On Saturday I decided that today was to be the garden camping treat for Jake. We went up into the loft and while Jake sat next to the door I carefully lifted the tent out of the miniscule crawlspace. I emerged covered in dust and what looked like black soot.
When I unpacked the tent in the garden it was in better nick than I thought. I had visions of a dirty, mud encrusted mess from the last time it was used(Glasto or Reading I think) but we must have cleaned it before packing it away :-). It did smell pretty bad, so once it was erected we opened both flaps to let some air through. It appears that the groundsheet hasn’t stood the test of time too well. The blue paint seems to be flaking off when it is touched. In minutes Jake and I ended up covered with the small flakes, which was a little annoying.
In the evening at around 8pm we entered the tent. Jake, obviously was beyond excited. I figured that he would not readily sleep so we played Lego Batman on the DS for a while. At around 10ish I turned it off and we settled down. To Jakes credit by 10:30 he was asleep. But was I? No! What with the constant roar or aircraft overhead and Jake’s incredible snoring in the lughole it took me a good while to drift off. Drift off I did in the end but slept badly mostly due to the very uncomfortable blow up mattress.
Jake woke in the morning at around 8ish, which wasn’t too bad. We were greeted with the sight of Amy and Mia in the Kitchen :-). All in all it was a good bonding experience with Jake. Next year we hope to go REAL camping. In the meantime I will be making visits to the camping section of Decathlon[rubs hands in delight]…