A Couple of Hours Under Canvas

Last Summer some friends had their summer holidays camping in the UK. They emailed their friends with which campsites and the dates they would be there and an invitation to join them for as much of the time as you wanted to. Some people joined them for a few days, some overnight and others, like Holly and me, just for a day.

Holly thoroughly enjoyed her day out at camp. She got to explore the campsite and met lots of people who were interested in the wheels. We went for a nice walk in some gorgeous countryside. And then Holly's favorite part of the day, we had a barbecue.

I knew she was happy and relaxed because in the evening when we retreated into the tent to play card games and chat Holly promptly went to sleep.

As Holly had been so chilled and relaxed at her day at camp I thought I would buy a tent and we could have a night or two away every now and again. The day at camp was in August 2013, I am sure it will come as no surprise to hear that it took me until April 2013 to buy a tent.

I decided that the first trial should probably be fairly close to home, just in case. So after a trial pitching in the back garden we set off to have a night out under canvas.

The trial pitching was entertaining. I wanted a tent that I could stand up in and also had room for both me and Holly to sleep comfortably in so I went for a 3 person tent, the guide says the external footprint is 390cm x 230cm  and that it is 205cm high. It didn't look very big in the display field, but it was alongside some 4, 6 and above person tents. It looked a lot bigger on my little lawn.

A Very Green Tent

Pitching time is stated in the instructions as 20 minutes, it took me an hour! I think that time will come down significantly now that I know which way is up/front, how to identity the bits and also what "insert poles into appropriate sleeves" means.

Once it was up Holly was very keen to explore, and as soon as she found the air-bed (I have too many creaky joints for just a sleeping mat) she plonked herself down and looked quite at home

As the tent was pitched I thought we would start off with a night on the lawn, home was (very) close by if needed. Unfortunately it was needed. We settled down OK and soon went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later feeling cold and quickly worked out that Holly had claimed most of the space and covers. She was also trying to burrow further into the pile of blankets as she too was cold, even with all the blankets. A quick check of the thermometer showed it to be below 10C. The old girl does feel the cold now, so we headed back indoors where it was warmer and Linus came and snuggled up to Holly to warm her up.

Holly enjoyed herself because every time we went out she headed straight for the tent and stood there waiting to be let in. She was not impressed when it came down a couple of days later. The tent-bag is temporarily in the kitchen, every time we go through she goes and looks at it, I think in the hope that it might get put back up again.

But as happy as both of us were in the tent I think future camping is going to have to be postponed until warmer nights come along.