Carry On Camping

We used to go camping lots.  We weren't the best prepared of campers.  We didn't have lots of fancy equipment.  But we survived and had fun.  When living in Cambridge we would often pack up and head to North Norfolk for the weekend.  Wells-Next-the-Sea being a particular favourite.  Then we discovered Brighton. 

Our first excursion down to Brighton wasn't actually a camping trip though, but a stay in a B&B for a few days.  We travelled down on a Monday.  I remember this fact because the day before I'd run the London Marathon.  Apart from the total body cramps I was suffering I recall we had a really nice time!  We liked Brighton. We even considered moving there for a while.  Always the sea! 

If I reminisce, probably the most memorable camping trip we ever had was at the Belgian Grand Prix in 2004.  

We arrived at the race track - which is located in the middle of a dense forest - mid-afternoon.  At this time things were fairly quiet.  We set our little tent up nicely amongst the trees.  A lovely scene it was.  I mean eventually of course other tents started to go up around us, and the noise began to increase.  But okay that was to be expected.  But then darkness falls and we are surrounded by Michael Schumacher supporters, who also appear to be an offshoot of the German Hells Angels!  

We decide to have an early night.  Except next to our tiny tent stands a generator, about the same size as our tent and thundering away powering the Hells Angels sound system and lighting.  A sound system banging out heavy metal at full volume.  Then come the dragons!  

Here we are laying in our tent, waiting to be trampled on at any moment, when the Angels decide to start playing with fire!  

I don't know what you call it - spitting fire?  You know where you put fuel of some kind in your mouth and spit it out at a flame.  Well that was what was happening around our tent!  So now aside from a trampling it's incineration that beckons.  I don't recall  much sleep that night...by them or us!  But we survived.  The incessant rain too, doing nothing to diminish our experience. 

I suppose when you are camping in Northern Europe, rain is always a likely forecast.  And so it seemed for many of our trips.  I recall we took our daughter camping with us in Cornwall when she had just turned two.  We still had our tiny little tent.  The one that had survived the dragons.  All around us the well prepared families, with their nice big tents, with separate rooms, got their kids into bed, and could then - despite the rain - sit out in their deck chairs, under their awnings, sipping on booze, relaxing and looking up at the stars.  We on the other hand were sat hunched in our two man tent with our little girl squeezed between us.  

And do you know what? I wouldn't have changed it for the world.  Happy camping indeed.