Why I love camping

I adore camping.I love tents. I'm fairly sure that many of the reasons that I love camping will be the reasons you hate it.

I'll start at the beginning, I love the smell of a canvas tent, I like the anticipation of packing for a camping trip. The look at the list,checking the food and the booze. Packing the car,(I have a Fiat Panda so it's car Tetris every time)

And then the drive, either to a site I know and love or to a new exciting site where who knows what I will discover.

Arriving, unpacking, laying out the tent, pitching, happy in the knowledge I can do it all by myself! Sending DD to fetch water, and other small chores. The sun (or rain) and the knowledge that as soon as we are finished I can cool off with a beer or warm up with a tea.

Sitting in the fresh air,watching the other campers, listening to the sounds of nature, the wind in the trees, bird song, bees. Walking around the area seeing what is going on. Snoozing on a rug, reading  a book, sipping a Pims. Playing Frisbee with DD...

And later cooking outside on a BBQ or my camp stove, eating sausages or stew, more booze, more tea, hot chocolate and then bed...

Snuggled warm (with many layers plus hat) in my mummy style sleeping bag, on the mattress next to DD. Listening to the animals outside, the tent flapping, rain on the canvas, the smell of the tent.So peaceful, sleeping from dark until dawn. Waking to birdsong and the thought of a fully cooked breakfast, with local produce if I'm lucky...

And sometimes all of that is combined with the added fun of a festival. Sitting here now I'm making myself yearn for my tent...

Camping, total relaxation, and always plenty for kids to do, from exploring to chores....what's not to like?

Camping in the Spring or Summer

We had a chat on twitter (which rapidly got out of control as these things do!) about a few of us getting together for a camping trip. Maybe in the spring or the summer holidays for a weekend or even longer. As my daughter is at school it needs to be holiday time. I suggested The Camping and Caravanning Club site at Norman's Bay, Pevensey and this idea met with approval from the people I hoped it would. While the idea of a 'twentup' took off across twitter I held firm to my ideals of a few of us having a wee get together with kids, beer and wine, and maybe a sausage or two.

If you need more info contact me via my contact page. (Contactify Link here)  Would be nice to actually make this happen.

And if you can't come to this event but see folk near you on the '#twentup' tag - let them know you are keen and organise more camping trips, you can't have too many tenting trips!

 

National Camping & Caravanning Week (#NCCW)

May 30 to June 5 this year The Big Pitch!!

Meet up at Norman's Bay - anytime during this Big Pitch Week!!

Frozen Friday

As you will know (if you live in the UK) it has snowed a bit lately. Yesterday i couldn't get in to work. Today I'm braving the snowy wastes in my Ford Ka to have a go at the 20 mile journey. Yesterday I stayed in, and took a few photos. Here are some of them.

Is it wrong I almost wish I was camping in it?

Animals, friend or foe

I have read some strange stories in the news lately, and maybe it’s just a coincidence that so many wild animals seem to be killing people lately, or maybe (worse) wild animals kill people all the time but we only hear about them some of the time! But whatever there have been some strange tales in the news lately, so for anyone that missed them I’m sharing them here.

First I spotted the headline ‘Crocodile on Plane kills 19’ and I refused to read the story because I felt that the story would only disappoint after such an amazing headline but how wrong I was, for it transpired that a crocodile had been smuggled onto a plane – forgive me while I imagine ways you can smuggle a crocodile, in your luggage? Disguised AS luggage? Down a leg of your trousers? (risky but can be done with ferrets so who knows) Under a jumper “my oh my that guy is fat and has scaly belly skin’? the mind boggles – but however it happened it appears that the poor crocodile was not securely smuggled (always secure your smuggled crocodiles folks!) and it escaped on the plane, running about and generally terrifying the passengers who dashed away from the ravening beast, unbalancing the plane and causing it to crash! And the worst bit was that the poor crocodile was one of only 2 survivors of the crash! but was killed by rescuers at the scene! Now THAT is a news story.

(as an aside – maybe he smuggled the croc into the plane in a bag of toy crocodiles in much the same way this lady smuggled a tiger cub……)

But jeepers creepers if it doesn’t get worse!

Imagine, you go on a safari holiday, you watch animals during the day and camp in cabins at night, eating round the fire, enjoying the sounds of the wild. Protected in your compound you pop out (with your wife) for a late night outdoor shower under the stars, does life get better? Well it can certainly get worse! Just when you thought soap in your eyes was the worst that could happen, 5 lions attack you! Yes not 1, not 2 not even 3 but 5 lions attack you IN THE SHOWER! This is the stuff of nightmares, and in the case of Pete Evershed  the cause of death too.

And of course last week a young boogie boarder was killed by a shark in the waters off of California, a young man that had joked about 'what if we get attacked by a shark'.

 Nature is fighting back people! By careful out there!

(How morbid would you need to be to keep a Top 10 animal attacks list  though, yeah I'm looking you Time Magazine)

Gobsmacked

Where to begin,

a while ago I read on the BBC (my favourite news site - I told you I was middle class) that a man was arrested and found guilty of buying decommissioned guns and converting them back to real firearms and selling them on as murder kits at £2000 a piece (This is not an advert! don't all rush to get one!) In the UK this is illegal. It is illegal to own a gun without a licence and some kinds of guns......well you just can't get a licence so you can't own one, gun such as high velocity repeating rifles, stuff like the AK-47 which brings me neatly to today's story

In Northern Ireland (home of the Troubles lest you forgot) there is an auction starting today and oddly it has guns in it - including an AK-47 - but they are all decommissioned......so that's OK then. Also the auctioneer states that "Obviously you are not going to sell them to some kids in the street." Again, that's OK then. In fact they are really taking safety seriously and making sure you have a driving licence before you can buy one! Hooray - I was terrible at the emergency stop, but I recall I was excellent at stripping down an AK-47 - what that wasn't on your driving test? just me then!