Day 8 - Tipi/Nuthouse

It’s the end of the week. At last I have time to enjoy the tipi and I can’t wait. I realise its nearly sunset and in a bid to catch the last light of the day I run down the fields and leg it into the woods. Which must have looked pretty strange from a distance.

Tonight’s mission is a fire without newspaper, which for a rookie like me is a bit tricky. I try building up the sticks and lighting it straight off but that fails miserably. So I remember Ray Mears videos and hold a clump of tinder in my hands (the dry bark off a vine I found in the wood) and light it. It starts from nothing but I blow on it until all of a sudden I’m holding a fireball. I lay it down on an empty hearth like releasing a small animal into the wild, building it up with small sticks and then bigger ones. It cooks my dinner and we get along just fine and I read some newspaper just to rub it in.





I remember being curious as to what would happen in that tipi on my own with a whole evening to kill. Amongst other things I think for a while about how the word ‘crumple’ doesn’t get enough press. Fantastic word. I invent a comedy sketch based on Little House on the Prarie which cracks me up. “Love Generation” comes on the radio and I find myself dancing in front of the fire, really going for it. I needn’t have worried.