Tent has been delivered !! YAY !I can now join you all.......

[omydarlin]

I have ordered the Lichfield Kiowa 5 from Argos outlet on ebay which I thought was a bit of a bargain at £60 ( i think there is one the same but with a different name being sold in Halfords for £150 ). Anyways its just me DH and DD and we had to buy camping stuff as we are going to Camp Bestival which I am very very excited about!

I'm hoping we can continue to be fairweather campers especially as we live on the South coast so have a good choice of many places to go within 2 hours drive ( im also hoping the tent will turn out to be a good investment but if we really dont like it I wont be too bothered )!!

Just wanted to wave and say " ding dong hello mumsnet campers" my equipment consists of a tent, mallet and Disney Princess Ready Bed so i'm far from being seasoned but hope to be in the future!!

(can you tell i'm excited at the prospect of camping)

hellooooooo!!! waves back furiously! welcome to the madness of the camping fraternity

Welcome to our world. Can we all start placing bets at how fast and long your kit list will grow?

Hello!! The kit list will start to grow the minute you get back from your first trip! You will start looking surreptitiously at other people's tents and kit while you are camping thinking 'oh that looks useful/better than ours/handy' and before you know it, you will have more than one tent and so much 'essential stuff' you will need a bigger car!! I am talking from personal experience here (we are waiting for tent 3 to arrive as we speak!)

Soon you will buy a 5 ring gas hob for your new kitchen so you can get a kettle you can use at home and camping. Oh yes you will!

Oh no !! I thought camping was supposed to be the cheaper holiday option - it just sounds like something else for me to internet shop for!!! Thank you for the lovely welcome peeps..I have been wondering about the kitchen thing ... we have a vauxhall v40 and one child so I don't think car space will be to much of a problem ..i hope , but those car box roof rack things are starting to look mighty attractive ..mmmmmmmm.. see its started already!!

We have a v40 and 2 kids.... roof box essential. But then my tent is bigger than my house...

Practise this phrase: "Ooh, but it would be sooo good for camping!"

im starting to get bored and slightly confused looking on ebay and amazon for camping stuff pleease help me!!`

stoves little square ones in suitcases - do they feed off gas canisters thingies or these funny tablet things ive seen- do you need a table for these??? or the stoves like these little stoveything that looks slightly dangerous they look a bit tricky can anyone recommend these - it's just for tea making maybe the odd sausage or two.

And what's the deal with camping mats - why aren't they very wide! I dont want an air bed -ive come across the sex in tents thread and i understand they make a lot of noise

little stoves are great for just 1 or 2 but the gas runs out too quickly for families, you are better with a bigger one.

I have seen a double camping mat somewhere... multimat? outwell?

Thank you - am considering getting standard sleeping mats maybe two each for comfort ;-) just for the festival then decide if we can afford something a bit ..posher ? Oh dear it has started .hasn't it my wish to spend endless amounts of money i dont have any camping stuff!

I've been into town this afternoon and there is a new camping shop. Bliss! Mind you I don't suppose Millets about four doors away is best pleased.

Spent a happy half hour in new shop resisting things but did succumb to a dear little torch that is bound to come in useful some time . Sadly I couldn't come up with a good reason for buying the raspberry coloured kettle when I haven't managed to lose/dent our old boring green one yet.

I may be a wuss, but I'd go for airbeds so you don't get put off camping (& take a pillow!).