Chucking it down with rain, so Ant spent the morning sewing canvas bed tubes and I went to the office to catch up after a week off and prepare for a couple of days working in Poland.When the weather cleared and we got down to the wood, the camera trap had a lovely collection of deer shots on it from around 630am this morning.
The canvas tubes fit like a dream and after some faffing with wooden tent pegs and bungee cords we both had dry, off-ground beds, under tarp to sleep in. Which was a good job as the heavens opened again and very quickly the bank was a slippery mess. Paul turned up with the boys in the afternoon and quickly set about doing what boys do ... tipping buckets of muddy water down the bank to slide on! They were covered head to toe in mud whilst Paul was busy building them a shelter to sleep in - brave is not the word. By the time the den was finished and beds made it was time for dinner and dry clothes for the boys. The fire quickly turned into both a cooker and a laundry dryer and eventually the clouds cleared and the odd star was spotted before we turned in for the night.
Getting into a sleeping bag and then inside a waterproof bivvy bag proved a little tricky balanced on the canvas, but once in, it was truly toastie. Took a while to get to sleep, but thankfully no mosquitoes round the head which was my fear. No sooner had I got to sleep than the heavens opened again and the noise was incredible, not only sploshing from the trees onto my own tarp, but on the tarp in the clearing too. It was a good hour before it stopped and I was expecting to hear the boys get up due to den flooding, but heard nothing.
