I survived! Will I do it again?

From my blog last week, you all know that I embarked on the whole camping trip with more than a little trepidation but was determined to make it a special time for my kids.  So here it is; the true, the whole true and nothing but the truth so help me God.  

We arrived on site in the beautiful Pembrokeshire countryside and got our tent set up in record time.  Ha, ha!  After three hours, much frustration, discreet and then not quite so discreet inspections of other campers’ canvases, guide ropes and fastenings, snorts of laughter from my sister and I and then finally one phone call to a family member (Who  insisted that it was easy to assemble but seeing as he is half Scandinavian, I was still somewhat dubious as we all know ‘how easy’ IKEA furniture is to put together.) we were fully set up!  Our neighbour on noticing our incompetence remarked that at least we had the right camping spirit.  Maybe she didn’t realise that our laughter was more from hysteria than joy because we had visions of ourselves sleeping in the car for the night! 

Much as labour pains during childbirth are forgotten once the newborn arrives, so our toils were forgotten once we were sat around in our deck chairs, wine glasses in hand; admiring our handiwork and enjoying the smell of our dinner grilling and the sound of the kids playing with other children.  The joy on their faces when they crawled into their sleeping bags that first night was priceless.  The smiles slipped slightly when we heard the pitter patter of raindrops at 6am but we remained dry so weren’t too disheartened.  We did forgo the home cooked bacon and egg fry up, which according to some is apparently one of the best aspects of the whole camping experience, and opted to head to a nearby restaurant for a hearty breakfast and good coffee.  Was that cheating? If so, I don’t care!

Now I have already mentioned our camping neighbours but what I failed to realise prior to our trip was the close proximity with which one finds oneself with other campers.  As luck would have it, our nearest neighbours were uber campers; most certainly qualified to wear North Face branded clothing and as well equipped as an outdoor adventure superstore.  They had three impeccably behaved boys to boot and ran a very tight outfit.  By complete contrast, our alternate neighbours were akin to a Traveller family who I’m sure I’d seen featured on Channel  4’s, Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.  Now I like Abba music as much as anyone else who grew up in the 70s and 80s but not at maximum volume on a campsite in the middle of the countryside, late at night when I am trying to get my little one off to sleep.  I will confess now that I came over all ‘officious’, put my game face on and went round and asked them to turn it down.  Clearly not relishing their chances with a hysterical, novice camper, they acquiesced.  You may think me an over reactor but on the previous night they had blasted their Ipad at maximum volume in order to catch up on the soaps they had missed!  Where was their ‘becoming one with nature’ attitude that I thought camping was all about?  Okay, I admit it; my ‘becoming completely at one with nature’ spirit wasn’t completely flawless and some of my friends have berated me mercilessly for my mobile phone usage during my supposed 'roughing it' week! 

On our final night at camp, we were disturbed once again by our noisy neighbours.  At around 3am, I heard shouting which turned out to be the boy next to us, talking in his sleep.  Initially unbeknown to us,  his nocturnal mumblings were a code to his parents that they needed to wake him up and send him to relieve himself or else there would soon be a puddle in their tent.  So there then followed a good five minutes of the boy's parents shouting at him to get up and go to the toilet. Up until this point in the week, I had congratulated myself on not having to get up during the night but following the disturbance of the family next door and the broadcast of their son's bladder weakness issues; I knew that there would be no more sleep for me unless I made my way over to the bathrooms.  Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a zip, (Aren’t tent zips incredibly loud in the quiet of the night time?!)  The noise from next door had also woken my brother in law, so together we sauntered nonchalantly across the field as you do at three in the morning.  Clearly several others had been disturbed by noise from the ‘Tent Loud’ and so we weren’t the only ones up.  One particular fellow camper had not grasped the unwritten rule of all campgrounds; there is no need for greetings of any sort to or from the ablution block at that hour of the morning!  Thirty seconds after he mumbled, “Good morning or Good pee,” we weren’t sure which; we burst into muffled snorts of laughter. 

To sum up the whole camping experience, I suppose it would be fair to say that the things that I had dreaded weren’t so bad; the bathrooms were very clean and I did sleep surprisingly well on the air bed.  It was an almost pleasurable few days thanks largely to my sister and her husband who played the roles of Mamma and Pappa Bear to perfection.  The children had a whale of a time and for the most part the weather was good.  We spent most of the time during the day at the beach and enjoyed the best fish and chip supper that I’ve had in ages; gazing out over the sea. 

We found that packing the tent away was a darn sight easier and quicker than putting it up; especially as we were doing it in glorious sunshine.    As we pulled out of the campsite to head home, my eight year old chirped up, “Mum, can we go camping again sometime?” I took a deep breath and answered, “Sweetie, I promised that I would take you camping and I have.  It will now be ticked off my list.  How about we give Cub Scouts a call and you join and go camping with them?”