for my next tent i'd like.....

[thrifty]

A quecha seconds 4.2 family xxl. Sorry can't do a link cos am crap on my phone.
Following on from a very successful year with the seconds 1111 xxl, including a wet and very windy week in the isle of wight, camp bestival, the scilly isles and cornwall, I fancy another big tent, that I can put up and take down by myself, does anyone have one if these? Can you manage it on your own? Is it stupidly large and heavy? Please persuade me I need it :)
Ps anyone want a gelert lakesbury 5?

www.decathlon.co.uk/seconds-family-42-xl-id_8171231.html
Linky here.

Something Dutch and canvas. Spent two weeks (comfortable weeks in our Outwell Michigan 8) in Burgundy shamelessly perving other tents occupied by equally gorgeous Dutch families. I'm fuctifano I' m Scottish I'm pasty and by Dutch standards at 5, 6 I'm small, and my tent is synthetic! And breathe ahh I feel better already.

Thrifty, we've got the non-seconds version and having seen a friend erect oo-er a family "seconds" tent (not the 4.2) I'm now annoyed that we got ours before the seconds version was available. I love our tent (we've got the 4.2xl air) but it's a bugger to pitch and the big seconds tents seem to be really well designed.

Yes yes to Dutch and canvas. Btw are there any Dutch people left in holland over the summer?

any links to dutch canvas tents?

De Waard tents

ESVO tents

I have the family seconds 4.1 amazing tent and reduced!!

We've got the seconds 4.2 xl. It had it's first outing this weekend.

Pitching, I could do with the help of ds1. I had a slight problem as it popped up slightly inside out Que much head scratching and me having a mini panic before I managed to twist to back. Very straightforward to pitch after that.

It's a good size, sleeping areas are pretty good sized but quite sloped so I one person ends up sleeping in the eaves. It coped with rain and wind really well. Then it got hot....

It was so much easier to put away than our normal behemoth of a tent. Pretty straightforward to fold after watching the YouTube videos many, many times. The space in the car was amazing, it takes up so much less space than a normal steel poled tent and the dses had room to breath in the back of the car

The only thing is I do think you need a second adult to hold the tent down as you fold. I don't think ds1 (9) is enough ballast, you need some weight on it to keep it from pinging out again.

All in all, we love it! Great weekend tent.

my brand spanky new De Waard vergrote Zilvermeuww, complete with variolouffel arrived this week on a pallet from Holland. Direct from the managing director of the company, who sorted the whole 'shipping to the UK' problem out for me, and then complimented me on how we furnish them. I was shamefully chuffed by that. Im not sure anyone apart from Slubber will appreciate the honour of being complimented by the MD of De Waard....

Oh Lordy !

after looking at that Dutch tents link
Pure porn

We've got the seconds 4.2 xl as well. We are into the second year with it, and it still looks like new. Now we have the hang of putting it down it is dead easy. You do need a second person to kneel on it whilst folding though.

I managed to put it down the 4.1 myself after a demo in the shop.

Our Dutch canvas tent was the business this year in France - everyone thought we were Dutch as well which was a bonus as the British caravanners didn't deem us worthy of talking to We also took the obligatory thin plastic to put down to protect the ZIG from the dust/stones.
Netthetea your camping life will be revolutionised

and yes if anyone fancies invading the Netherlands then the last week of July / first week of August should be fine. They are all lying by pools in France, having towed their Hobby caravans sedately down the autoroutes.

Wow Nettletea - I've just seen how much your tent cost - you will definately need thin plastic to protect it's groundsheet. I'd build an extension so it could have it's own bedroom in the house.....

makes my little Hypercamp Palamos seem measly at £400......

am very cross because we bought our new tent last year as an easier to put up one. it was same price as decathlon second one but not in fact much easier than our old ginormous one. it's ok but doesn't feel substantial. shit! really want one now....

Nettle tea wow!! Most impressed and v v of tent and compliments of the MD!

I have my bell tent and am in love with it. If I can never afford a dewaard, I'm very happy with my soulpad :) :)

pics, I hope
if you have a nose you will see I have a soulpad too, I love it for quick camping. But today we put the De Waard up and luckily our WWOOF er was just as anal as me about getting the guy ropes correct. My daughter couldnt understand why I was waxing lyrical about it being a work of art...

Did you get a license again this year?

we got our planning permission!! BUT they restricted all our 28 days of extra camping, so we are restricted to the 4 furnished units detailed in the application. 2 applications, an appeal and a public hearing which lasted all day just for 4 tents!!! but we stuck with it and won.....

So NettleTea, does that mean you have the usual permitted 28 days when you can have anyone you like camping on your land, but then you have another 28 days you can have only four units? Or have they restricted all your camping time? Can they do that? Why is this a problem anyway? Were there NIMBYs complaining?

Pics look fabulous by the way - very tempting.

Well done! What a fuss though, hey!

it means that apart from agricultural and forestry workers, we have relinquished the 28 days during the time that the temporay planning permission is valid, which is 5 years. however we have been advised by our planning developer that we need to ask for this condition to be lifted when we apply for a permanent permission, whether we plan to use it or not, simply because it is an unreasonable amount of permitted rights to give up accross 160 acres for a part time site which is a fraction of the total land. you dont get many rights as a landowner any more, so purel on that fact it needs to be reinstated. Our 4 units are allowed between April to 1st week of October

NIMBYs produced a 24 page of objection which included legitimate fears of the unknown, with highly extrapolated figures of projected traffic movements, concerns about their security because of the types of people who go camping, devaluation of their properties, noise, disturbance, huge harm to AONB, my FIL being an old bloke who has left farming stuff lying about, pulling apart the business plan, saying it was not a sustainable business, unlike somewhere like Centre Parcs, etc etc etc

NettleTea - how very dare they! "Types of people who go camping" indeed! Honestly though, where do people get off commenting on your business plan? What possible relevance do they think their views on that are likely to have? And anyway, if they happened to be right and it wasn't sustainable, surely they get their wish - no more anti-social campers threatening their security and clogging their roads.

It reminds me of a pub we used to go to. When their application for extended opening hours came up, people living nearby wrote outraged letters of objection to the council claiming that people leaving the pub were forever throwing up in their gardens, fighting and having sex outside their doors. This despite the fact that DH and I were the youngest customers ever seen in that pub, we were in our mid-30s and sad strangers to alcohol-fuelled bouts of al fresco sex (although I suppose it is a bit ageist to suggest the other customers were too old for that sort of shenanigans). The pub still lost its application though, despite the fact it was all a tissue of lies. Bloody NIMBYs.