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The rained out camping weekend

By 13 Jul ’09July 13th, 2010No Comments

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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 plenty 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 until 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 forth in the seat willing the traffic to move at a faster speed.

I must ask about the M3 – What the  hell are they thinking bringing 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 along the lines of – Temporary 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 plenty of light for us to put up our tent. The others had cooked and eaten earlier but had kept us some of the delicious nachos chili surprise. It tasted great but i did bight down into a few unknown veggie type bits but seeing as it was dark at this stage and i couldn’t see it i just convinced my self it was some meaty goodness and carried on.

We chilled out for the eve in the mahooosive gazebo and drank and were generally merry. We all headed off to bed after a trip to find the loos. We had our sleeping bags, duvet and the great mattress 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 Richie) All Night Looooong, All niiiight, all niight, All Night Looooong but i can assure 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 sleeping bag but then was too cold so got back in sleeping bag and this pretty much continued for th whole night with interspersed 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 communal 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 splitting in to two groups -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 there. we went on pretty much all the rides and it was a giggle. We then left there and had a BBQ at th campsite. Now because it was raining we had the BBQ’s under the gazebo 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 rather ‘saucepan’ in this case) of Death”. Sleep soon called and we all headed for sleeps. I didn’t really get to meet sleep either cause at around 3am i thought 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 night was spent repeating the previous nights efforts of hot/cold endeavours but this time it was coupled 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 picnic halfway home…..

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

Mark

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