The tent, the slurry and the cockroach - His first camping trip
My kids and I have always enjoyed camping. We enjoy the freedom. The running around playing, the adventures and exploring, trying to find dragon eggs (big egg-shaped stones that are smooth with a few craters). Although I did draw the line when my lad came running in one day, all worked up (he was about six),
“How are we going to eat? We don’t have the right stuff.”
I looked at him confused, as he was rummaging through his combat pencil case. “What do you mean how are we going to eat?”
“Well, I haven’t got one of those line things; I have only got these,” his multi-tool credit card, which has a saw on one side and a ruler on the other, his flint and steel gripped in the other hand.
“We are going to have to find the right-sized sticks as well.” I am still not following at this point, which annoys him more.
“Well, what are we going to do if the traps don’t work and the rabbits and pheasants run off? Then we won’t have any dinner.”
Now fair play to him for thinking about it; clearly this has really been bothering him. However, I can’t contain the burst of my laughter. His little six-year-old head can’t fathom why I found starving him so funny until I explain to him that we certainly will not be catching dinner.
“We are going to go to the shop and buy the stuff to cook, and you don’t have to catch it, kill it and eat it whilst you are camping.”
At this he gives me a big cuddle and with a huge sigh of relief, “I was thinking someone else would have to do the killing bit; I don’t think I would like that part.”
Now I know why he had been binge-watching Bear Grylls, Man vs Wild.
We had always done basic camping: tent, little cooker, slept on the floor with a sleeping bag, nothing fancy, just good old-fashioned camping, and it was brilliant. So let’s fast forward to the other half’s version. I had finally managed to convince him to go camping; he always used to go away in Aire B&B’s or hotels, he likes luxury. He did have conditions: he was not sleeping on the floor, he was eating properly and not just crisp sandwiches (me and the kids always did this if it was raining), and he needed a comfy chair. If he could have this, then he would agree to camping. I agreed, but he had to get the stuff that he wanted. I thought we had sufficient camping equipment.
I booked a weekend away on a campsite that had good reviews (best at least get this bit right), and we were off; the kids were beyond excited, this was going to be great.
Until it wasn’t…
First you have to put the tent up.
The kids have always helped put the tent up; it takes longer, but who cares, I’m not in any rush when I am camping. At least then you don’t have to try and keep your eye on them to stop them from running off because they feel involved. So they each have a pole that has been threaded through the little holes; we start putting it up only to realise that we have put the poles in the wrong place. Now we unthread, match the correct coloured pole to the tags and rethread. Everyone knows that bending the poles so it actually goes upright can be tricky. The other half is starting to question the joys of camping as we don’t even have the tent up yet, so he leaves us to it and goes to start dinner. Southern fried chicken and chips- who even does that in a field? He brought a new camping cooker. Not a normal camping hob; no, it was a two-ring, all singing and dancing, camping oven with two shelves. I didn’t even know you could get camping ovens. I had one of the Halfords single-ring hobs; it had always worked for us, we just had one pot meals.
So the tent is up, carpet and kitchen installed, and air beds are blown up. Now when I say air bed, I really mean a double blow-up divan bed. They were massive. Extremely comfy, but when you have to turn a switch to blow them up, and they are as high as your knee, they are more than just an air bed. We used to take it in turns with the foot pump and eventually gave up and just slept on the floor; you just try not to pitch on any stones, and you were ok.
This wasn’t camping.
It was glamping; the kids didn’t know how to react.
The first night’s sleep…
He had brought two double blow-up divans (airbeds), one for us and one for the kids; they thought it was amazing and so did we, to begin with. During the night, ours had got a slight leak or small puncture because it had started to go down. My other half is heavier than me, so he had sunk in the middle, which made me roll on top of him, and to make matters worse, we were on a hill. In his sleep, he had slipped off the end of the bed. So right now he has sunk into the stupidly high air bed and is being squashed by me. I try to get off, but every time I try, I slip back even heavier onto him because of the double sleeping bag, which, in thought, is a good idea; let me tell you, it is not. So we are bouncing around, like fish out of water, sweating in the all-weather sleeping bag, trying to throw ourselves off the end of the bed so we have a solid surface to fight the constricting sleeping bag that is trying to prevent our escape. Eventually we battle ourselves out and didn’t wake the kids; result, look at the time, and it is 4.30 am. Amazing, the kids will be up in about an hour; might as well get the kettle on.
After breakfast we decided to go for a walk.
Again, Didn’t quite go to plan…
Tired from little sleep, we got the guidebook and began walking. Go across the road, over the stone stile next to the five-bar gate, across the field until you see the fairy tree and then turn left. What even is a fairy tree? We cross the 60 mph country road, go over the stile, cross the boggy field, nearly lose a shoe, pass the kids over the stingers and walk until we see a tree that looks like fairies would live in.
He stops, looks at the tree and asks, “How do you know it is this one?”
My daughter halts instantly, hands on her hips and looks as though she is about to address the most stupid person in the world, and simply says, “Because it is magical.” As if that explains everything. Well, that’s him told.
He looks at me, confused, so I explain, it looks magical because it looks all old-worldy and mystical with its long, curling branches. If you look along the trunk where some of the branches have fallen, they look like fairy doors, hence magical, and where the bark has peeled away, it looks like little stairs for the fairies.
Now he really is looking at me strangely; “how did you see all of that? I get it now you have pointed it out, but it is just a tree.”
“Nothing is just a tree.” I don’t know how else to explain it, so we move on.
We turn left, go through the gap in the hedge and across the field. The view is amazing, each of us pointing out the different things that we can see in the distance. About halfway across the field, I start to smell something that really isn’t nice; even the kids start to pull a face. I look down and realise what the smell is, so I say nothing.
Too late, the other half has noticed, “What is that? It smells like shit”
My reply is to laugh, a full-on doubled-over belly laugh. I find this hilarious; it had to be us. We are walking through a field that has just been spread with slurry; I mean just, as in the tractor must have left the field on one side as we entered it on the other. We look down; our shoes are covered, it’s up our trouser legs, it is everywhere, but we have gone too far across to the point of no return; we might as well carry on. He is not looking happy but begrudgingly continues, again questioning his life’s choices.
We reach the end of the field to find a small narrow road (more like a track); we turn left
again as we are doing a circular route and continue. The kids are having a blast, whistling with the long grass, watching the dragonflies and playing cowboys. They run to reach a little bridge as we see an old-fashioned car in the distance and wave like madmen as it goes under. I stand there watching them, smiling at their crazy antics as the people in the car laugh and wave back, only for him to realise that he is waving like the kids. All of a sudden, you see embarrassment hit when it registers that he has both arms in the air waving like wasps are attacking, jumping about just like the kids are.
That moment made it even more special.
We continue down the road and back to the campsite; we sit down for a well-deserved cup of tea and hot chocolate.
He looks at me and asks, “Did you have a nice walk?”
I reply, “Yes, it was really nice”, and it was.
He stands up, looks me up and down and says, “So when I was waving like a lunatic, stinking of shit, near that couple who were taking photos of that old car, do you think they thought I looked like you?”
“Excuse me,” that doesn’t feel like a compliment.
“I mean this nicely, but…” looking like he can’t quite decide if he should say the next part or not, he continues, “you have something up the side of your face that I can’t decide if it is mud or part of that field, twigs are sticking out of your hair from when the kids argued and he threw her headband in the bush so you climbed in to get it, your face is extremely red from climbing the hill, are you actually ok? And you have what look like salt marks on your top from the dust hitting your sweat patches.”
I smile and reply, “Yes, probably. I think we all need a shower.” Luckily I had booked a campsite with a shower; I don’t always.
He gets back from his hot shower with grazed knees and a slight limp.
“What's happened now?” The kids are even invested in this explanation.
“I had to fight off the cockroach; it was huge. Its creepy little antennae were waving about trying to find my big toe so it could eat it. You know I hate cockroaches; I can cope with most things, but cockroaches, I just can't. As soon as I noticed it, the soap went in my eyes. I tried to jump away; my ass hit the side of the cubicle, knocked me forward, I fell onto my knees, and now I don’t know where the bloody thing is. I had to get out of the shower, still covered in soap, whilst I admit, screaming like a girl. And that isn’t even the worst part. When I came out of the cubicle, I locked eyes with the bloke waiting for a shower, I just nodded and left.”
My mouth is agape; the kids are rolling around on the floor laughing, and I have no words. “Shall I put the kettle on?”
He growls, “Ok.” And we laugh, a lot.
So after another sleepless night due to the air bed being flat in the middle, him not wanting to squash me and the constricting sleeping bag, we have breakfast and begin packing away. Why do tent companies make the tent bags so small? They don’t even make them big enough for a snug fit; it’s like they vacuum pack the tent in the factory and then send them out for those of us who like a challenge. It really is a celebration if you manage to do the zip up, and it will be the first thing that you tell people,
“How was your weekend?”
“We went camping and managed to get the tent back in the bag.”
Or “How was camping?”
Your reply, “Great, the tent even went in the bag, check us out.”
People will even congratulate you for this victory.
So that was our first camping trip: brought a load of stuff to make it comfortable, pitched on a hill, punctured the airbed, and walked through shit, literally. Overall not bad, would definitely do it again and laughed a lot, although a lot of the time this was at one of our expenses. Please don’t ask him if he enjoyed it because I might never get him to go again.
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