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7 June 2012
(Thursday) - Off to Camp For the last ten years the second weekend in June has been Teston kite festival. But not this year. A greedy council
was only prepared to run the festival in June if they could be assured to
make hundreds of pounds profit. Attendance at the festival had been declining
for the last few years anyway, and the decision to only have one kite weekend
at Teston this year could well be the end of the
event. Which would be a shame. A bunch of kite flyers had arranged a protest
fly-in for the coming weekend, but that struck me as somewhat daft. The
council has said that they won't pay for the kite festival so we put it on
for free as a protest..... how does that work? |
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But we've got used to going camping during the second weekend in June.
And so with Teston not happening we've arranged to
camp out in Smarden. I was planning to be up at
silly o'clock this morning, and to be loading stuff into the car. But I
wasn't. I kept putting off getting up, and thinking I'd have another five
minutes in my pit. I eventually finished packing the car just as the Folkestonians arrived, and together with Martin we set
off to the farm. And rather than cracking on with the work we drank coffee.
Eventually we got the camping gear out of storage and got it all to the camp
site. Last year "Daddies Little
Angel TM" had labelled all the poles of our communal tent
so that she would be able to put the thing up this time. It's all very well
going camping mob-handed, but when only two of us know how the tent goes
together there can be problems for the others. So "Daddies
Little Angel TM" tested her labelling, and it worked very
well. And with the communal "Brown and Smelly" in place we
put up our personal tents. Not that we believed weather forecasts, but the
good weather was supposed to give way to rain at 1pm. And as luck would have
it we got the last tent up at 12.45pm, and the rain started at 12.50pm. |
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Finding that most of the day's newspaper had been used to line the
guinea pig's cage (they come camping with us,
you know), we salvaged what was left of the newspaper and did the
crosswords over a cheese and bacon roll and a bottle of beer. And with little
else going on we all dozed off. Apart from a minor episode when the Rear
Admiral ran over his brolly with the car, all five of us were asleep for most
of the afternoon. During a lull in the rain "er indoors TM" arrived, and tea was cooked. Beef Stroganoff. We don't muck about when we go camping. Camping is about having an enjoyable holiday, not roughing it in a tent (!) And with the washing up washed up we played Jenga and drank blackberry liqueurs and port until the early hours. |
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8 June 2012
(Friday) – Wind
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Not a good night -
the winds were terrible, and I lay awake for most of the night listening for
the sounds of tents blowing away. I eventually got up about 6.30am, did my
morning ablutions in the rain, and went round all of
the tents checking guys and peggings. And I raided
some rope from the farm and lashed the frame of "Brown and Smelly"
to our forty litre water containers just to hold the thing down a bit better
- the winds were that bad. Having run myself
ragged I sat down for a few minutes, and woke an hour or so later. People
started getting up shortly after 9am, and after a leisurely brekkie (which
wasn't over until gone 11am) we moved some of the tents so that they
would be less wind-battered; the wind was still blowing at seemingly
hurricane force. "Daddies Little Angel TM"
then had a driving lesson. The car concerned probably now needs new
suspension; it was bouncing about the field quite impressively. And as Lisa
arrived I tried the first pint from the barrel that I'd brewed for the
occasion. Not too bad, really. Quite successful for home brew really. It
washed down a light lunch quite nicely. And then a particularly strong gust
of wind brought the toilet tent down. Three guy ropes snapped. Fortunately the stuff in the bucket stayed contained in
the bucket, but for a while it was all quite exciting. |
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To calm my nerves I had another pint, and the girls got the air
rifles out and took pot shots at various inanimate targets until Irene and
Terry arrived. With the wind still excessive, all hands were needed on deck
to put their tent up. Irene was sporting a very demure "Hello Kitty"
T-shirt and somehow this sparked the comment that "Tits are horny".
It was as well for humanity at large that I was there to take a moral stance. The last of the
residential campers arrived, and we had a spot of tea - curry. Very nice.
Very tasty. And with tea scoffed, washing up done and collapsed campers put
to bed we had a little go at the Madeira; cake and wine. Very nice. And so to bed
shortly after midnight.... |
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9 June 2012
(Saturday) - Bit Less Wind
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I had a mild guts ache this morning which woke me rather earlier than
everyone else woke. After my morning ablutions I sat in "Brown and
Smelly" and felt quite at one with the peace and tranquillity of the
world. Irene woke me two hours later. My phone rang - "My Boy TM" wanted
directions to where we were camping, so I walked up to the road to find him.
He arrived with a carful, and the four of them joined us for a spot of
brekkie. Fudge seemed particularly excitable, and some dog-training lessons
were started whilst some of us went off fishing. It would have been nice to
have had a fishing pond on site, but there was one at the farm which was only
five minutes drive away.
We arrived at the farm to find a visitor had come to the wrong camp site; so
we imparted directions and then had a pleasant couple of hours drowning
maggots. "My Boy TM" eventually managed to catch
two fish, which was two more than anyone else caught today. |
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With the novelty of standing by a pond fast wearing off we made our
way back to camp where the O'Latas had arrived to
visit. With our numbers swelled to over twenty on site we had an enjoyable
lunch of cream cakes, and then got the kites out. The wind had subsided from
yesterday's hurricanes to a mere tornado, and we played with power kites and
delta kites and one lined kites and all sorts. The NASA power kite wasn't
right. I had a theory, so we brought the thing down and measured the lines
against each other. I was right: the lines had stretched. But all had not
stretched equally. There was a good eight inches
difference between longest and shortest lines. Ideally the lines should be no
more than a millimetre different. We lined up the lines, re-strung the kite,
had another go and again failed miserably. Untangling the bridling worked
wonders, and I even went so far as to get my harness out to have a go with
the power kite: it's been a while since I had my harness out. It was fun.
"Daddies Little Angel TM"
had a go with the kite and nearly knacked herself.
It's easy to forget that power kites are not children's toys and they do
bite. Tea was excellent - chicken and bacon pasta. I am always happy to wash
up at camp when someone else is cooking up such excellent food. And we spent
a few hours playing Jenga whist drinking a
wonderful orange-coloured passion fruit flavoured 25% abv
jollop. Very nice. A drop of port would have been
nice at that point. We had at least two bottles in the kitchen. After an hour
we gave up looking they had vanished. Which was probably for the best as we
staggered to our beds at midnight. |
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10 June 2012
(Sunday) - Hunting and ....
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With the wind
having subsided to nothing overnight it might have been possible to have got
some kip; but for whoever it was shooting shotguns in the distance from 4am
onwards. So I again got up, pootled, and fell asleep in "Brown and
Smelly". I was woken by the sound of a car arriving at 9.15am.
"My Boy TM" and the So-Fudge-Possee had come back for another day. I was really
pleased that they had. I've been trying to convince him to come camping for
years. Hopefully he's getting to see it my way now. With most people
emerging from their pits we had a spot of brekkie. In a novel break with
tradition I did some of the cooking. And with washing up done, "My
Boy TM" produced a tin of sweetcorn. He was feeling good
about fishing - we could try again. So we did. We had a handful of tiddlers each;
nothing special. And then the Rear Admiral caught a whopper. Four and a half
pounds is probably not huge when compared to those that "proper carp
anglers" go for, but for a duck pond that was only dug out ten years
ago it was quite impressive. . |
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Back to camp where
we made sure that the pups were secured safely, and we spent a pleasant
afternoon playing "Hunting and Killing with Jimbo
and Ned". The girls supervised the air rifles; I tried (and
failed) to look knowledgeable with archery gear. Eventually the rain put
paid to our fun, so we retreated into "Brown and Smelly"
where we played Hangman. As the afternoon
wore on so people had to leave us. There are so many people in my life that I
don't see anywhere near enough of. Parting was sad; a shame that people had
to go, but the next camping trip isn't that long away. Tea - fajitas. A camp favourite. Usually on one of the first nights. For a change we had it on the last night. Very nice. And as the washing up was finished and the So-Fudge-Possee sailed off into the distance we got out the Blokus. And we found the missing bottles of port. It got messy. I went to bed shortly after midnight but was reliably informed that the party was still going at 2am.. |
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11 June 2012
(Monday) - Home Again
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Normally at camp I
go fishing when I wake at silly o'clock. But with no pond on site this hadn't
happened so far this weekend. The Rear Admiral had suggested that he set his
alarm for 5am and that we got a couple of hours fishing in. I was game, and
was dressed and standing waiting outside his tent when his alarm went off. We were at the
pond and fishing by 5.15am. We stayed for a couple of hours; catching a dozen
between us. But the fishing was slow, and it was a cold morning so we went
back to camp. Me to generally start packing away my own gear, the Rear
Admiral to his bed. One of the
disadvantages of camping at organised events and festivals is that there are
deadlines for getting off of the camping fields. At such a festival we would
expect to be packed away and driving off of the field by 11am. Being on
"home ground" we had no such urgency and were still cooking
brekkie at 11am this morning. and as the rain started we realised another
advantage of camping on our own turf - we can leave wet tents up
indefinitely. There is no need to take wet canvas home to try to dry it
later. With the cars
packed we set off home. Or tried to set off home. My car wouldn't start. I
felt sick with worry; it's been a good car over the years. But a jump start
did wonders. The consensus of opinion was that not having started the engine
since Thursday and having been in and out of the car for all sorts of things,
the internal lights had been on far too much and the battery had gone flat. I
was reliably informed that the drive home would charge the battery. I got home. Let's
hope the car starts tomorrow. |
There is an album of photos of the weekend's camp that you can see by
clicking here
There is another one that you can see by clicking here