Coffee, canvas, caching and childhood revisited

I’ve been a bit fascinated with off grid living for a while now, so I was pleased to have the opportunity for a few days under canvas off grid with Canopy & Stars.

One of my favourite features of our tent was the stove. To make coffee, to keep us warm, to make eggs, to heat our water… takes planning, it made me appreciate the flick of the switch we do everyday. It took me the two nights we stayed, to work out how to use it most effectively. The first night the fire went out in the night. That didn’t happen the next night. It makes you slow down, prepare and ultimately enjoy your coffee more.

Having a shower, and doing everything else we take for granted in modern life, took soooo much wood. This amazed me, seeing the energy burning away. It’s different to a campfire or a domestic wood-burning stove. This stove has more purpose and it really made me think about our electricity and our power stations, this laptop I’m writing on. I might switch off a few lights.

We were staying near Dartmoor. As a young child we lived near Exeter. I also went to a boarding school near Tavistock. We used to climb, walk and canoe on the moor. So it was amazing revisiting childhood memories and doing some activities up there with my own kids.

We took a walk up a small tor, called Little Staple Tor and tried Geocaching for the first time. When I was young we used to go letter boxing with my parents, and this is the modern version of it. If the purpose was to coax my girls up the hill, then it was an outright success. Finding the cache/ “treasure”… well, that proved harder. I definitely think this could be a fun activity for us. We used the Geocaching iPhone app, we also discovered that there are loads of caches all in our local neighbourhood too (I’ll be sure to post about that soon).

On Sunday, we went hunting for a swimming spot we used to visit as children. The river is dammed forming a pool, with a rock you can slide down into the cool, clear water. Adele has wild swimming on her bucket list, so this was a great opportunity for her to give it a go. We all got wet, some a little more than others.