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>

Lost, how wonderful re friends' field! I am insanely jealous and-should-screen-my-own-friends-better.

I'm loving reading your reasons for loving camping. (in the midst of the hacking cough and breathing through my mouth in the hope that I don't have to blow my blinking nose again.) Thank you for indulging me.

Oh and to have a friend who owns a field by the sea, bliss.

DH not on board with whole tent thing. (He's happy with the caravan.) I really want a pretty little pyramid but will not be this year, so wondering about a vango juno with an inner (seen someone do it on ukcampsite) as a below-£50-my-mum-will-buy-it-me-for-my-birthday-present-it-packs-so-small-you-won't-even-notice-it's-there option. And maybe book for the Just So Festival. I have been right round the houses with tent options. Even got my first ever parking ticket looking round Go Outdoors on Thursday. Tell me it'll work. (OK need to pull myself together, am starting to sound pitiful.

Our caravan is in a wood. I love the fact that DS who's 5 can disappear for hours building dens. It's proper back to the 70s stuff. He comes back grubby but happy even when all he's done is lug great branches through the undergrowth. It's a wonderful place. (Even though it isn't proper camping!)

Hello
I have just found this Camping bit, I didnt know it was here!
I would love one of those moon chairs, DH just raised his eyebrows at me and carried on with his plane stuff when I showed him the picture. ( We have 2 dd's, a bog dog and all the gear to go in the car)
We live just South of Brisbane and just returned from a few days camping out in the bush. It is winter here so a bit like the weather at home in October if not colder and it was nice during the day and pretty cold at night, although the fire was lovely.
Not much different from camping at home except you have to look out for snakes and spiders and ticks!! We go quite alot and have found a great place with a creek so we can swim and fish, kids and dog love it and we all enjoy the outdoors.
Anyway nice to find you, I am off to bed now. Happy camping everyone

we LOVE camping, ds (16) not so keen but dd (10) loves it. Only done 1 night in peak district & 3 at a festival so far this year but more planned..

We have 4 tents collected over the last 12 years to suit smaller/larger & shorter/longer trips!

Bum I forgot steri strips.

Caravan in the woods sounds idyllic as does camping by a creek (not the snakes, spiders and ticks though, ugh)

We have 4 tents too herladyship but collected over 3 years , still that should do us for now. well until I can afford a bell tent, and a really cool camper van of course

Well you have been chatty - its only a couple of days since I was last here and there have been over a hundred posts since then!!!

We're away the first weekend in August - we've booked Fisherground campsite. Don't usually take bookings but they will for 5 days or more which is perfect (dh wanted 2-3 and I wanted a week so it forced a compromise that was better than I was expecting!). If anyone wants to join us they would be very welcome!

I too am lusting after a Quechua pop up tent - no Decathalon near here which is probably a good thing for our finances! Go Outdoors has done enought damage!

Anyway going to go and be sociable in rl now - be back later xxx

Hello all!
I'm sometimes on here and often on doghouse because the two are kind of connected for us! (we don't like leaving our dogs so we have camping holidays :) )
I like these quieter parts of MN because you get to know people more and the trolly ones stay away.

We've been camping since DD1 was 4 and DD2 was just a few months old. DD1 is now 15 and DD2 11. DD1 is doing a lot of very vocal moaning nowadays about camping, but when I said very seriously that if she preferred to stay at home or go to her grandparents, I would quite understand, she very hastily said "no, I'll come".

We went away for 4 days at half term and I think she enjoyed it much more than she let on! We're hoping to do a nearly 3 week tour down Britain at the end of this month! I'm quite excited

Ha, love your dd's reply, musicposy. It's her job as a teenager to at least pretend she hates it, of course!

All these month-long adventures you all seem to have sound great. Highly unlikely that we'd be able to do same soon, but I think you should all do trip reports when you're back, would be interesting to hear.

Lazy day here, and didn't even go to Decathlon in the end. Just as well, as I'm 90% sure I've found another tent I need for festival / overnighter.

Mmm, well as a consolation prize for missing a weekends camping in this glorious weather I've been in the garden in my camping chair drinking pimms . We barbecued a chicken by sticking a can of beer up it's jacksie and standing it up (looked very undignified) and then toasted marshmallows over a little fire . DS3 has run around naked all afternoon and his spots are looking much better so all in all not a complete failure of a weekend.

lostinwales I'm liking your chicken on a beer can! Did you cook it with the can stuck in the coals of the bbq or on the top? I'm intrigued as to how this worked!

thanks for the marshmallow lostinwales

Beer up the bum chicken is the best, so moist. We use a Jamie recipe where we rub all sorts into the skin first - delicious. We do ours in the oven though.

Beer can full of wine natch because DH had drunk all the beer, stood it up in a tray on the wire bit ( thank goodness as it fell over at one point and would have put the fire out) and then lid down on the BBQ, shoved a load of peppers and mushrooms in the tray 30 mins before the end, lush. We DH rubbed salt into the skin first but Jamie's 'all sorts of stuff' sounds good

Sorry for interjecting. Beer bum chicken is actually a Weber recipe that Jamie has 'borrowed'. I have been doing it for years and we actually have a special Weber pan for it store.weber.com/Items/Accessories/charcoal/Detail.aspx?pid=1242

I love the sound of the beer/wine up the bum chicken... and smores!! [yum] How have I lived this long and not known about them?

I'm with MisSal and lostinwales - at home the telly/pc are always on and we don't seem to get a lot of old-fashioned family time. It's lovely to leave that behind and be with nature, go for walks/ride bikes, run around playing silly games, look at the stars, it's so relaxing having that downtime (even if I find sleep impossible unless I'm eyemasked, ear-plugged, wearing 3 layers, gloves and a woolly hat - God, I'm so sexy in a tent!). It makes a weekend seem as good as a week away.

Also DH and I have fallen into the (bad) habit of parenting in relays because of work and other commitments, so I LOVE the fact that camping means we get to spend time together with DD. And discover that we really like each other's company!

11 days to go til we leave for Latitude!! Am getting very excited now... and I really need to get on with making a packing list.

I wandered into our local Poundstretcher today while DH was taking DD to buy me a 'surprise' birthday card, and to my surprise they had butane camping stoves half price, sleeping mats for a fiver and moon chairs. Not the fancy ones, but they still looked v. comfy and were £20 a pop, possibly worth a punt if anyone was after them?

I'm with lovecat on the reasons I love camping.

ALso can't believe I have lived 38 years without discovering the culinary delight that is beer can up the bum chicken! Will have to try it, although from the sounds of things I will have to buy a bbq with a lid first as we only have a cheapy one. More stuff to buy!

Naughty Jamie, fancy pinching the recipe. Tut tut.

Well I'm one step closer to owning a tent tonight...getting excited...nothing fancy but something to get me started.

I'm doing Race for Life tomorrow...when I've collapsed back home (as I'm in no fit state for it) will look up what 'all that stuff' is that we dh rubs into the skin.

Hot choc anyone?

Right that's it, camping chair folded up and slung into the tent, I'm going for a pee in the bush and then I'm off to bed. Night all.

g'night lost.

Morning all!

Just checking in before the reason I can't camp outside of London at the weekends forces me to leave the house - DD's drama club. Why, God???

Still, only 2 more sessions and it's over for the summer... I know I shouldn't really think that way, she loves it, it's done wonders for her confidence and she's made lots of new friends, but it's such a faff having to schlep to Islington every Sunday morning, it really ruins any weekend plans outside the school hols.

Mind you, the 'sit and have a coffee/mooch around the antique shops/read the paper uninterrupted' part of it is nice....:o And I discovered when I went for a wander a few weeks ago that they have a branch of Blacks on Upper Street! [saddo]

Morning! Any bacon going spare?

I know what you mean about clubs, DS2 is mad for football and we spend nearly every Saturday schlepping around the county and some weeks every Wednesday as well. We normally spend an age looking for campsites near the matches! (more of a problem for Islington I imagine) DS1 has surf club every Sunday but as that's on the beach infront of the campsite it's less of a problem! I can't imagine living somewhere with shops open on a Sunday,

Afternoon everyone! I have two sleeping kids-dd2 is teething, ds1 possibly has chicken pox on the way, whatever it is they are both horrendous today!

Our weekends are pretty free at the moment of clubs, so we manage to fill them up with walking, beaching and teaching ds1 to ride his bike :)

I long for lazy mornings drinking coffee and reading the papers once more. Instead, I was the screaming banjee to be over heard yelling explaining to ds1 this morning that if he wanted to go to sleep, he should have done it at 5am this morning and not in the middle of the dog walk.

One of many proud parenting moments as the mother of a baby and toddler

Oh well, tea and cake and surfing the soul pad website awaits!!

I am MNetting from my tent

Having a great time, kids thrilled to be here, new tent is fab & dead easy to erect. DC finally flaked out at 10pm and slept til 7am (bar a 4am wee wake-up), we are all filthy and I'm sunburned in several places. Oh and I've spotted several moon chairs AND a bell tent!

Back from one nighter.

How come the pile of stuff that needs to be washed, sorted and put away looks EXACTLY the same size as the one after a two week camp?

The sticky, ominous Cobb is sat there lumpenly looking me. Bleugh.

Afternoon all. So we're back from our one night, new tent/DS trial run. Won't go on too long as damn BB double posts for some reason. DS was overtired and overexcited but fell asleep (on me) at 10pm and woke at 7.45. All in all a pretty good time was had. And what fabulous weather for camping. Sorry for saying all this twice...

Oh, ok then!