OK, so I now understand why people (who until now I have always laughed at) say you shouldn't go camping with young children.
I should add we go a few times every year but normally it's, er, fun.
Forecast is for showers Fri, light rain Sat, heavy rain Sun, but it starts to rain about an hour before we get there and carries on. DH pitches tent - my job, in between looking after children, is to run after the bits that blow away down the field. Then dh realises he has left behind the 'important camping things' crate with torches, camping cookery stuff (fortunately we have my Trangia as he usually refuses to use it so it is packed separately). So he dashes off to village to buy more, leaving me without car keys and snacks and drinks for children are in car.
DD finds it all hugely exciting and wants to run off round campsite and jump in muddy puddles. She can get out under sides of tent, so has to be either physically restrained by zipping in inner tent or constantly chased round site.
We have dinner. Wind gets worse. Tent leaks.
DD refuses to go to bed. Baby wakes up every time it gets a bit noisy, which is every few minutes. Tent flexes in wind as if trodden on by giant toddler. We now have lovely puddle in middle of tent. Inner tents (I am in one with baby, dh is in other with with dd) resemble islands in muddy brown sea. Earthworms keep popping their little heads up (I have phobia about worms.)
By 4am I notice that I have still not been to sleep at all. Consider decamping to car but dh has keys and dd has finally gone to sleep so I don't want to risk waking her. 5am I am sobbing and dh hears in spite of wind and offers to take ds, so I hand him over, but he screams and wakes dd. They cry for 2 and a half hours and I sleep through it for about an hour.
Woman in next tent offers to help (oh the shame!).
Fortunately site has bacon butty van which opens at 7.30 am, so we eat several bacon butties and things get better. Happy DD forces me to jump in muddy puddles. We dismantle tent and discover two poles are actually snapped and forecast is for more wind so we have to go home, hooray hooray.
Of course as we are driving home the bloody sun comes out.