-Day 3

The Weather

Apart from the route, location and other such logistics it’s the weather that’s probably been uppermost in our minds when preparing for this trip. Our 3 camping trips to Chessington World of Adventures with Senior Section, Paxmead Riverside Base with Guides and Girlguiding Anglia’s Gig in a Field with our 13+ year old girls in the first 3 weeks of July, all involved plenty of rain and increasing quantities of mud! How could we not be concerned? The idea of pitching and striking a dry tent everyday for 19 nights is quite daunting however the thought that it might be wet is another kettle of fish altogether.

Experience this summer has taught me that the only practical thing to do is to bundle the various bits of wet tent into black bin sacks, stuff them in the car, haul them out at home and strew them across the sitting room chairs and floor to dry off. Then aforementioned tent bits get put back in some semblance of order, rolled up and stuffed back into bags, which must surely have shrunk since they were last used!

Hmmmm, rain, day after day after day and you start to get into the habit of thinking it’ll never end. The idea of taking a wet tent down, packing it away for the day, driving it around for a few hours and then pitching it again . . . doesn’t rock my boat! So, as you can imagine, I was delighted when the jet stream shifted last weekend and the weather did a spectacular about turn, hurrah, about time. Now I’m beginning to wonder about the wording of my challenge ‘to sleep in a tent . . .’ as one of my favourite activities at the end of camp is to ‘sleep under the stars’. Any thoughts as to how I can get around that one?