A glass of wine sat around the campfire...

[SeaShellsAndTheInlawInvasion]

so I am fed up with the rest of MN (this whole mamazon shite really is the ,last straw), so I am assuming that if any of you are trolling you are showing extraordinary persistence by delving into the thrills of iceytec and are worth chatting to.

So anyway, hi, I am SeaShells, I have 2 dc and have been camping and trapsing through the Great Outdoors all my life. I hang out here as my love of camping is more a love of the countryside and life, and you lot have a similar outlook.

< admires well made fire and tastefully arranged logs with throws>

Ooof my feet, busy day at work mind if I pull up a camping chair and stretch out for a while? Thank you for all the lovely comments about home, it is very beautiful at the beach and surrounding countryside and my village is lovely but walking through town at lunchtime with all the closed down shops you see the other side of it too.

Funtime, yy to the journey being a nightmare from Wrexham, still they get bigger and it gets easier (I really hope this is true, we've got 2,000 miles to cover for our summer hols!)

Reshape, Mwnt is absolutely beautiful isn't it? Worst ever camping experience there though (you can see we travel a long way for our holidays ) it was so windy the tent was leaning right over and I could hear the poles snapping, I thought we were going to take off as it was just me and two extremely lightweight DS's. I'm very excited that you and SeaShells know the area though, we are so away from everywhere it feels a bit forgotten sometimes.

Slubber I LOVE your sandals, don't see anything wrong with them myself and have spent many an hour googling them as I think they come under 'essential holiday camping kit' rather that 'frivolous shoe buying' although even I draw the line at the socks

:o MisSal - very nice!

I'm actually a bit of a wuss when it comes to fire safety so I had planned to use it with battery-powered tea-lights (although I possess both fire blanket and fire extinguisher because of scary Trangia). Am I crap or what?

Thanks all for tent salutations (sounds like a yoga pose)

slubber death socks and sandals...might have to work up to that. But comfort on long walks is essential. I need to know what is technical about your trousers though. The camping sounds grim though, the view must have been truly breathtaking to make up for it.

lovecat tent chandelier sounds terribly swish, as does the 5m bell tent

Oh no no no, that's the responsible thing to do imo. Weirdly (I am very aware of the contradiction wrt stove here) I think I'd have done the same with fairy lights. Means you can enjoy them so much more, no hassle getting it all down to blow out, etc.

:) I'm actually wondering now how I can pack them for Latitude without DH noticing, so I can be all floaty and glam in the bell tent while my sister next door is being dour and practical in her sensible family-sized tunnel tent...:o

Pretend it's a giant bracelet? Men have no idea about fashion.

You could pretend that you made the tealight chandelier while dh was away lovecat or, failing that, had it secretly commissioned to celebrate and, with any luck, he'll feel that he can't criticise because that would be mean and ungrateful .

Hmmm, am tempted to start searching for comfy sandals now ...

Loved the sailcloth windbreak someone linked to. V nice but at£120 perhaps not for the likes of me.

Who has a canvas tent? Is that the thing now, really?

They leak! And are HEAVY. Why, why!

We will have been married 20 years this August, acksherly, Sal... can I tell him 20 years = chandelier wedding??

Sad thing is if it weren't tent-related he would probably believe me....:o

Glitterkitty, canvas bell tents do NOT leak and are v. stable. Plus take about 20 mins to put up single-handed with no swearing nor poking bastard bendy poles through nylon tunnels that are slightly too small for them...

And they look AMAZING.... :o

I kid you not Slubber Aldi were selling gaiters in their weekly specials only a few weeks ago - if I had known you were keen I would have PM'd you!

Incidentally, does anyone else feel that this thread is turning into that quiet little campsite that is perfect and that only you know about, when everyone else is on a Haven holiday with karaoke and a man dressed up in a bear costume, whilst there's a brawl on one side of the bar that everyone is piling into ?

They do look great, thats true. We used to have an orange & blue 70's canvas horror when I was young. Mum & Dad binned it in Switzerland after a particularly dreadful holiday (endless rain & us squabbling).

I still twitch when DS touches the sides of our tent, like it will leak on my head in the night. What was that about- was the tent just a big sheet?!

Notwaving- yup, though I struggle to find that tiny campsite in RL!

Oh God, yes, I remember the shrieks of 'don't touch the canvas!' when we went camping with the guides in the mid-late 70's. Also there was an embargo on stepping on the canvas when the tent was laid out - apparently that would somehow weaken it fatally as well....

And yes, ridge tents were basically big sheets. With an inner sheet beneath them. That leaked.

Love the look of canvas, particularly bell tents and pyramids. When I'm a grown up rather than baby camper I will have a canvas tent.

I'm going to book for a festival for myself and the boy - camping...the first official trip. Eeeek.

Anything I definitely need...don't think I'll need death socks - although it is in a wood so maybe the death socks could be the way forward?

I need something for light 'tis the only thing not truly sorted yet.

Do I not need to worry about the boys touching the sides when it's raining? (Why oh why does that sound vaguely rude to me?) I've some terrible memories of canvas tents up Helvellyn as a teenager.

Lovecat, 20th wedding anniversary is china, so you could pull this one off yet, although on the site I was looking at it also said that 90th wedding anniversay gift was 'Engraved Marble' do you think this is because most likely everyone is dead by then?

at the thought of 'Haven holiday with karaoke and a man dressed up in a bear costume'

20yrs love cat! Wow that's impressive. We had our 5th anniversary this year, but have already "beaten" far to many if our friends-5 weddings we have attended had been separated within 2years. One coupe it was 3 months. And these are people who had been together for years, through uni and first jobs etc ie the difficult bit!!

Loving the quiet campsite vs. Haven holiday analogy....:o

DH is currently away in 5* luxury in Normandy on a jolly at a very important conference being wined & dined tonight and golfing tomorrow (oh, how that dear man suffers!) so it's just DD and me, who has finally gone to sleep. I may pour a glass of wine, open the pringles and catch up on series 1 of Glee (a friend has loaned me the box set).

And is it sad that I said 'ooh, Normandy! Ask your French colleagues if there's any decent campsites, will you?' He just rolled his eyes at me....

Seashells you did a Very Good Thing starting this thread .......

Snurk at using an important work networking opportunity to research campsites.

lost, the sandals really are great. So comfortable with and without socks.

Scary the site wasn't that grim, as least the loo was clean. No seriously the weird, freaky and strange sites make far better memories than the blissful beautiful ones.

Glitter, my canvas tent doesn't leak. You can't lean things up against the sides as they wick but apart from that no ingress. I have taken on the mantle, passed from father to daughter and now shout "DON'T TOUCH THE BLOODY SIDES" at my dc, even though they can without mishap. Only seems right.

Not waving, yy I agree re quiet campsite .
I TOTALLY saw those gaiters but didn't buy them [face palm]

Yes SeaShells, you did.

Right boys in bed, last day in work today for the foreseeable future (sucks to be a public sector cut sometimes, buuut that does mean I am probably off for the full summer holidays so we can camp with gay abandon whenever we like!) (sorry for mentioning public sector, feels like a bit of a swear word on here at the moment). Anyway , and here's to a lovely thread.

Hmm.... china, eh? If it wasn't so obviously a piece of tent-related flummery I could swing that one. If I presented him with tent tut for his anniversary present, then I reckon our 20th may be our last...

5 years seems to be good going these days. The young uns in the office stare at me in horror when I tell them we've nearly done 20... it's unimaginable to them! But we did marry what is relatively early these days - 25 and 26. We've recently been going to a lot of second weddings of our uni friends who married around the same time...

:)

The problem with starting a thread is now all my posts are highlighted, and I feel I must make An Important Comment With Correct Spelling And Grammar in each. I'm afraid I may let you all down as I'm constantly shatter dueto 2 children who don't believe in skip and a dh who works late!

Love cat, you have my sympathies, dh is off to Istanbul for a week on a conference next week, but Christ you should hear the moaning as I'm away one night this week seeing a concert!

to you, lostin, hope your last day was a good one and that you get something else after a lovely summer off (Public Sector not a swear to me, in fact, as I work for one of them evil banks, I feel like I should be going round apologising to everyone....).