On the joys of living in the woods, tea and the dangers of taking baths outdoors.

Classically-trained violinist Peggy Sue lives in a yurt on private woodland in Somerset. When she’s not chopping firewood or tending her vegetables she plays in a band in Bristol, teaches music and works in a wholefood shop. She’s also quite a good photographer. She talked to me about isolation, the importance of tea and the risks of taking a bath outdoors.

I’ve been living in my Yurt for 6 months now. I chose to live here because rent prices are ridiculous, especially when you spend a lot of time moving around and you’re only in your expensive rented room a couple of nights a week. Also to get away from the mayhem and live somewhere truly calming and relaxing, where you can’t accidentally waste an entire evening on the computer, but spend time doing nice constructive things instead. That said, there has been many an evening when I have wished I could just put the telly on and eat a pizza.

I feel hidden, like I don’t have to do all the grown-up things in life, ‘cos I’m just living in the woods, so they don’t really matter…

It’s quite a young wood, it’s on a hillside, it’s divided into areas of different planting but we’re doing some woodland management to try and plant more native broadleaves. At the moment there’s a lot of ash and maple and some little conifer areas and some beech. We’ve got a little kitchen with a cob stove in it and we’ve got an orchard, we’ve got a vegetable garden, we’ve got a pond, we’ve got a little path that runs all the way around the wood.

It depends if I’m working or not but on an average day I normally wake up and feel quite cold and poke my nose out. My nose is always really cold – it takes me ages to be brave enough to get out of bed.

Then I get out and stomp about outside and go for a wee, light a fire, put the kettle on and find something to eat before I start doing some jobs. Then I either have to get dressed and go to the real world or I stay there.

Jobs incude chopping wood, sweeping – I have to sweep a lot. Take all the rugs out and shake them, hang them out if they’re wet – stops it getting mouldy.

Until recently the yurt was a bit leaky so I had to do a lot of changing around of the stuff that soaks up the puddles. But three weeks ago I put a new tarp over the roof, that’s stopped it leaking for the moment.

I need to chop more wood at the moment actually. Unless I use my cool little camping stove which doesn’t need me to chop wood, it just takes sticks and leaves and pinecones and things.

I tend to use that in the morning, it’s easier than lighting a whole fire and its quick at boiling water.

The yurt nestled in the trees with its new tarp. The wood burning stove and chopped wood. Nettles and wild garlic. Makes delicious soup. Camping stove and morning tea.

At night I try and get everything sorted out before it gets dark but right now it gets dark really early so that’s quite hard. Then I hang out with my dog and listen to the radio. I’ve got lots of lanterns so I can read or play some music and I normally pass out by about eight o’clock.

I usually play guitar but its got a bit shit from being outside, it’s a bit weather-warped. Sometimes I play the violin on my own, sometimes other people come and I play with them. Like a little while ago my friend Nathan came and we had a rehearsal but then it got really really smoky because there was water in the stove pipe and we almost died because there was so much smoke in the yurt. I sometimes play the harp but I don’t have it out there now, the weather isn’t any good for it.

I’ve got a really good bed with two fancy foam mattresses and a duvet and a quilt and four blankets – its really cosy. And a dogwater bottle.

We are building a shower at the moment but I have my bath in a kind of flexible bucket. And that’s nice, its really nice sitting in a hot bath outside but sometimes I worry that someone’s going to wonder in and come up the path and find me sat with my legs in the air and my bum in a bucket.

The hardest thing is the effort of getting a cup of tea in the morning. I think maybe I should move my bed closer to the fire so I could half wake-up and put more wood on the fire in the night, keep it going until the morning because the hardest bit is the morning.

My luxury item is definitely the wind-up radio, for either Radio 4 or Classical music. Or the stove. The stove is the best thing. Its got a little oven in it, it can do pasta bake, baked potatoes – I could make a cake if I wanted to. And solar fairy lights, they’re good.

Living in the woods is good, as long as you don’t live there all the time, otherwise you turn into a crazy woods person. Although I’d say its my home I am back and forth quite a bit just because, things to do.

I think living in the woods is good for me. I think some people maybe – maybe its good for everyone to do it – I think some people are better adapted to not living in the woods, but I like going to bed when the sun goes down.

It’s very calming and I just like being away from everything. I feel hidden, like I don’t have to do all the grown-up things in life, ‘cos I’m just living in the woods, so they don’t really matter… as long as I’ve got Radio 4 , a hot cup of tea and my dog.