Typical camping day

[Smithagain]

Hi all. Have been lurking, but am coming out now. Like so many others, we are contemplating starting to camp for our family holidays.

Now, I have camping in my blood. My mum was a Guide leader and I went to my first Guide camp as a babe in arms. And all our family holidays were camping.

BUT I now realise that I have very little memory of the actual daily routine of life on a campsite. Probably because mum and dad did all the work while I swanned about climbing trees and making friends!

So can you hardened campers refresh my memory about all the stuff that needs doing? I have hazy memories of trekking to a tap to collect water and taking dirty dishes somewhere in a bowl to wash them. And shower blocks with concrete floors. And grotty games rooms with table tennis tables and spotty youths to fall in love with

But what's it like from a mum's perspective, when you have to keep everyone fed and clothed and avoid losing the little one in a stream?!

Wake up and be totally blissed out because you're in the outdoors.

Do a reccie on the showers, and decided optimal mininum queueing time - depending on age of DCs leave them in bed when you go over, or alternate with DH.

Cook fab real breakfast. Faff about washing up/tidying up/refilling restocking till 11.00

Go out and have a wonderful day at farm/beach/local fete whatever

Come back, have BBQ, put DC in sleeping bags worn out, put on every jumper you own, and sit outside tent with candles/chocolate/wine and chew cud with DH, while looking at stars, perfect

We go in a group (50+ of us in May )

Someone always gets up early & puts kettles on.

Teas & coffees brewed until everyone up.

Croissants to munch on whilst full cooked brekkie done.

Mass washing up session - kids enjoy this

Go for a walk, kite flying etc etc

Lunch

large ganes of rounders, cricket, frisbee

Curry! (we always make a mass curry when all together, Sizzle n stir sauces, wok fry tubs of pilau rice etc)

More washing up!

Sit around camp fire playing silly games, chatting & drinking.

50 Hot chocolates with cream & marshmallows

Star`gazing, more poking the camp fire

Bed!! (listening to all the kids giggling for hours)

Oooooooooh it's sounding so good. Keep em coming. I'm getting inspired!

Get up, and put the kettle on.
Have a cup of tea whilst eeryone else is dragging themselves up.
put coffee on for dh (we take stove top expresso thingy!)
If in france go to the shop to get bread/croissants etc
If in England kids get those little cereal boxes as a treat and I do something like eggy bread of scrammbled eggs.
DH and kids wash up (or not!)
Chill out while we decide what to do
read books, go swimming/beach/bike ride whatever
Lunch usually out somewhere, or if atcampsite in france, cheese,bread,salad, wine.
Pm more chilling
Supper cook pasta and whatever, drink more wine, toast mashmallows, play cards and then bed

survival equipment :
cereal in little boxes like sallystrawb says
flip-flops for every member of the family (for when showers are across the field / shower tiles are erm, not what you want your lo's standing on)
huuuuge beachbag for transporting stuff to and from showers
3-minute noodles, easy cook rice, quickest cooking pasta you can find
all-in-one shampoo shower gel suits all
as many bag-for-life 's as you can round up. we keep water carrier in one pegs when they're mucky, food shopping (er not the one that had the tent pegs in tho)

tis heaven. Eat what you want, do what you like, wear the kids out, watch the stars....
Scotland next month. Can't wait

Wake up and wrestle with ds on air bed to get his shoes on
DH goes to walk dogs while I make a cuppa and watch ds pooter about in PJs and wellies.
Breakfast ( bacon and eggs)
Wander about, chill out briefly then into nearest village to buy lunch and dinner.
Back to site
BBQ lunch
Beer
Walk to beach
throw stones into sea for dogs/pick up dog poo/roll up ds trouser legs
back to site
Beer
Wine
Dinner
Wine
Put ds to bed ( ha ha ha)
Sit up nattering nad drinking, with ds sitting on various laps denying tiredness
Bed

and after bed, depending on the weather you might have to spend the night holding the tent down!

Just kidding.

Doesnt happen very often at all! Just recovering from this weeks trip (and fortunately our pegs did most of the holding down)

seriously, camping is not the time to stress bout trying to fit in umpteen activities in the day. Its about pootling about gently. With an 8 yr old our days this week went like this:

Wake up or be woken up.
Bury head in sleeping bag pretending its not morning til you really need a wee.
Make breakfast - sometimes as simple as opening a packet of donuts . Couple of cups of tea.
dh does washing up while I tidy a little, dd reads.
Washes all round then dd goes off to play.
I read.
Go off for day.
Come back and read while dd plays.
Then go out walking to local pub or something simple at tent.
dd plays.
When dark we all played cards. Taught dd gin rummy.
Then snuggled under gazillion layers. (am looking for new warm sleeping bag!)

My typical days are:

Get up and sit outside tent in pj's drinking tea.

DD and dsd come back from camp shop with the newspaper, so sit and read that for a bit.

Eat breakfast.

Sit around a bit more while girls play, eventually go for a shower. Sit around some more and read or play badminton or something. Wander down to the beach for a late surf as tide's in, stop at pub on way back for tea or eat fish and chips on beach.

or

Make a packed lunch and head off to the beach for the day, come back and have a BBQ.

Sit sipping wine under the stars.

There's some washing up in there somewhere, usually when we've run out of plates or mugs but we all muck in.

Stop it! You are all making this sound totally idyllic and I want to go now!!!

So, another question, do your kids really fit in happily with all this sitting-around-doing-nothing-much-but-enjoying-the-fresh-air?

Because if I tried it at home, they'd be whining about boredom and/or fighting. So is there something truly magical about the fresh air? Or are they running around like loons while you do all this stuff?!

We take quite a few games, Uno is the favourite. They're good for keeping them amused if it rains too.

We also have swingball, football, badminton, diablo and various other toys like that. Dsd got into devil stix and poi last year.

But where we go there are lots of families so they always find someone to play with. It's great. They pop on their wellies unzip the tent and off they go as soon as they wake. And they sleep like logs.

well we have 2 dc, 3 and 4.
our days r like this..wake up-too early- after too much wine. feel like shit. kids up, wellies and waterproofs on if needed, over pjs, out of tent. to play area if after 7.30. me...coffee....dh..still in coma. try to sort brekkie. fail. give kids chocolate bread and packet cereal to take to park.
dh surfaces. immediatly starts cooking big brekki. feel sick. sit outside in pjs. brekkie. wash up. sort out pack lunches, etc get dressed, pack car, go off for day to local farm. usually its about 11ish.. woods, beach. arrive back. wine and nibbles (well it is after 4pm) kids tea 6pm, kids bath/shower 7pm, kids run about in pjs and wellies till about 8. then bed. adults sit down, drink more, bbq , bed.
thats it really.

You missed out the bit where you and DH finally start talking again after taking three hours to pitch the tent and having a massive whispered row with heaps of under the breath mutterings of f-wit and arse etc aimed at him.

The bit where it never stops raining all day and all night and the gale force winds blow and you re-peg the tent with extra guys and pegs so you don't blow over the cliff into the sea.

The bit where there isn't a dry pair of socks between you and yes you have tried on a five year old's socks because they happened to be the dry ones.

Ah, the lovely bit where the noisy bastards in the tent next door argue all night

The bit where the noisy bastards in the tent next door stay up and party all night and swear like troopers and you have to physically restrain DH so he doesn't go and slash their tyres, set fire to their tent and kick their heads in (on his own - hero emoticon!).

My post is just for balance and a leeeeetle touch of reality you understand!!! Or was that just my camping trips?

Thanks FloridaKBear - I think I do need a dose of reality as well! Can definitely foresee tent-erecting marital strife. DH is an engineer and does like things to be done "properly"....

Our camping usually goes like this:

Listen to kids waking up, pretend we can't hear them, and try to ignore the need to get out of sleeping bag and go to the loo.

Kids get themselves up and comeover to our bit of tent and unzip our compartment. One of the three will locate the choc brioche and that will keep them amused for half an hour, usually with a choice of milkshake (Moo's ones) in choc, toffee or strawberry. We'll eventually get up and leg it to the loo, 1st person to do this puts kettle on. Have coffee or tea, cook a bacon sarnie and eat it enjoying being outside. Do something during the day, at a lazy pace, but make sure we're back in time to gather firewood for the evening (or do it in the morning) Nice camping tea before bed around the fire, kids to bed as its getting dark, or if we're at a particular site in North Wales, we will let them stay up a bit, whilst we ring the camping area with tea lights, looks very pretty. Look at stars, eat chocolate, drink warm drinks, natter. Sometimes sing songs, play guitar/drums.

Here's our camping routine:

Wake up and put fleeces on over pyjamas. Make use of wee-jug!

Confirm what the time is to partner. First one out,inspect and comment on weather - current and predicted.

Make tea.

Little cereal boxes COMPULSORY - the only time we're allowed them. Even cornflakes are a treat like this!

Potter around drinking tea, stacking up all the dirty plates/wine glasses outside.

Play house for a bit - tidy tent, make beds, read papers, talk about what we'll do today.

Inspect the sky a bit. Talk about how it's starting to look a bit brighter over there!

For kids - one crate of toys/colouring/books is a must.

Do last night's washing up (clearly man's work on camp).

Make sandwiches and pack bags for afternoon at the beach, waterfall, whatever.

Realise we've spent the entire morning doing this, and are still in pyjamas.

Finally get out, take turns to play with kids/read book on the beach.

Back to tent for 'cocktails' (a bag of ice bought at the camp shop will last over 24 hours, giving you chilled G&Ts for 2 evenings - a pound well spent.

Depending who you're with and the age of your kids - either tea all together, or kids tea and bed followed by grown-up dinner and wine.

Take a walk on the sand dunes at sunset.

Wine, radio 2, crossword/sudoku, fire and a bit of chat until bed. Or in a group, lots of wine until someone decides to try out the pogo stick (bad idea).

And yes, the kids love it because you're always there to talk to them.

If you're lucky enough to have a baby with you, take the plastic bath. Once baby is clean, one mother can easily bathe entire body and wash hair in the water, without needing to stand in queue for horrid shower. Alternatively, solar showers are fantastic.

I want to go now!!!

And it all becomes suddenly much easier once everyone in the family can read. We've just come back from a VERY cold but wonderful week with evening temperatures dropping so fast that after about 7.00 the only option was bed. So we all cuddled down and read every evening. It was fab. Ds (7) read a whole Cressida Cowell book and felt SOO grown up and proud of himself!

We try and keep DC in the tent with Sssshhh, Husssshhhh noises(we are probably louder doing this) until 9am. Thinking of other campers. Whatever the weather, water proof trousers on boys are fab. Then spend 2 hours making pack ups, loading the car with boards, wetsuits, towels, change of clothing, suncream, glasses, games (normally in the boot anyway, but need a double check!), chasing the DC around trying to apply suncream, cash, where's the wallet? is it safe chat, Jumpers, do you think it will rain today chat, coats in boot "just in case". Now I know i've forgot something......Is the dog coming? is he allowed on xyz beach? water in a bottle for the dog, oops forgot the beach sunshade, dog food.... spend next 20 mins asking DC to get in the car, but they want to stay on the site with new found mates.....
Off we go....
Cook in or out?, BBQ or drag cooker out?, pasta and what?
What do you want to drink?
Boysssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss dinnerrrrrrrrr
red or white? vodka and what?
What do you mean you're knackered and going to bed early?
Right then, I'm getting pissed, listening to other campers argue/chat/whatever in their tents and watching the stars.

Seeker - it was hugely freezing wasn't it!!! I don't think I've ever camped with so many layers on.
Did you have any problems with storms? We were badly hit on friday night and our poor tent is not so well now.

Friday night was pretty dramatic - but our tent survived - hope yours isn't too damaged!

One night dd had s many layers on she couldn't get into her sleeping bag! We hit the charity shops of Folkestone and bought them out of blankets - they thoguth we were completely mad.

Used to love camping, am now 3m pg and have a 12m old - am I mad reading all these accounts (even the reality of FloridaKBear's trips) thinking camping would be fun with a littl'un?