I wasn’t going to buy this book. I saw it in Waterstones, picked it up, made a note and then put it down again, intending to buy it when (and if) it came out in paperback. Well, best laid plans and all that… the next day I went back and bought it, and I’ve spent the last couple of weeks indulging fantasies of countryside escapes.
The credit crunch put a stop to Nick Weston’s career in catering and set building, so he took the opportunity to get out of London and build himself a home in the country. As the title suggests it was pretty unconventional.
He spent the last of his savings on the wood for his floorboards, scavenged his remaining building supplies and built a treehouse in a Sussex wood. It all sounds pretty idyllic, and at times it clearly was, but the diaries also detail weeks of mosquito infestation, the most basic of sanitary facilities (a bucket in a tree for a shower; a pit for a loo) and an admirable (although not entirely enviable) commitment to eating off the land – and only off the land.
Weston’s larder was the woods and river close to his treehouse. He shot pheasant, rabbit and squirrels, filleted a dead badger knocked down on the road and set night lines to catch eels for smoking or cooking. He built his own clay oven, baked bread, and picked the hops and nettles from the local hedgerows to provide his veg.
The daily entries are peppered with useful boxes on identifying mushrooms, paring rabbits, making nettle wine and so on, which break up the flow of the story and make for a more engaging read. Unfortunately, though, they’re also the part that just slightly lets it down. Very few of the pictures are in colour, and are instead rendered in a sepia brown. That’s fine when it’s just pictures of the treehouse, but when the photo is supposed to help you identify some edible goodie from the hedgerow it’s a bit of a let down.
That was clearly a publishing decision, though, and has no impact on the quality or value of the content itself. The Treehouse Diaries
Rating: 
ISBN: 1843405644
Price: £16.99 (£9.72 from Amazon
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Sounds like a great read! Might have to get myself down to the bookshop shortly and search it out…
I too picked this book up on a whim as I was waiting for the ludicrous British Sunday trading hours to tick by. I have long entertained thoughts of getting away from the rat race and this book provides an awful lot of good advice and inspiration. I read it cover to cover in two evenings – I’d recommend it to everyone who endures mundane work or commuting nightmares