Well hello there, you can call me Ray.

It's been a while! I've been busy, you've been busy - you know how things are!

What have we been up to?

The last post was showing the details of the walk that Janey and I did in Derbyshire. We'd gone camping to a lovely field behind a pub (no that's not cheating!) which I'd discovered when on Lucy's hen weekend a few weeks before..this is the Hens sitting in the very pub garden...

And here is the view of the pub garden taken a couple of weeks later, from just about beside that shed you can see behind Lucy Hen, looking back towards this table, and over towards the campsite...

It was a cracking location, and as you can see from the previous post - a great place to start for a walk.

I'd arrived quite late on the Friday night (thank you M1) but fortunately, with the joy of our pop up tent, within 20 minutes we were unpacked and ready to rock and roll!

We had booked dinner in the pub The Royal Oak which is pretty much famous for its food, and I have to say, we were lucky to get in - the place was HEAVING and the food was delicious. Janey had a Butternut Squash Lasagne and I had Cajun Roasted Salmon. Yum!

It was a good idea to book in for food as it meant that we didn't have to worry about getting provisions or cooking for that evening. And as it turned out it was a bloody good job as I had forgotten the cooker!!!

Honestly - I'm not good to camp with if I'm a bit stressed - last time we went away with M&D it was the weekend before going off to the USA and I forgot the tent pegs!!!! On that occasion, Dad (being the original boy scout) happened to have enough bits of stuff around to make pegs out of. On this occasion we didn't really have too much hot food planned (sarnies, fruit and crisps being the main stay of camping kitchen), but in the morning we REALLY wanted a hot coffee. So, after verifying that yes, there really was NO cooker, we started trying to think about what we could do to heat a cup of water up for coffee.

We initially tried candles in a pan with another pan on top (they kept going out, and they were the lemony ones you use to keep insects away) we didn't have any night lights or other fuel source. Then I remembered an video I'd seen on one of the 'how to' websites I frequent.

Bottle Cap Burner Really Cooks! - The most amazing home videos are here

I think you'll agree it's a bit impressive.

When Janey and I were having dinner the night before, we were laughing as we BOTH had brought our hand sanitizer gel with us. You have to understand that Dad had us using this stuff YEARS before it became mainstream and we we laughing about how indoctrinated we were. So as we were discussing possible fuel sources for our coffee heater, this video popped into my mind.

We had no tins to make the little stove with BUT we did have tin foil and (of course) we had wine bottles with metal caps, so quite quickly 2 stoves were fashioned, and we also made 2 little foil cups. They were filled with water and the stoves were lit...

You can see the pan with the 4 anti-mozzie candles in it which was our previous attempt, there in the background! So, with about 1 and a half capfuls of gel, we managed a nice, hot cup of coffee!!!

Janey smiling now there has been a caffeine infusion.

And here I am with the tools of the trade - tinfoil and hand gel...

You can call me Ray (Mears that is!)