A Tale of Two Tents...

Ok, so I went camping again. I must be some sort of masochist. I really don’t know what has got into me lately. I have started eating salads, exercising, living healthily, and now I enjoy camping. Will somebody please shoot me now! Before long I may turn all new age, and start getting in touch with my feminine side!

So, we loaded the entire contents of our house (and the neighbour’s house, I think) into the car and drove off down the road with a shower of sparks coming from the exhaust as it dragged along the ground. This time we were off to pastures new. Dorset, and Corfe Castle to be precise. We had plans for riding the steam train into Swanage on Saturday, barbeque in the evening, plenty of booze, bit of music and a good laugh.

It didn’t start well, with only four of us showing up out of the many that were invited, but that was their loss. The four of us decided that we could survive without the miserable buggers. Set the tents up and unpack the cars. Then off to find a chippy. Sated with a good portion of cod and chips, we set about demolishing a pile of bottled alcohol while we watched the sunset over the sheep and cows in the next field. Mooing and baaing was going to be least of our problems overnight as a group of Duke of Edinburgh students moved in at 10:30pm and made enough noise to wake the dead all night. And, yes, I do mean all night. In the end they were thrown off the site. But, by God, were we tired!

Never mind. We still managed the steam train into Swanage. Our daughter and granddaughter turned up for the train ride as well. Now the newest member of the Giant68 family is still not a year old so this was a big adventure for her, and she loved it. As she has me wrapped around her little finger I spent a fortune on her, but that’s what a granddad is for.

Barbeque was lit, as was the camping stove and we all set about demolishing a pile of food and the obligatory lake full of alcohol. Fuelled by the aforementioned alcohol we decided it would be a brilliant idea to climb the hill behind the camp and watch the sunset. We lost our team of Sherpa’s along the way and as we climbed through the cloud layer we could see the curvature of the Earth! It certainly felt like it! We all slept like the dead that night!

The sun came up and illuminated the interior of my tent. Why, in God’s name, do tent manufacturers not make the tent out of something that block the light from the Earths star? So I was awake pretty early, as always. One day I will get a lay in, that’s the problem with being a shift worker for the last 25 years, no lay ins.

Good job that I was awake, really, as we had to pack up reasonably early so that we could rush back home for the granddaughters christening. So with the help of a large shoehorn it was all squeezed back into the car and off we went.

Another camping trip over. I am becoming a veteran camper. Should I be proud of this, or should I be hanging my head in shame. When people ask how I spent my weekend should I say “Oh, I went camping” or should I just tell people that spent the entire weekend downloading gay porn?