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>

Settle down and make yourself at home Mary!

My children won't sleep. Anyone got any idea why ds1 is coughing for an hour straight in the middle if the night? Waking he baby as e does it...

We love, we love, jolly jolly camping,
In the God damned bastard rain.
Down it falls, from syphillitic grey clouds;
What an awful crying shame.

Jolly camping, jolly camping,
In the God damned bastard rain.
[bastard rain]
In the God damned bastard rain.

Sung to Cym Rhonnda

(Camping traditional. Lyrics courtesy of my father)

Hello Mary

SeaShells, has it gone on for long? (the coughing). Such things try parental sympathy when occurring in the night and waking others don't they.

LOL at Cwm Rhondda song

There's no way you'd get me camping in this weather. It's blardy miserable out there.

Thanks for t he much needed tea!
the coughing has been a week this time-fine during the day (except the first day) then a night time coughing fit for 1-2hrs. He has enormous tonsils the whole time and constantly gets coughs a colds in the winter. He had bronchiolitis when he was one and has never been particularly well, despite being bf for 12mths, ho hum!!

I like the sound of your dad slubber !

Oh boy, the eve of our awfully big adventure and the two older boys have started to be sick. Bugger. There's a nasty bug going around and we seem to have it. Still look on the bright side, better today than tomorrow. Gah.

Love the Cwm Rhondda song! Are you Welsh slubber, I missed that important point.

Losty is it tomorrow ? You've been awfully restrained - tell us all about it to take your mind off the excessive bodily excretions

Oh hell I hope they get better soon! Just watching the highlights, they are such hard men.

Much sympathy and get-well-vibes to lost and seashells dc .

I've not been reading carefully enough, sorry . What's the adventure lost?

Got my tent up in the garden!! It took all of about 10 mins. It certainly won't last us for ever but for £30 it gives us a good chance to try it out. Am really chuffed.

Our garden is massively stony though, had huge problems getting the pegs in.

Off to my friends to pilfer any other camping stuff I may need. Tremendous.

Hope all of you out there camping are having fun. And that the coughs and sick get better.

Well if you don't mind indulging me...

Tomorrow we leave for Folkestone which is actually the longest drive of the trip, so we are all ready for the channel tunnel first thing on Monday, then we are driving down to the alpes via municipal campsites until we get to the tour de France in the Alps. Bit of Galibier action on Thursday then up to the Alpe d'Huez for Friday's stage (cheating with a hotel here but there will be approx 1 million people on the mountain and I have three children!) Next stop over the Alps and down into Italy where we are being spoiled with a villa overlooking the med (and next to a motorway but I'm partially deaf and it means we can afford it!). The real adventure starts after that as we have no plans AT ALL, just a car full of camping equipment and some money saved up. Hard to believe but normally I am obsessed with knowing where I'll be but I got a real craving for an adventure just this once! I AM SO EXCITED!

It sounds fabulous lost. I really can't wait to hear all about it when you get back.

Happy adventures.

Well, we damn well sat in my tent and had birthday lunch today! To be fair, the bloody bastard rain (thanks Slubber) had stopped bastarding raining by then, and the tent dried out amazingly fast. No leaks! Tent now well and truly christened - has had rain and birdshit on the outside, cava spilt inside (oops) and baby self-feeding from highchair (luckily he's not a food chucker).

My lovely brother got me a Camping Gaz Bivouac for my birthday and it was only the pissing rain that stopped me dashing across town for a gas cylinder for it! (not on my own account, but had baby strapped to me, lentil-weaver stylee) Ooh, it is very shiny and lovely and the way the base of the pan just sits nicely on the gas trivet is very pleasing. Am also liking the clickclickclickclick.

Said brother also got me a Shewee 'as a joke'. Am keeping it in glove compartment in the car.

Have a fantastic time!!! I'll keep an eye out for you in the footage have a grope of Thor for me as he goes by on alpe d huez!

Lost, that sounds absolutely wonderful! Maybe one day we'll do something like that (perhaps when DS2 has overcome his car phobia ). Have fun and come back safely!

reshape, sounds like a thoroughly lovely birthday. Happy birthday

Am very jealous of your shiny clicky bivouac kit. I keep staring at those and trangias on the internet thinking they'd be so good at a festival!

I'm so excited and scared at the same time

Reshape, I'm so excited about your new tent too, I bet it looks fab in your garden.

I will be trying to get some MN related something on the tour, look out for a pombear painted on the road or one suggestion was 'nice hams'. Possibly a huge AIBU in the middle of the road.

First stop on Monday will be the nearest Decathlon to Calais for some sensible and comfy sandals to make me look like Slubber

scaryt you need to get some specialist pegs for that rocky garden then

Have you already got the death socks then lost? You do seem awfully calm for someone on the eve of their awfully big adventure.

I'm so confused about the stove and now I need to think about pegs...heck.
I think the pegs we have for our awning are rock pegs and we have a fair few of those spare.

Happy birthday reshape :D gorgeous evening tonight. Bit pissed off though that I left my bag behind today two hours away from the campsite in the wrong direction, meaning we have a four hour diversion tomorrow to retrieve it. Grrrrr. So up at a sparrows fart to make sue we get home at a reasonable time. Silly silly me. Dh being lovely about it. What a fab and patient man he is :)

I am very calm, odd! DH just poured me but I'd better be careful in case I'm washing sicky bed linen in the night. Actually I'm just really excited, if it's crap we can come home, but it feels like properly living to get out and do something like this. I'm such a homebody and I love our village but I can't believe that by the end of next week I'll be in the Alps let alone Italy, furthest I've been as an adult is Brittany and that's basically Wales with better supermarkets!

Happy Birthday too reshape, sorry I lost my manners in my excitement. Would it be terribly rude to ask how old everyone is, I have a theory that most of us will be over 35 (not sure why but humor me!)

I'm 39 on Wednesday...I think that should make me a grown up. It looks old.

Oh yes sorry, I'm 37, just seems like camping something you only start to appreciate when you are a bit more grown up.