A thread of mutual support and moaning and possibly giving of virtual mugs of tea and bacon butties for those who have had to come home early.

[Slubberdegullion]

Well the camp site we stayed at certainly made their money's worth out of us. We had to book and pay for 4 nights, and we only managed 1.

Vomit (dd1) in/on sleeping bags, rugs, towels, pj's, my little pony magazine , hair, my hair, lovely shiny new thermarests .

damn damn

and I left a load of freezer blocks in the campsite freezer.

On the upside, DH and I now know we can strike camp in 30mins.

On the downside, instead of being sat outside my tent with tea, looking at the derbyshire dales, I now have a roofbox full of unmentionable stuff to wash today.

[MrsWeasley]

Oh so sorry but on the plus side your next camping trip can only be better

[Quadrophenia]

sorry to hear that, it happened to us once (the vomit thing) when we decided we would all squeeze into the cmapervan together, we all got covered, fortunately we weren't far from home.Enjoy the rest of your weekedn at home there are loads more weekend s to come and they'll probably be more sunny!!

[Slubberdegullion]

Indeed. I think we are working up to a night at a time. Last trip, last year, only lasted until 3am on the first night before camping was aborted. Cause: dd1 vomiting again (I am seeing a pattern emerging here).

[Quadrophenia]

ahh poor dd bet she is fed up, how was your new tent?

[Slubberdegullion]

dd1 fine now (suprise suprise) she is mostly concerned about the demise of the pony magazine.

The tent was FAB. Got quite a lot of compliments. Really warm and cosy and quiet (could hear next door's tent flapping about but our was silent) . Wish I was still in it....

[Quadrophenia]

you probably would be in it aswell and not going anywhere, its chucking it down here. Glad you were pleased with it though, at least you know its sturdy for the future, I hate the intial testing out, is it going to leak trip. I spend my whole time checking for things that may be wrong

[Slubberdegullion]

The weather up here is still OK, although I suspect that later today the rain would have set in. The silver lining [glass half full] is that at least we wont be packing up a wet tent.

[Quadrophenia]

and you still camped for one night more than me this weekend

[Slubberdegullion]

lol, yes I am up on the envious & completely thwarted campers

[ChippyMinton]

ooh, you are slubbers again lol
Poor DD1, is she allergic to canvas do you think?
We are on an Enid Blyton oddessey this weekend, yesterday was beautiful and we made the DC walk miles - it's good to know they can do it. Rain today though - am pondering windswept crazy golf as an option

[ChippyMinton]

PS we are not camping obviously, we are house-sitting.

[Milliways]

We came home yesterday evening - took the opportunity to pack up whilst dry. Luckily, our fab farmer only ever charges us for how many nights you stay (pay a £10 deposit and pay on leaving). There were 50 of us so she lost out a bit (as did last year) but we WILL be back as camp fires in beautiful countryside are so worth it!

We had a fab time. Advanced party arrived Friday morning and put up all the tents. We had camp fires, BBQ, marshmallows and glow sticks until VERY late. Another party in next field made too much noise but the farmer sorted them out the next morning. Saturday we went for a great walk and caught the sun!! Cooked curry for tea, very windy but no rain and went to bed dry.

Rain started, was very heavy and some cheaper tents failed. We gad bacon biutties huddled in larger tents and gazebos and all went swimming to a leisure centre. Came back, had lunch (stopped raining) and decided to pack up. Looking at it now we are so grateful we did!

Here's to the next time.

[Slubberdegullion]

Chippy - yes back in usual form now , I do have my worries about dd1. That is now 3 times in total that we have been camping with the DC, and 3 times that she has been sick.

I've bought all the kit now, if she is going to throw up every time we go, I'll just have to sew a chunder bucket to her sleeping bag.

House sitting sounds like fun.

Milliways, that sounds like fun (camping in a big group). We got really burnt (at Chatsworth) on saturday too.
Your campsite owners sound lovely, unlike ours, grumpy buggers in the extreme. We will not be going back there again in a hurry.

[tiredemma]

Im starting to get very disillusioned with camping- every trip that we have had has had the most horrendous weather.

We went away on friday and returned yesterday as planned, but the weather really spoilt it.

I want to sit outside the tent supping on wine, watching the kids play. Not sit in a sleeping bag all day inside a tent in gales.

[Slubberdegullion]

emma yes the syphillitic bastard british weather has a lot to answer for.

This thread on ukcs is full of tales of woe and trashed tents. It's a bit off putting to say the least.

This is why DH has forbidden any long camping trips for us. It's w/e's only atm (or so he says).

I did a lot of my wine supping on friday night with lengthy free entertainment of watching family arrive and then argue with great ferocity as someone had not followed Peachy's golden rule of packing....Tent Goes In Last.

[tiredemma]

On sunday night/monday morn I lay awake listening to the wind howl around my head I heard a woman scream, followed immediatly by a male voice shouting- lots of clattering etc- poor couples tent had actually blown away as they were sleeping in it.

Never before have I been so appreciative of sewn in ground sheets.

[Slubberdegullion]

bloody hell. That would seriously spoil your holiday. One woman (on that ukcs thread) was dragged along the ground holding onto her escaping tent.

Who would have thought camping contained such a strong element of peril

[Ripeberry]

We got back last night from a Transport rally being held at Tywyn just north of Aberystwyth and when we arrived in our restored coach it was lovely weather and we even had a BBQ.
That night was a bit breezy and we were nice and cozy in our bell tent from Soulpads.
Our neighbours wanted to have a peek in as they kept calling it a teepee, but no its a bell tent.
Anyway, Sunday morning was cloudy and little bit breezier and we had breakfast and had a look around the festival site.
Then the day went downhill quick.
It started to tip down for about half and hour and everyone had to shelter in the main arena tent and then we decided to take a free bus up to the local restored railway, where we stayed most of the day, having walks as the weather had brightened up and we were in a deep valley out of the wind.
On the way back to the site, we noticed how windy it was and lots of other campsites were a hive of activity and lots of tents blowing away!
Got to our tent to find that most of the pegs had been pulled out, but to its credit the pole was still standing tall and thankgoodness for the strong heavy canvas it had not ripped.
Our neighbours were not so fortunate and they had to bin their tents.
That night the wind got much worse, so we decamped and slept in our coach overnight but had to park behind another coach to get some shelter.
We were rocked to sleep all night.
Just thankfull our tent did not get damaged and that we were all OK.

[Ripeberry]

Forgot to say also, that the main arena tent got blown down in the afternoon and they had to get the fire brigade out to make it safe and also most of the portaloos were flat on the floor, until some bright spark though of wedging them together against a fence using a trailer.
At least you could go to the loo and not have the nightmare of getting trapped in it if it fell down!...yuck!
The wind was amazing, the kids thought it was great as they took one step forward and were blown 5 steps back.
Really hard work to get around.

[PeachyWontLieToYou]

Blimey!

We got off lightly-ish- the nights were very windy but after last year we know the tent can withstand that as it did without abhitch; rain torrential Sunday am, and striking camp yesterday was grim, but Saturday we ahd to go buy extra sunscreen!

We could have gone home Sunday, but glad we didnt- the party on that night in the club more than amde up for striking in such conditions.

[PeachyWontLieToYou]

Dh has just pointed out however that as the entire site had lost electricity it may just be we're stubborn LOL- and both the groups accompanying us made excuses on Sunday (and mnissed the party...)

[Slubberdegullion]

Peachy you are just awesome. I don't know how you do it, you are just The golden camper. 4 dss (one a baby), wind and rain AND YET YOU STILL MANAGE TO GO TO A CAMPSITE PARTY.

I am so impressed.

I am also full of at Ripeberry's restored coach.

[PeachyWontLieToYou]

yreah but party was warm, and dry LOL

And i'm more brubby than golden, esp. after the mud yesterday