Foray in the Forest 2009

We were going to forage on Friday, but after work, decided that a beer was a better idea, so we sat down with Ross and managed to get through heaps of beer. It was a lovely evening. Warm and sunny, so it was good to sit in the garden and make the most of it.

We raced around and filled the car up for the Foray 2009 and managed to leave home at about 11.50 well in time for our allotted slot. Eddie and Fran had stayed the night before and kept a good plot for us. In the end, once everyone had arrived there were 19 of us in a big "circle the wagons camp". We all set up our tents and sorted out the bedding and then everyone went for a forage for a couple of hours while I stayed at the camp with Sharon and read. My bedding was:- air bed, blanket, sleeping bag, double duvet, thermals and a hot water bottle, as it has been very nippy at night. Patsy had his sleeping bag and air bed, poor thing and was pretty chilly in the night.

The guys came back and started on the risotto. They'd not found many mushrooms, but Ed and Pat have been collecting them over the last month or so, so they used those. Anna was the winner and even found a couple of hedgehogs. The risotto was lovely and Pat had done some bass parcels with thyme and lemon with butter and it complemented the rice and mushrooms brilliantly.

I took my bike to help with the loo runs and it gave me loads of freedom so that I didn't have to rely on Pat, as he was doing the cooking thing. Mind you, once I got to about 8.30, I didn't drink anything else as I didn't want to be up and down all night weeing.

Chris Shaw came on his own too as he wanted to get away with writing up his dissertation, so that was good to see him. He only gets together with us once a year or so, so that was lovely and everyone really liked him. He's so funny, he had everyone in fits.

Needless to say, I went off to bed at about 11pm and left a few people still up, but was so snuggly I didn't care. The morning was spent reading my graphics, some people had brought papers, so it was very relaxed and then once (Pat) we had packed up, we all went off to the Hobler to have roast dinners and lovely stuff.

The evening was spent watching Spaced as it's the 10th anniversary of the series starting, so that was a brilliant end to a fantastic weekend. Roll on next year!