Camping

HID decided it would be a great idea to try out our new tent and go camping this weekend, it was supposed to be sunny after all! Well, posting this on a Saturday night, you may be spot on in assuming that if we didn't last the weekend, it hadn't gone well...you'd be right of course.

We decided to camp near to where my parent's have a weekend cabin that we knew they'd be visiting, and had asked them in advance if their grandson could stay the night, in case the tent turned out to be too cold for little ones. I'm glad we had the foresight, as it turned out to be too cold for anyone who didn't waddle and live at the zoo. So HID dropped me off at the cabin (my parents had yet to arrive) to look after my Boy, who would have been very bored with tent-putting-up proceedings,and since my pregnancy health would have meant I was not much help either, we were better off out of the way. While I battled with a small boy and his nap time in a place that was not his usual cot, (it took 4 hours, and he only slept for 30mins), HID battled with a two roomed, family sized tent by himself, in the springtime coastal winds.

HID relayed some of what had happened later that evening. On top of the problems with the wind and an over-large tent that was in reality a four-man job to erect, a clumsily stitched seam ripped in a gust of wind,and left a badly placed hole: we were no longer able to attach the tent to our small VW camper van, the whole point of the operation. After three hours, my parents arrived (my mother thought I was a burglar when I opened her front door!) and my dad rushed off to HID's aid. HID tells me when dad arrived, he spent quarter of an hour surveying the tent and asking if it was "nearly finished", and claiming he had never "done" a tent before. Keyword "done", not the phrase "put up". HID's head was in his hands as he told me this. He looked up and confided that even if he wasn't too much of a help to begin with, it was nice to have the moral support, as he had been forcing himself to stay calm in the face of adversity for the past three hours. At which point my dad fingered the small rip and asked "What's happened here then?", and the rip, under the pressure of his fingers, traveled the length of the seam.

Five hours after he left me, HID returned, white faced, hungry and physically exhausted. We left the Boy, cooked curry outdoors on a gas stove, and sampled a drink at the local, then returned to bed. I had packed us both warm pajamas, but after half an hour in my sleeping bag realising I was never going to warm up, I put on extra socks (that makes 3 pairs), and a tracksuit over my pjs, hoodie with the hood UP. But my sleeping bag was bought from pound stretcher a few years before, it was not made of very stern stuff. We tossed and turned, grateful we hadn't put our baby through this. By 5am, impressed with the actual amount of sleep I'd managed to get, but resigned to the fact that I would not get any more, we abandoned ship, and woke the campsite with our VW's rumbles, heading off to park in a beauty spot overlooking the beach (close to where HID proposed) to eat our cereal in the dawn light.

We packed up the tent, collected Boy and left not long after. I know it was an utter failure as a trip, and the damaged tent will be returned, but those lovely moments alone with my husband, glimpsing Scottish hills over the sea through the angry clouds....well, it's not something we do often, and I enjoyed myself.

Grown.

Update: Next door are having a massively loud party for Mrs Next Door's birthday, so it doesn't look like I'll be sleeping tonight much either. Although, I quite enjoyed their firework display, especially impressed at their skills in not setting the new fence alight in such a small garden!

Update II: The party went on until 2.30am, with the music taste getting steadily worse through the night as it sank in hardcore dance (which seems a lot louder than Indie when you're eavesdropping while getting in the washing at 6pm). They even set off fireworks at 10pm, (which I enjoyed) midnight, (which woke me up) and 1.45am. Am I getting old, (Mr & Mrs Next Door are actually the same age as us, they just don't have kids) or is that slightly beyond the realms of what is acceptable? It wasn't New Year's or Bonfire Night after all. I went to bed with ear plugs in, and my Boy woke about four times, most unusual. The next day, just deserts were served when Boy and I were playing in the garden, and I heard Mrs Next Door being spectacularly sick into her shrubbery......