that, writing's way too small, unfiltered triple dry hopped IPA, oh lovely. Right that was good. I couldn't quite manage all of my garnish and there were just a couple of small gristly bits on the edge of the steak which I didn't eat but everything else went down. Oh very good, I think you've got to buy steak from the butchers these days to get anything of a decent size. Every time I go and buy steak from the supermarket they just seem to get smaller and smaller, thinner and thinner, same price but less of it to the point where they're just difficult to cook when they're so small. I don't like mine cooked very much, in fact that was a little bit over for me, that was because I was messing around trying to film and I took my eye off the ball for a minute there and it cooked a little bit longer than I intended it to but it was still good. Just enjoying my second and final beer, I only bought two with me and this is a Vocation Toucan Tropic, not had this before, very nice, kind of fruity citrusy IPA. There's a little bit of noise in the background, you might not be able to pick up on the microphone but there's some farm work going on I think, it's a kind of busy time of year for farmers with harvest and all the rest of it, all the fields are being harvested and then ploughed and processed and got ready for next year's crop I guess. I can hear some machinery, I don't know, tractors maybe, maybe clearing fields, bales and things off fields perhaps, they tend to work late into the evening this time of year to get the job done. So if you can hear it that's what it is. I thought I'd do something that I haven't done for ages it seems, that's to have a hot chocolate before bed. I have my two beers, I only bought two with me, both were very nice but yeah I fancied a hot chocolate before turning in for the night, it's about 10 o'clock, still warm, I know I'm by the fire but it is warm anyway, I've walked away from the fire and it's just, yeah, it's pleasant, it's a pleasant temperature this evening, hopefully I won't be too warm, I don't think so, it does tend to drop in temperature as the night goes on, you know, especially the early hours, sort of like that time between, I don't know, three o'clock and five o'clock seems to be chilly, so yeah I'm sure my blanket in there will be just the job to keep me warm. Yeah this is very nice actually, good old oh boy. Yeah it's been a nice evening, yeah I've really enjoyed being here this afternoon especially, you know, out of the sun in the shade with that breeze coming through, really comfortable temperature, it was lovely, yeah absolutely the place to be, good dinner, that steak was fantastic, really enjoyed it, a couple of beers and just relaxing, it's been really really chilled, yeah, I spent a bit of time not filming, just, you know, enjoying being here without without filming it, which I don't do, which I don't do very often, so it was nice to just, yeah, have a bit of time and just enjoy where I am, yeah, really nice little spot here, I love it. Well I'm gonna get this drunk up and I'm gonna turn in for the night, get a good night's sleep, had quite a late one last night, so yeah, looking forward to getting into bed and getting some zeds, I shall see you guys in the morning, good night. Morning folks, I had a reasonably good night's sleep, I did wake up chilly at about four, quarter past four, something like that, yeah, I was just chilly, so I put my woolly shirt on and wriggled down inside my blanket, kind of folded it over me a bit like a cocoon and I was all right then, I slept through till my alarm went off at half past five, I wanted to get up early this morning for the sunrise, set my camera up, yeah, beautiful morning, absolutely gorgeous, the farm started up early early this morning, that was just as I was stepping out of my hammock at half five, I heard the first bits of machinery firing up, there's beeping from, you know, loaders and bits and pieces, yeah, busy time for those guys at the moment, just enjoying a cup of coffee to wake up to, which is going down very well and I'll get on and make some breakfast shortly, I'm just doing bannock for my breakfast this morning, I've got some honey to drizzle over it so that should be nice and then I'll get things packed away, yeah, lovely little spot this, absolutely love it, the sun just catching off these dead oaks which are scattered through this woodland, yeah, really nice, I've got my bannock mix in this bag here, that's my normal bannock recipe, so that's two parts flour to one part dried milk, sugar, salt and I've got some sultanas in here as well, I'm just going to add some water to the bag, this actually works really well if you add beer, but I drank all mine last night, so just add a little bit at a time, mix it up in the bag, I just want a reasonably stiff dough that won't stick to my fingers, get some of that steak flavour off the plate from last night, why not, I'm gonna get my skillet on to warm up, I'm not going to light a fire this morning just to cook a bannock, that seems silly, so I'm going to use my twig stove here, that will do the job nicely and it's much easier to clean up, cools down quickly, I haven't got to use loads of water to put the fire out and have all that cleaning up, I've obviously got to clean up last night's fire but that's at least cool, one last cup of coffee and pack away, well that's me all packed away and tidied up and this place is back to how it was when I arrived here yesterday, it's a lovely little woodland, it's quite local to me and I have a permission to camp here, so I do come here quite frequently, I've left the logs that I didn't burn here for another day, it's quite handy to be able to do that, yeah it's been a nice camp, was very needed, a bit of a relaxing one, some good food, a couple of beers and a reasonably comfortable night's sleep, I mean I was comfortable enough in the hammock, I just got a little chilly, but yeah really, really good, absolutely love, love this little spot here, thanks for watching, I'll see you soon.