Festive Woodland Camp with Kent Survival. Christmas Dinner Cooked in a Ground Oven. Canvas Swags.

Hi folks and welcome back. I'm out here in the woods today with Andy who's just over there reading the instructions for his sleep system he's using tonight. Howdy. How you doing? Yeah, I can't read in Australian. We're here for the night. We've just driven into this woodland and found a good spot to camp here, set our awnings up. We're due for some quite strong winds tonight and overnight, this evening and overnight. So yeah, awnings and many windbreaks I think are the order of the day just to keep that wind off us. But the other reason for being out here is this is going to be our Christmas video. So tomorrow we're going to be cooking up some Christmas goodies. We're going to dig a ground oven and yeah, we're going to have all sorts of festive goodies tomorrow which would be fantastic. But for now, set up some defences against that wind that's coming in later and get ourselves comfortable for the evening. That's us all set up for tonight. We've both got swags, canvas swags to sleep in. I've got my good old outhouse which I've had for ages and a down quilt and the mattress is already in the swag, nice and comfy and I've got a comfy pillow to use as well. So all luxuries and Andy's got a new swag to sleep in which has got a nice little porch bit which kind of sticks out and a little tiny hobbit mattress. So that'll be us all nice and comfy tonight. That'll be good and we've got the awnings up to protect us a bit from that weather when it comes in later. Just need to collect some firewood. I've brought a load of wood with me, a load of logs just because you know I don't want to strip this woodland. It is quite a big woodland, there's plenty of wood here, lots of downed trees but you know it's not my woodland, I have a permission to be here. So yeah, I just think it's respectful to bring some in as well rather than just using all the wood that's here. So yeah, we'll cut a little bit, there's plenty of oak lying around so that's good hot burning wood. That's oak base there, lovely oak base. Can't beat an oak base. Dry my old knees out. Dry your knees out? Yeah they're soaked from kneeling in the mud before I pitched you a kneeling mat. We've got the fire lit and yeah, it's just amazing what a transformation it makes just having some flames. It's not really cold today or anything, you know it has been, it was sort of cold a week or so ago and then it's warmed up but it's damp still isn't it? And that wind was cold earlier. Wind was cold, yeah it's actually dropped to almost nothing now, the calm before the storm. But that is going to pick up later so we'll definitely be glad of the fire then. Andy's cooking dinner tonight. What are we having Andy? Chilli, lovely cornbread. Fantastic. I've done most by pre-prepping my chilli mix here which I've blended at home and I've got an onion, oh god, and a knife that needs sharpening. Easy. My chilli's got some shin of beef and some mince in it. I'm just going to get that fried off first. This is my special chilli mix, I made it last night. It's got guajillo chillies, ancho and chipotle. It's got some stock reduction, garlic, spices, yeah a little bit of this and that. That is the flavour. What you got? Same god. Oh yeah, I meant that. I have a jigglers tipple. Do you now? Hazy. Not too bad actually, my suspension's better than yours. Cheers. Yes that is a guaranteed. Oh wow that's cold. You had yours in the cooler didn't you? We're just as cold. If I get this chain out of our chilli, I've got some kidney beans I'm going to put in here. Quite a lot here, I hope you're hungry. And some cornbread. Fantastic, thank you. Look at that. Now the thing with using the dried chillies and everything, you get a lot of flavour but you're not too sure about heat. You don't always get super heat so I've got some scotch bonnet with me. We had a fantastic dinner. That chilli was amazing Andy, thank you. You're very welcome. It was superb. I've never made a chilli without tomatoes in before. And there wasn't a tomato in sight in that chilli, it was amazing. It was absolutely gorgeous. Yeah fantastic, with the cornbreads it was something else. Thank you. Absolutely gorgeous. The weather I think has just started to come in. We had a little bit of rain a few minutes ago, just very light, just spitting really, but it does feel different. The wind's starting to pick up a little bit isn't it. Taste of things to come. Yeah I think so. Yeah the smoke's sort of eddying about a little bit. I think it's the start of whatever weather is coming in our way. Although it's a little bit later than they said it was going to be. But never mind. Yeah I'm really glad to be out here actually. I needed to be out for a little camp out in the woods. And yeah, nice to do it in comfort, in style. Yeah, it's our Christmas party. Yep, absolutely. Well tomorrow, Christmas will start tomorrow. As of when I wake up that'll be it. We'll get things set up and maybe make things look a little bit more festive. Christmas hats I'm sure. Yeah. And Christmas grub. Yeah, so that is tomorrow. But for tonight, finish these beers off, enjoy this fire for a little bit while we can still be outside. We can always duck under the awnings if need be, if that weather comes in. But yeah, we'll have a little bit longer, just chill and enjoy the fire for a bit. Yeah, but we'll see you guys in the morning. Good night. Morning folks. I had a pretty good night's sleep last night. I did wake up a few times with the wind. The sound of the wind and the trees woke me a couple of times. But I was very comfortable and warm. And yeah, woken up this morning to a pretty grim day, haven't we really? Yeah, it's dark and wet and windy. Yeah, just as we knew it was going to be. You know, it's forecast to be like this pretty much all weekend. In fact, getting worse. Sunday's supposed to be really bad. So well, it is what it is. We can only just do what we can do to give ourselves some shelter, can't we? Had a nice cup of coffee this morning and just made some breakfast. It was a bit of an experiment. Sort of cheesy bean and sausage toasties. Mind burnt a little bit. Have you got your hole digging hat on? I'm ready. Really loose. Right, we're all set up for our pit oven. We've put a tarp up just to keep the weather off. Dug a big hole and then we've got a big tub of granite which we've got to feed onto the fire as it's burning and get them up to temperature. Give it a good couple of hours for them to get nice and hot. To go over the top of it, because it needs to be sealed in, I've got a load of hazel poles which I left out here the last time I camped in this woodland. I used them for a raised bed and they were still here in the woods so we're going to lay those across and then sacking over the top, mud back on top and that kind of seals it in. Our food will hopefully cook in a few hours. The fire's heating up nicely and getting those rocks nice and hot so I thought I would get the food ready. We're having a duck. I wanted to get a goose but you would not believe how expensive geese are at the moment. £145 I was quoted for a goose. Couldn't believe it so we're having duck instead. So I'm going to roast it in this tin here and I've got bacon to wrap over. I'll do kind of like a lattice of bacon over the top. I mean duck is quite fatty anyway but you know normally I'd put bacon over a turkey or something just to get a bit more fat into it and stop the breast meat from drying out so much. Just fits. Beautiful. Some carrot I think. I'm going to cook the veggies in goose fat but it's cold today and the goose fat had set solid in the jar and I want these veggies to be all nicely coated so I've just melted it using my gas stove just enough to be able to coat everything. It doesn't really matter if it re-solidifies before it cooks. It goes in to cook you know because it will melt again when it goes in with the heat. So I'm running out of... oh I might have a space issue here. We've got lots of spuds there haven't we? Take a couple of them out shall I? Yeah. Got to make sure we've got some parsnips. Right going to make up the stuffing. Just boiled some water in my handy little gas stove behind me and just got some good old paxo. A little bit of butter and then we've also got some pigs in blankets which for those of you that don't know I think it's pretty much a traditional English thing isn't it? It's just little cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon. Traditional at Christmas so I'm going to put them in this tin here. There we go. Little bad boys in there. Two each will be enough won't it? Yeah yeah. Cupcake no more cutting. Careful. That was good. There we go. All right then let's get the grub in. Plenty of air space over the top there isn't there? Yeah I know. These are just hessian sandbags which I've soaked in water and that stops them burning. I don't think they would anyway being this high up above but it also generates steam which helps with the cooking so I'll lay them across like this. Of course the other thing it does is it stops the mud from going down all over the food. Four might have been enough look. Right that is it. Food in. We've transferred the coals that we took out of the pit over to the other fire where we were sat around last night so we're going to get some wood on there now so we've got a fire that we can still sit around because obviously now there's no heat here whatsoever as there's a tarp up but no fire so we'll reconvene over by the awning there and get that fire going. Come on Andy get into the spirit. Don't burn it. Why did you know what I was going to do? It's fine for your Christmas table. Oh thank you very much. First one this year as well. Really? I've had a box. Oh lovely. I made the decision to move the land rover from where it was and put it the other way around. Yesterday the wind was blowing from the south and then during the day it's slowly been creeping around through the west and tonight, later on tonight, it's supposed to blow from the north and bring some more strong wind and gusts. I was just a bit concerned about the wind blowing into the open front of the awning and causing some damage. The winds are supposed to be even stronger tonight than they were this morning and overnight last night so yeah that's what we've done. I managed to sort of creep the land rover around while Andy was holding the awning instead of putting all the awning away which wasn't very easy was it? I don't want to listen to you. I put my swag away in the land rover just for the time being because it gives us more space to sit under here and eat when we have our Christmas feast. So I'll drag that out later on when it's bedtime and just set that back up in this area. It's only two pegs and just pulls out, it's easy. But definitely much better this way around isn't it? Out of the wind, warmer. Did you check on that leaning tree? Are you now in its path? I'm propping it up. Put the camera down and help. Well that's had three hours so I think we're gonna carefully uncover it. Definitely so we don't drop a load of mud in. That would be annoying. I feel the warmth in through my gloves. Yeah. Let's go. I can smell something. Definitely some water in there. Sticks are hot. Yeah they are a bit warm. Well confit in its own fan. Yeah. Perfectly succulent that is. Oh yeah. Tender as you like that is. It's obviously hotter on this side. Oh wow. Yeah they did well. Sprouts on. I think we're not far off. It's like to crack a drink. I think so. You've got your wine. I'm cracking a drink. You can drink out of a bottle. Very nice. Sprouts have got a nice boil. He's less so. A little glug of wine just because it's Christmas and Andy loves it. Confit leg. Confit leg. There you go. For me as well. A bit of bacon on the top. A bit of breast meat. Two. Three I think will do. Yes. Come out really well. I'm happy with this. Good old fart bonds. That's a meal. More peas. Good for you. There's cranberry sauce on the table. All right let's give this a give this a whirl. Get a bit of this duck. This duck is amazing. It feels really tender. It's confit in its own fat. Oh man. That is good. Perfect. I don't think I'm going to eat those figs and blankets. No. You said yours was like a biscuit. Yeah. It's a shame. I really want it. Yeah a bit too much. Weird isn't it? Just one side was obviously hotter. You never know. You ready? Just one joke. Why does Santa go down the chimney on Christmas Eve? I don't know. Why does Santa go down the Christmas chimney on Christmas Eve? Because it suits him. Oh my god. Why does Santa have three gardens? I don't know. Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can ho ho ho. End of another Christmas. That's what we think of those crackers. Well that Christmas dinner was absolutely fantastic. Came out so well. Everything was really tender except for the pigs and blankets and the stuffing. They were not quite so nice. Completely inedible but everything else was nice. The duck was just superb. You know it's just a bit of a gamble cooking like that because you can't check on it. You know it's sealed. You've just got to have faith in it and just let it be and hope for the best. It came out well didn't it? It did. Very very nice. Really good. I'm going to sign this video off here. We've had a really nice camp. Last night was was great. Just slept really well in my swag. Always do. It's been nice to have a bit of time around the campfire. Enjoy a few beers yesterday and enjoy cooking this feast today which has pretty much taken us all day. We've been setting the tarp up and digging the pit and you know it was a couple of hours to heat the stones up. Three hours cooking and then obviously messing around moving the Land Rover around trying to create a bit of a comfortable place for us to sit and enjoy our feast and enjoy it we did. Yeah really good and some red wine to wash it down with. Absolutely lovely. I love Christmas and yeah I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. Happy Christmas folks and I'll see you soon.