This amount of water is going to dampen the heartiest of souls, it is, after all, the time that we should really be enjoying the woods. What gets you through the winter, is the thought of summer but, apart from a beautiful April, what we’ve had can only be described as shit. It adversely affects the work that you can do as well. This week, we went off to a different woods to do some felling of Western Red Cedar for roof shingles on the barn and some Sweet Chestnut for a memorial chair that the Chief is making.

So we load up the truck with a couple of chainsaws, axes, wedges, a kelly kettle and jump into the rather deceptively cramped Hilux. Cramped for me at least, as I entertain a couple of over excited Labradors in the back. The drizzle starts as we leave Cherry Wood and follows us over towards our destination and on arriving the plans change to fell the Western Red at a later date. We do however take a stroll through the woods and marvel at the several Yews that were obviously planted in a sort of avenue. These Yews are awe inspiring and probably 500 years old. Imagine what these monoliths have lived through. 500 years of history. I still find it hard to comprehend now. Around the trunks were fallen branches that were still green; so we took some for turning into spindles and a couple of forked pieces for seat or bench backs. The Yew has very distinctive sapwood and heartwood, the latter being much darker. Steve also took a couple of man sized pieces, for making long bows. A process which I would like to blog on these very pages.

This leisurely picking took us pretty much up to lunch time, whereupon The Big Chief decided to speed through a puddle, soaking Steve, just to remind us who is in charge, less there was any doubt. It didn’t matter. It started to piss down, so we all got soaked. This downpour made the kelly kettle hard to light but, light it we did and I have to say, it is a fabulous invention. Check it out for yourself here… http://www.kellykettle.com/. So – tea, sandwiches, fell Chestnut, load truck, eff off ‘ome. And still it fell out. I am glad I don’t live in Tewkesbury. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6911226.stm.

Returning to Cherry Wood, we lit a fire and dried out. Eventually, the sun poked his head out, just like a little turtle except warmer and too bright to look at. It’s warmth reinvigorated us and we were dispatched with shavehorses, to prepare roof shingles. The roof shingles are made from Western Red Cedar. After the tree is felled, the branches are removed (snedding) and it is then sawn into 18 inch sections called “cheeses”. Using a froe and a beater, the cheese is cleaved (cleft?) in half, then half and half again. You just keep cleaving along the centre line, were the wood will naturally split, at the weakest point. You end up with a shingle that is wedge shaped being about an inch or so thick at its spine. We also leave the bark on. Once we have a wedge, it’s off to the shavehorse. Take the smoothest looking side and make it even smoother with a drawkife. The other side remains untouched, where the natural grooves and gully’s in the wood will help the rain run off. These are so much easier to make when the wood is wet; when it is dry, blisters abound.

Here they are, up on the roof…

anyway, since last week, our weather has slowly improved and we are now in throes of what can only be described as a heat wave. Why, we have had temperatures soaring into the early seventy’s for three straight days! I tell you, if this carries o, it’ll be a hose pipe ban for sure.

Whichever way I tilt my head, the needle is out of reserve and into no man’s land. Beyond empty. This means a fuel stop. Obviously, as I am running on vapour, the nearest petrol station will be closed or taking delivery. But this day, the god of motoring, sees my plight and nudges me in, just ahead of the tanker. I leap like a man 10 years my junior and in three swift, barely noticeable movements, I have opened the cap flicked the nozzle in and I am pumping. For about 12litres or so, whereupon i notice the unusually black nozzle. The dawning was quick and the pumping stopped.

Now, I am clearly no mechanic but I know not drive the vehicle when its got the wrong juice, so I have to push it somewhere. Being on my own, I begin the battle, half expecting a fellow motorist to see my struggle and aid me. Alas, no. It is the guy behind the till who comes to help, with the rest of the forecourt “watching” us. Bastards.

Now I have to get the van to a garage where they can drain the diesel and dispose of it. It is the disposal that is the trouble. You need to go to someone who has a license to safely dispose of the fuel. Not cheap. In fact, more expensive to dispose of than buy; £1.20 per litre.

Thankfully, the insurance we have, gets us free recovery (yes, even for making your own daft mistake). Unfortunately, they can’t find anyone to do the job that night, so very kindly, they offer to take me home with the van and then come and get it in the morning and take it to be fixed. Magic! So off we trot, with the van on the back of a truck.

It was a bit tight to get the van on to the drive, so we rolled it off and left it on the road outside the house. Not really any other options and anyway, they are going to pick it up again in a matter of hours. On the plus side, the driver reckons it could get picked up at 8 o’clock, so I could be on the way to the woods by ten.

By the morning, I feel a little less like breaking things but, I have yet to go outside. I make all the necessary phone calls, then go to check the van. Now, bearing in mind I couldn’t actually move the bloody thing, you’d probably be thinking that I would be quite cross if I had a parking ticket. I live in the bloody country. There’s probably only three cars went passed it all night and one of them was the police. It’s not like we have yellow lines or any signs at all. The ticket says parked in a 40mph zone unlit; and there’s probably an obscure rule in the highway code that we are all supposed to know off by heart.

Anyway, I can cope with all that. I don’t think I can blame anyone but myself for the whole saga. After all, had I done what I am always telling Jago (6) to do and concentrated at the petrol station, none of it would have happened. Ok, a thirty quid fine. But quite frankly, I don’t think I should have to pay that. Now, I’ve had parking tickets before and successfully argued their nullification; I’ve even had the adjudicator turn me down only for the magistrate to find in favour of me. All of this done by post without the need for personal appearances. Not in bloody North Somerset though, oh no. For here, you either pay or fill in a form for a hearing, where your mitigating circumstances can be listened to by some old bored people. I phoned the police to see if this really was the case and yes it effing is. No postal appeals, straight to court. This seems extremely unfair to me and rather un-english to boot. Your choice is to pay the £30 or go to court. So you go to court, it’s 20 miles away so you have associated travel costs, you’ve got to eat and you’ve taken the day off work/you’re paying someone to look after the kids. That’s going to be more than £30 and if it’s not, you need a new job matey.

Ultimately, I suppose I’ll end up paying the £30 (hopefully before it doubles) but it has made me feel bound up by bureaucracy. I’m not especially political yet I find myself being constantly affected by this rather wanky administration. It’s like being continuously pinched by an ugly person; at some point you’ll pinch ‘em back and quite bloody hard too.

I also ended up missing my day in the woods which, by some vile twist of fate, looks like it was the sunny Thursday of 2007. Hopefully next week I shall have something more woody and wholesome to write about.

Of course, the path to the shower should not be derided. It is like the path to enlightenment, what with cleanliness being next to godliness or something. Anyway, this particular part of the wood seems to attract water and, what with it being clay, it sort of sits on top. Waiting. You can’t dig it; it just sticks to the shovel, so a path was laid. Scraps and cast offs for making three foot “sleepers” with two by four lengths layered like bricks in a stagger, for the rails. Time for the rolling stock? Alas, no. Planks left over from cladding the barn, cut to size and laid on the rails, will finish the path off.

We did what you can see in the picture, all fairly quickly as there quite a few of us there. Allison and son Oscar were working hard along with some of the usual regulars and, what with it not actually raining, it turned out to be a good day.

With any luck, that will be a finished path by now, so I shall take a picture of it to complete the story.

The clad barn, off cuts of which we used on the path and the oven which will cook anything. The pizzas from this oven, you cannot fault. Unless they have anchovies on.

And what a lovely bench it is too. With legs and back of Ash and seat of smashing oak. All of it built in the wood, in the rain and from the wood in the wood as it were. It took a mere six days which was spent in marvelous company, enjoying the delights of forest life.

Much of the first morning was spent trying to cleave the bastard log that The General gave us. Oh yes, it may have lovely curves but, that will be to hide the effing great knot that lurks beneath and, will keep us puffing till lunch time. With much thwacking with a froe, it eventually gave up its sinewy mass and left us with eight lovely potential legs; four for me, four for him.

It may look good now but it gave me blisters. Anyway, each of those legs was shaped first with a side axe, then with a draw knife, whilst holding said leg in a shave horse. Quite honestly, these tools would be better described with a picture. So I’ll post that later. The Y shaped back was a piece of Ash that was sawn in half with a Japanese saw. The two pieces were then shaped, again with the draw knife and shave horse and eventually steam bent.

The comb back was cleaved from a piece of curved Ash and further shaped with a draw knife and spoke shave. The lovely seat was cut from a big plank of oak. It was shaped at the front, mainly to get rid of some sap wood that was there, but the result was a jolly attractive seat, with the travisher really bringing out the beautiful grain int the Oak.

The mortise and tenon joints were made by drilling holes with a brace and bit, then cleaning up with a chisel and a gerbil. The tops of the legs were rounded with a rounding plane, cut to accommodate an oak wedge and fitted/wedged into the drilled holes in the seat. Finally, there were some small oak pins to make to hold it all in place. Et voila! Which is french for there you go.

Next week; how to build a garage and carving small figurines of annoyed smokers who have been force outside because of Britain’s new nanny state laws. It all links.