Wednesday 20 October 2010

In The Woods Pt1 Escape Velocity


'First thing you learn is you always gotta wait' Lou Reed

I was to be snaring Rabbits with another blogger over the weekend. But as is so often the lot of the self employed, one thing leads to another, a client sets a meeting back and a Friday departure disappears over the horizon. 

Seeing as I already had the weekend booked, I roused The Northern Monkey and we resolved to visit the permission in the forest. 

Saturday: one thing leads to another and we finally leave at the end of the afternoon. The drive out of town is uneventful, and we're making good pace, too good to be true. We spend an hour or so sitting in the car, gridlocked, with the engine off. By the time we're finally back on the move it's getting dark. 

Then follows a hilarious [you had to be there] interlude where we drive round a village trying to find an unmarked turning before we get to the wood. Then, for shits & giggles, we repeated the process on foot in the wood itself.

SBW [on phone]: So we're in the wood, where's the hut?
R [on phone, losing patience with SBW]: If you're in the wood, you're standing next to it
R [talking to E] They're in the wood they can't find the hut
The sound of splashing bath water and laughter
R [on phone, laughing]: Good luck, call me in the morning. CLICK

Now we'd scared off any inhabitants the wood may have had, we spend a relaxing evening in the hut eating our bean stew and bickering.

SBW: the deal was I cook and you pump up the rifle
TNM: I'll do it in the morning
SBW: I bet you if you don't do it they'll be Squirrels outside first thing
TNM: What! After a night of us two snoring like a pair of chain-saws they'll be long gone

I don't remember the highlights of the next argument, which was about who sleeps where on the sleeping platform, but I remember that it revolved around who was more likely to want to go for a piss in the night. TNM's getting on a bit so I let him have the easier route to the door.

Sunday-first light

SBW: Are you awake?
TNM: Yeah man
SBW [fighting his way out of a hooj duvet and now straddling TNM on his way to the door]:
Good, I just wanted you to know I'm not trying to mount you

Of course there was a Squirrel perfectly poised on a tree not ten yards away.

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SBW