This year’s big work about the house was to build a woodshed as last winter saw us woefully unprepared. We had the wood but because there was nowhere to cut, chop and stack it, my sons and I had had to go out in literal blizzards to chainsaw metre-long logs, then chop them on an […]

Yesterday, we visited my sister-in-law to combine my name day and her birthday. In reality it was because the kids wanted to see their cousin’s new dog – a 5-month-old Czechoslovak Wolfdog named Jacky. For those who don’t know, a Wolfdog is a cross between a German Shepherd and a Carpathian Wolf. They’re a bit […]

We get plastic Irish pubs out here but they don’t even know it’s St Patrick’s Day and I don’t fancy sitting in a half-empty overpriced establishment watching Rhianna on a widescreen…. I miss the days when there were queues to get into a pub on St Paddy’s Day and it involved lots of drinking, poon, […]

The latest issue of Bushcraft Magazine is out and this time contains a bumper pack of my contributions First off is the cover, which is my photo of a bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) – I feel honoured the editor Steve chose that one. Then there’s my article about the realities of living out here during a […]

It always takes me a while to re-adjust to living in the “back of beyond” (as my friend Dominic calls it) after returning from the UK. The best way, I find, is to spend as much time at the house as possible and go out every day into the forest, or for long country walks, […]

I haven’t ridden Feisty, my Aprilia Pegaso Mk1, for a while due to overheating issues. I’ve been so fixated on getting Vlochka, My Land Rover Discovery, into working order for long distance travelling that I sort of neglected my motorbike this year – which is a major shame because it was a scorching hot summer. […]