Today, Elsie Magazine has been on on a survival course in woodland near Burton-on-Trent. The rain poured and poured, the waterproof boots proved to be anything but, and anything and everything was on the menu. We ate leaves from a lime tree, flowers from a gorse bush and thistle stems from....a thistle. And when our appetite was sated, we turned our attention to the joyous and exhilerating task of lighting a fire using nothing but bits of wood, a generous amount of elbow grease and the surprising power of friction. Amongst it all, we found a little time out to snap the curious, the knowledgeable and the downright wet... starting with our instructor Dan (a font of potentially life-saving facts about all things woodland);
Followed by Clive - another man whose closeness to nature is unnaturally close...
And then there was John - a man who makes knives and fire for fun and knows a lot about crayfish...
And so to the pupils - starting with Mark - he wears a lot of layers and waters a lot of trees...
And James - he's from Australia you know...
Then there was Verity - a woodland manager in the making...
And finally Rob - he's in publishing and cool hats...
Great Day - we all learned a stack load of stuff and had a huge amount of fun into the bargain...rain? what rain? So, if you fancy getting close to nature check out http://www.survivalschool.co.uk/
