Ant's done is back in at the moment, so Good Friday he decided to wander the wood with his metal detector to try to keep active, but not do anything strenuous... his first find, within 20 minutes was what we think is an old coin, slightly larger than an old penny but difficult to tell what it is as it's so crusted in crud. The metal detector says it's non-ferrous and after some serious scrubbing with brasso, metal polish and a mixture of salt and vinegar we decided it was not going to get any easier to identify and gave up.Whilst he was detecting, I set about clearing a new path from the back of the hive down to the secret (now not-so-secret) steps, stopping only to make a scorpion sculpture out of unearthed deer bones which I completely forgot to take a photo of.
Spent a long while collecting all the fallen sticks and twigs from the ground around the area before moving down into camp and doing the same, filling 4 barrow loads of dead-fall for the fire pile.
Saturday saw more sunshine, so we were back again - more dead-fall tidying, more metal detecting and Simon was still digging out Rhodie roots. The place is looking lovely and green - leaves starting to unfurl and the grass is creeping further and further into the wood from the wayleave.
I took the spade to the steps leading out of camp to safety them up a bit and Simon got the strimmer on the grass bench and fire area. I smeared the last of the clay onto Cassius to repair a few cracks and swept the Yardarm - it's all set for the big Beltane camp now.
