We've been cooped up too long. It's time to get out of here (the office, the city, the general indoors) and out there (the outdoors).

Thankfully, summer's almost here. And with it, the sunburnt, salty, sand-in-your-undies awesomeness of summer camping. But after the long, wet winter we've had, you'd be forgiven for forgetting what exactly you need to pack.

Cooking with cast iron: how to light a campfire

Fire. There's something about it that hooks into us as humans, deep down in our DNA. It's probably the fact that we instinctively and subconsciously associate it with warmth and food and connection.

But these days, plenty of us are pretty disconnected from basic fire as a way of cooking food. What with the ease of modern stoves and barbeques and even camping kit, it's not surprising. Making a fire and cooking over it is, well, mostly seen as too hard.

If you inherited a box of stuff from your grandma, you'd be forgiven for leaving it unopened and dropping it straight down to the nearest sallies. We don't need more junk. There's enough of it in our lives as it is.

But what if it wasn't all junk. What if, in that box amongst the mouldy newspaper clippings and musty tea cosies, was something practical and useful, perhaps even priceless and meaningful?

Like an old Swanndri, still as snug and hardy as ever, with every thread a story to tell of those who had worn it and adventures it had been on. Shake off the dust, pick off the lint and step into the shoes of your forbears.