Quicky in the garden

It had been a difficult month. I had had a lot of chances of to get out but due to one thing or another those chances kept passing me by. I couldn’t even do a local one as something was up with my knee again and wanted a few days off the bike to make sure that I was going to be fit for the BearBones winter bivi. Eventually I got to the point where I realised I wasn’t going to get my November bivi in so this brought me to my last option of a bivi in the garden… so that’s what I did.

I thought I might as well have some practice putting up the tarp so I tried out a few different ways of pitching with cold hands, in the wind and the dark with no torch. I thought I could additionally justify it as testing out my insulated mat for the winter as I had only ever used it once before. This is what I told everyone anyway… the reality is I just wanted to give sleeping in the garden a go.

It was chilly but I was comfortable enough although I forgot to take my ear plugs with me. The funny for me is that we have always said that where we live is surprisingly quiet (considering it’s a suburb of Birmingham) when you are in the garden, however at night when you are trying to sleep all of sudden you hear so much more than normal. It really wasn’t that bad though and on the whole I actually got a really good nights sleep. In fact it was my girl friend that woke me up in the morning because she was off to work. Good job really as I had my own work to go to.

I have now come to the conclusion that you aren’t a real bivi nerd if you haven’t bivied in your own garden.