It was early August in the summer sun, we packed a picnic, grabbed a blanket and headed to the woods with a secret up my sleeve.

I was reaching the end of my current read, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and felt a day amongst the trees elevated from the ground in our hammock was the ultimate way to conclude this book. It was a fascinating and eye opening read about trees and there connections with each other and surrounding nature and wildlife. It was quite surreal to be sat hanging from two trees reading about how these very trees communicate between each other to help each other grow, capture more sun light and even help protect each other from insect attacks.

Our hammock is from Grand Trunk, it’s actually a double hammock and it’s the dream. It easily fits two people but with just one you can feel ultimately cocooned. I absolutely love the view from the hammock as your eyes follow the sky bound lines of the trees. We also have Trunk Straps which extends the distance that the hammock can reach between trees and best of all it packs up inside it’s own little pocket and easily slots into my backpack. After finishing my book, enjoying some relaxation and tucking into our forest picnic it was time to reveal my birthday surprise…

August is a busy month for us as the month is bookended by Eloise and Lucy’s birthdays. This birthday surprise was mainly a treat for Lucy however Eloise will have the option to attend and it was still a secret from her. We’d actually celebrated Eloise birthday a few days before we visited the woods so this was the second part of a busy month.

One of mine and Lucy’s big loves in life is cabins and we’ve enjoyed finding and staying in some amazing cabins mainly in England and Wales but with the current pandemic situation this would be a lot harder. August was the launch of the famous ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ so Devon and Cornwall was a popular hotspot. Most places were either booked up or had the price hiked up so I needed to think outside of the box. Well actually, I decided to put wheels on the box so we could find some isolation on the road.

I’d arranged to hire ‘Alfie’ a classic VW Campervan with a stunning 70’s interior. I booked this through Sunset Camper Hire who are based in Bodmin which was perfect as it meant we could do the bulk of the journey in our own car and once in the camper we were already in the heart of Cornwall. We’d only stayed in a campervan once before which we borrowed off one of my good friends and we loved it so Lucy was super excited for this birthday adventure. Our plan was to do a 3 night mini tour of Cornwall visiting both the north and south coast, staying in a different location each night.

The surprise was a huge success both Lucy and Eloise loved it and couldn’t wait to hit the road in our classic campervan. The countdown begins…