looking good for a sunny weekend's camping :O

[millenniumfalcon]

finally it looks like we might have decent camping weather this weekend

who's going?

wish i was ds and dp going to watch Man City on Sat and ds playing footy Sunday and i have to take my dad to the airport so too busy
typical after camping all summer in the rain!

i reckon we've well and truly earned it, this will be our fifth trip this year and none of the others was without rain. we've had days of constant driving rain, thunderstorms, fog and gales so strong we had to rescue other people's tents from being blown out to sea

of course, i've jinxed it now

Wish we were but now we are back into the usual term time activities. Hopefully might squeeze one overnight trip one weekend this month if the weather stays nice.

I wish I was too, sadly the birthday party season has already started in earnest here .

mf have you erected the de waard post drying flat yet?

pmsl slubber, are you just tormenting me or are you considering alternatives to pitching the cabanon? no i haven't (taking our weekend tent this trip) but the people who sold it to us dried it flat so im sure it'll be fiiiiiine.

oh and the answer to birthday parties and termtime activities is leave the kids at home

We went last weekend without kids which was lovely. Can't manage next few as DH is on shift to work every weekend between now and half term

If we get a dry, bright weekend in November I might try a 1 nighter by the coast.

I'm sure it will be fine too mf.

I will be testing new tents in the garden this weekend and practising at putting up my new tarp.

Slubber I was cursing you last weekend as I tried to erect the tarp. One tarp, 2 poles, 4 guy ropes, 1 embarrased 5 yr old and me. Failed completely and no idea how to get it up [Frankie Howard emoticon].

WHAT?????

lololol

Is there an eyelet or similar in the middle of the short sides?

The poles go into those and you peg out the four corners with the guys. It should look like an old fashioned classic ridge tent, but obviously with the sides all open.

I stick an extra guy coming out from the top of each pole to make it all nice and taut.

That is only one way of doing it though.

I got this one. It has '19 attachment points'! No eyelets, loops instead. I couldn't get it to pitch without the ridge bit being droopy for want of a better description.

You can either run an extra guy (or washing line or whatever) between the two poles, and sling the tarp over that, or if you guy out the poles (to stop them bowing in towards the tarp) then that reduces the droop.

I put mine up by spreading the tarp on the floor and pulling all the guys up to their shortest position, then I insert one pole and gradually bring it into an erect position, all the time slowly slackening the guys so the pole stays under tension and doesn't topple over.

Then I sort out the other pole.

[post typed out with a completely straight face]

Oh I peg all the guys out after I have shortened them. That is a fairly major step.

I will have a go in the garden to get it right. I now have 4 tents . 3 of them don't have a porch area and I can't handle the fourth so I need to master the tarp to have somewhere dry to cook. We were lucky in the New Forest last weekend as we pitched near a large tree and cooked under the tree canopy. It rained quite heavily but we stayed dry.

How is the tarp practice going Mollie?

You can stick a pole at opposite corners (top R, bottom L)and make a diamondy ridge tent set up also, or the two poles at the same side (bottom R and top R) and then guy down the other side angling away from the poles.

The second set up is particularly good if it is wet and windy and the rain is blowing in at an angle, you can shield yourself off from the worst of it.

Am I confusing you now?

There are plentyful tarp set up videos on YouTube. Be warned though they all feature very earnest and steady survivaly types and usually involve attaching things to trees or finding yourself big branches. You give you plenty of good ideas though

I really really want to go it's so sunny and warm
And my neighbours are currently packing up their car and going to a site i reccomended

In my garden this weekend will be the new bell tent, the new pop up tent and the tarp. Maybe not all at the same time. Considering the forecast is fab I am thinking of camping overnight in one of the new tents tomorrow . Ds would be delighted as his favourite thing about camping is sleeping in a tent.

Slubber I looked at youtube this week for tarp inspiration and thought some of the videos were a little scary!

oooo its lovely isnt it - we had already booked a caravan break for this weekend and now im all packed im gutted we arent going in a tent - it looks perfect. Still it will be good to cook a full english on a proper oven

oh wow i know it's not very fair to wax lyrical about the pleasures of no-kids camping on here, but goddamnit that was the best weekend i've had in years

we're not still there.

We had a lovely time camping in the garden. It was nice knowing that we had good bathroom and cooking facilities! Bell tent was lovely to sleep in, a real revelation. So easy to pitch and take down. Managed to get it back into its bag with no problems.

i'm a practical camper really (you can stop sniggering slubber :P) and i couldn't quite see the appeal of bell tents as i kept thinking about the lack of head/living room on wet days. i've seen quite a few over the summer but this weekend was the first time i'd seen one opened up and it was beeeooootiful. all that lovely breezy shady space, i was jealous

The tent I've used this summer doesn't have sufficient headroom for me to stand up so the bell tent was a real treat. I only got a 3m one but there was loads of space for ds and me. It was very pretty with our fairy lights, something that cannot be said for our normal tent. There was something very restful about being in it too.

Weren't bothered by creepy crawlies either. The mudflap around the bottom of the tent is heavy and I think that it would be a struggle for anything to get through that. You can also tuck the mud flap under the groundsheet for added bug protection, so not a sig but a good substitute.

Best thing of all is it only cost £99.99 including delivery.