This last month I've been focussing on putting together my wild camping kitlist. Whether I'll get much done over the summer I don't know yet, but my main aim is to be sorted for some proper expeditions in early Autumn once the nights are a bit darker and the midgies have receded again.

Last month I took delivery of a Terra Nova Laser Competition 2009 model from Springfield Camping. After reading many, many Akto vs Lasercomp debates on the internet I went for the Lasercomp as I feel it more than meets my needs. My only slight concern is the length of the tent which is just about adequate. I do appreciate having the extra headroom though.

I've been looking at the various modifications people have made to their tents but have decided to hold off doing anything major until I've had it out in the wild.

I've pitched the tent a couple of times outside and it seems nice and straightforward. It also folds well into the stuffsack and in red, looks pretty mean!

Along with the tent came a Thermarest ProLite 4 self-inflating mat. Although the Neoair seems to be the way to go these days I've never, ever enjoyed that feeling of being on a lilo and so decided to take the extra volume of the Prolite for a better night's sleep. It seems to pack down pretty compactly as it is.

My third important piece of kit arrived in the middle of a last week - a PHD Minim 400 down sleeping bag. This seems an amazing bit of kit, light and very packable whilst having a good temperature rating. I sleep just on the warm side so my thinking is that this will see me through a decent amount of the year and with a liner can be extended on a particularly cold spring/autumn night.

The fourth item was a camping stove. My aim is to only really use it for cups of tea and heating water for rehydrated meals so I went for something small and light - an Optimus Crux. This is an amazingly small bit of kit but seems to do the job very well. The real test will be cooking outdoors on a sloping pitch with the wind howling all around. Luckily the Comp has a decent porch! To go with the Crux I also got a solo titanium pot - the gas canister, stove and spork all fit inside of this!

I'm really looking forward to getting out and testing all this stuff for real and have a fair few plans up my sleeve for the next decent weather window.