good morning campers

dear readers, i can only apologise for my silence in recent times. some of my readers have been getting worried about us. it is simply that i cannot get the staff. herself has been all over the place. but i have forced her to type this post so that you know i have not disappeared off the face of the earth.

above you will see a picture of himself looking less than cheery. this is because i told him that a car was about to crash into his head. this picture was taken last weekend when we went camping. there is a camp site halfway between her maamship and the prof's house and our house so we meet them there. it was looking as though we would not get any hols this year so the peeps eagerly awaited getting away. it was also going to be the first outing of the new tent. another new tent? i hear you say. yes, another new tent.

the peeps have a bit of a history with tents. when my boy arrived and they started camping as a family they had to buy a bigger one than the little old dome tent that had done them proud for years. so they bought a big tent. but not big enough for what the future held in store. herself decided that she would order some campbeds from the internet. these were very large campbeds. herself rather uncharacteristically checked the floor plan of the tent to make sure they would fit. but when they arrived they were not just large. they were huge. and although they might have fitted on the floor of the tent, this would have meant the peeps had to saw off the legs which would have defeated the object. herself had failed to take account of the fact that tents go inwards as they go upwards.

so a new tent was purchased. this was large enough to accomodate the beds. for a couple of summers it provided comfortable quarters for holidays. then we went to dorset. the tent got destroyed in a storm.

so another new tent was purchased, again from the internet. this tent was even huger. but it had room for the campbeds and had a large living room bit where the peeps and their fellow campers could sit of an evening playing cards and glugging wine. there was even room for me and my bed. the problem with this tent was that it was a devil to erect. it came with a dvd showing you how to put it up. the first time we went camping with it my boy and i sat in the car puzzling over the dvd on herself's laptop while the peeps valiantly struggled to prevent the tent going into orbit in a gale.

putting this tent up also took at least 2 adults and preferably 4 of them. which was all well and good until himself got poorly. herself couldn't even lift the bag never mind putting the thing up. so the very huge tent was sold on ebay and a smaller tent was purchased, also on ebay. because our new garden is not very large, it was not possible to have a practice run with the new tent. so the camping trip this weekend was a bit of a blind date. the peeps had no idea whether the new tent would have holes in the roof, or indeed if it would have a roof at all.

when we arrived at the campsite, after a journey 3 hours longer than it needed to be due to google maps on herself's phone not knowing which way the car was pointing, her maamship and the prof were already there. they had already erected their tent and were enjoying a beer. after the hellos were out of the way, the peeps started on the new tent. or more accurately herself started on the new tent as she wanted to make sure she could do it on her own.

as the new tent was of a quick erect design, it was soon erect. or more accurately it was up. as her maamship so delicately put it, it was flaccid. and not very tall. a discussion followed as to whether this was why it had been sold on ebay. the peeps walked around the tent scratching their heads. a search was conducted to see if there were more poles. then herself had the bright idea of getting out the instructions. on the front was a picture of how the tent was supposed to look. our tent looked like the little brother of the tent in the picture. herself delved randomly into the instructions, looking for pictures of smaller tents.

"aha!" she said, "it has telescopic legs!" this sounded like a useful trick. i wondered if i might be able to purchase some telescopic legs to help me with my thieving.

the prof and her maamship fiddled around with a pound coin and the legs and eventually the tent grew until it stood proud and tall. i breathed a sigh of relief. my ears were still hurting from the raised voices in the car over the google maps incident, without having to listen to a tirade from himself about the evils of ebay. anyway, now we are home safely and i can catch up with my correspondence. i do love camping but i miss the internet...