Coffees, cigarettes, hats and fluffy coats were the order of the day as we left SE1 for Kings Wood, Kent on a chilly Saturday morning.

The day was the first opportunity for the Rational Rec commissioned artists to get to know each other and discuss each other's practice before the development phase of the commission started in earnest in January 2010.

Making good time on the A2, we were given a toasty welcome by Sandra Drew, Director of Stour Valley Arts, the visual arts commissioning agency based at Kings Wood. Sandra told us about some of the memorable challenges and successes in commissioning work during SVA's history of more than 15 years. The specific locality of SVA's work as sited and responsive to Kings Wood brought up questions for us about the space that the Rational Rec commission will inhabit, both physically and mentally.

Warmed by these thoughts, we went off to search out the works in the 1500 acre wood, which included London Fieldworks' Superkingdom (luxury birdhouses in the style of 3 dictators palaces) and Peter Filingham's The Last Eleven Years (a handrail or ballet barre in the middle of the wood) and stopped off at a sunny spot near Jem Finer's Score for a Hole in the Ground for pasta salad, fish soup and chocolate cookies.

Covering about 4 miles before we returned to the car park, the woods provided some pause for thought, slippery moments and teamwork up the muddy hills and when we couldn't find Gregory Pryor's Miracle of the Legs. Together, we found another way around.