A day (off) in the woods

On Saturday our friends Phil and Liz visited, giving us the welcome excuse to have a day in the woods without any work to do! Not that that meant nobody was working - Phil and Liz had to help chop up some fuel for the stove to cook lunch!
They also tried out Tracy's new log-splitting device that she picked up at the wood fair last month. I'll do a video at some point which will make the operation clearer, but basically you place the bottom section where you want the split:
then shove the top section down hard:
Phil tried the more traditional method of splitting logs too...
After lunch we wandered round the wood looking at stuff and collecting chestnuts
Between us we probably had a couple of kilos, some of which we roasted on a fire in the afternoon. We also saw lots of fungi over in Sweep Wood. Not sure what these first three are:
but these are the well-known Fly Agaric, of which there must have been 30 or 40!
Once back at the camp it was time to roast chestnuts and toast marshmallows.
and sit around chatting while Phil made himself a 'talking stick' he's hoping to use at work:
After a bit of persuasion Liz had a go at whittling a stick too, and found it's a very addictive activity!
All in all a good day, relaxing and fun. Sunday was back to work, but more on that later...

Mike