Ray Mears Eat Your Heart Out

This weekend I went on a 1 day bushcraft course with Wild Spirit Bushcraft near Bridgend in Wales.  My brother and I both had an activity voucher as a present one Christmas and finally got around to using them.  For one reason or another we couldn't really fit in a longer course (they also do 2, 3 and 4 day course) so had to be satisfied with just an introduction.  But it was surprisingly good and gave me a real incentive to do more.  I imagine its very satisfying to feel more self sufficient, more capable in different situations and just fun to be able to do some things a little bit wilder!We learnt how to make fire.  This is much easier using flints for a spark than friction from rubbing wood on wood - more practise required on that one!We had an introduction to foraging for food.  I discovered wild garlic - beautifully tasty, doesn't make your breath smell and you can eat the WHOLE plant - how efficient is that? I think some may be going in my garden, when I eventually get one.And we had some practice at building a basic shelter. This is unfinished, but not a bad job really.  It needs some smaller branches woven into the larger one, and then apparently a layer of leaf mulch that needs to be about 1 foot thick in order to shed rain properly. A bit more work then!