Your very own woods

Your very own woods (Marcus Farley)

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In those moments when life sucks, I get out of it by daydreaming about winning the lottery and how I’d spend the money.  Sorry, correction, half the money.  The missus would need her 50% share to build a living handbag and shoe museum (our new house!).  Me, what would I spend it on?

Many thoughts have crossed my mind over the years from endless partying and holidaying, to Ferraris and powerboats, to a penthouse in New York and a beach house in the South of France.  But, call me mad (steady now!), I know I’d get bored by all this fairly quickly.  I wouldn’t want to work per se, but I’d need something to keep me going…for you see, if I didn’t work, it would start innocently with lunch out with a glass of wine and evening out with another…soon this would steadily descend into a couple of bottles of wine a day and the whole cake trolley!  Then an early grave…

A project is what I would need.  A project that taxes my mind but is also physical to keep me fit.  A project that is centred around my favourite hobby, perhaps?  Well, that could equal designing my own bicycle brand? Farley mountain bikes anyone? Way too megalomniac for me to be honest, as i'm not skillful enough to pull it off, even with employed help

Being a country boy, how about combining my love for mountain biking with my passion for the British countryside?  A place to call my own, a place to toil the land, to sculpt the perfect singletrack.   Now we’re talking.  So, what exemplifies this for me? What is my favourite countryside?

That’s easy, I have a more than partial fondness for Woods.  I’m happy as Larry (an aside, but why was Larry so happy by the way? I’ve always wondered that…) messing about in local woods.  They’re bloomin’ marvelous, and exemplify what it means to me to hail from this sceptred isle, it’s something deeply ingrained in our national consciousness I guess.          

So, I started looking on t’internet for ‘woods for sale.’ To my great surprise, there are loads for sale.  Some even come with a country pile (for me and the missus’ shoe/handbag museum) and cottages for my bike riding mates (of course). 

However, interestingly, some are also quite affordable.  If a few, or few thousand, of us got together we could even buy some woods without even having to buy a lottery ticket.

20K gets you a small wood.  Yep, cheaper than that extension you’re contemplating.  Just imagine the advantages, it’s a no brainer really:- conservatory overlooking the neighbours and their ‘water feature’ or your own mini eco system where you can sculpt your own private singletrack?

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/

http://www.smallwoods.org.uk/189_Links.asp

But, guess what? you don’t even have to buy some woods to enjoy the satisfaction of sculpting a trail.  Get involved with your local trail building club or seek advice from people like Singletraction in Yorkshire to help maintain your local trails.  It’s more satisfying than daydreaming.  .   

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