home time! – going to see Bob …

home time! – going to see Bob perform his comedy thing tonight – should be fun!

The rained out camping weekend

So Debs had this great idea to go camping for Nicks birthday…..and a great idea it was.

I left work early on Friday to give us pleasnty of time to get down with the idea of leaving before rush hour. This was not to go exactly to plan. The traffic was to hold us up quite a bit. The usual Chiswick drawl was bearable but it wasn’t ntil we were well past the m25 on the M3 that it picked up pace to qualify as motorway speeds. I spent a lot of that time shifting my weight backward and foth in the seat willing te traffic to move at a faster speed.

I must ask about the M3 – What the  hell are they thinking brining it down to one lane where the M25 merges? That is the most stupidest thing i have ever seen! There’ a big sign that says something alongthe lines of – Temporaty test traffic layout – I wanted to get a can of red paint and splatter the word “FAIL” all over it.

Anyway. We arrived down at about 9:00, roughly 2 hours after i had hoped we would arrive but there was still pleanty of light for us to put up our tent. The others had cooked and eaten earlier but hadkept us some of the delicious nachos chilli surprise. It tasted great but i did bight down into a few unkknown veggie type bits but seeing as it was fdark at this stage and i couldn’t see it i just convinced my self it was some meaty goodness and carried on.

We cilled out for th eve in the mahooosive gazeebo and drank and were generally merry. We all headed off to bed after a trip to find the loos. We hd our sleeping bags, duvet and the great matress that Ruth’s mum bought us last year so we were all set to b snug and to get a greatly needed and deserved nights sleep…

Then the rains came…

tumbleweed…

It rained (in the words of Lionel Ritchey) All Night Looooong, All niiiight, all niight, All Night Looooong but i can ssure you there was no dancing in the streets! Ruth couldn’t really sleep then i couldn’t really sleep, then i was too hot so pushed off the duvet but was still too hot so removed sleepin bag but then was too cold so got back in sleeping bag and this pretty much continued for th whole night with intersperced flecks of sleep.

We got up in the morning and had a brew and some cereal and soon realised that the milk was turning which is why the tea tasted funny. I  ended up using some or Rich’s UHT milk which did the job. Some comunal washing up followed and then we tried to figure out what to do for the day…seeing that it was raining and all.

We ended up spliting in to two groupsn -those with children and those without. We without went to the beach and did a picnic in the car/cafe (Rich and Victoria did cafe) and we realised that we were sitting in the car in the rain listening to Radio 4 having a picnic. I think we all felt a little bit older at that realisation.

After this we set off for TowerPark water park. Much fun was had in thre. we went on pretty much all the rides and it was a giggle. We then left there and hd a BBQ at th campsite. Now because it was raining we had the BBQ’s under tha gazeebo but they just so happened to be the smokiest BBQ’s i have ever encountered. it was comically smokey.

This turned in to a late night of playing “Colander (or rathr ’saucepan’ in this case) of Death”. Sleep soon called and we all headedfor sleeps. I didn’t really get to meet sleep either cause at around 3am i toug i was gonna throw up so i took myself off to the loos an sat by a toilet bowl for about 45 mins contemplating all things one contemplates when preparing to be sick – Will i die? Will i choke? Will i get it all down myself? lovely! Luckily i managed to hold it down

I went back to the tent and ruth was there to offer condolences and snuggles – She’s such a great wife. The rest of the nightwas spent reaeating the previous nights efforts of hot cold endeavours but this time it wascoupled with feeling quite horrible.

In the morning we had a quick brekkie then packed up to go home. We set off home and had another picninc halfway home…..

It was a great weekendof camping – Would i do it again? YES!

camping in the rain

Yes its raining but we are enjoying it all the same. We arrived and set up late but it was still light. Enjoyed a great chilli and some cider. Slept awfully but have had tea to get us started. We all going to a water park later. Its indoors.

Posted via email from irishmark’s posterous

hehe

Posted via email from irishmark’s posterous

survived the camping despite i…

survived the camping despite ingesting a cocktail of rain, chlorine, turned milk, smoke, bbq’d meats and very little sleep