Jim's Holidays: Woods in the Wood

Now that we are allowed to leave our local vicinity for the simple reason of keeping sane Debbie and I book three nights at a Kent camp site which is in a wood on the Pilgrims Way (North Downs Way). Tuesday traffic on the south circular is OK and within an hour we arrive at our pitch which is a big space and extremely socially distanced from anyone else. New tent erected in a jiffy we go for a walk through the woods and corn fields and then just chill out in the hammocks before a BBQ style evening meal and chatting around the camp fire wondering at the infinite number of ways that flames can go. At a macro level you can predict what the fire will do but at a micro level it's impossible to predict each flame. Probably something to do with chaos theory. After a good nights sleep on our new mattresses we wake to a proper dawn chorus of dozens of birds singing away like it's some battle of the bands competition. We breakfast slowly before a lovely walk along the chalk escarpment looking south then down to the corn fields and back up to the wood where we see the WWII trenches built for practice. More hanging out in hammocks reading and snoozing. Dinner is various veg packed into a casserole dish and dropped into the fire. Some caramelisation and tastes delicious. Thursday we have a cooked breakfast and then walk down to Birling for a drink and peanuts at the Neville Bull pub fortifying us for the steep uphill climb back to camp. An early evening stroll through the woods and into the nearby meadows wondering at the colours of flowers. Sausage and veg casserole in evening and ekeing out the last of our wood on the fire. Friday up with the lark, or rather our local wood pigeons and friends, and we strike camp for the easy drive back home. Lovely.