The great outdoors
YOU know the way that tent assembly instructions tell you to put your new tent up in the garden before you actually bring it on a trip. Please follow that important instruction as it will save you a lot of unnecessary hassle.
I love camping. My husband, er, doesn’t like it. To me camping is an undeniable part of the summer. To him, Hell will have camping as obligatory.
Not long after Easter when the pre-exam summer begins to shine, my thoughts invariably wander to waking up in a baking tent and wandering barefoot onto dewy grass.
However, for some reason as soon as I began to vocalise these thoughts, he makes as if to protect his skull and assume the crash landing position.
So year after year, I have to try different approaches to coax him away from that Homerian trinity of armchair, beer and ‘Two and a Half Men’.
This year the ploy was that we would invest in a roomier tent (the stand-up multi-room Halfords variety with accompanying air mattresses). I even went so far as to buy a solar shower — more later.
Another concession to his camping allergy was my decision to luxe it up at a campsite rather than near to a beach and I also marketed the impending trip as less camping trip and more fishing trip with a shorter journey home.
The kids were ecstatic whereas P kept grimacing at the sky, willing it to rain.
I found a gorgeous camping site — Sexton’s — just two miles from Courtmacsherry in west Cork which, with a small football pitch, swings, treehouse and a sandpit the size of the average kitchen meant that they just disappeared once the handbrake was raised. It was also just a few miles from the River Argideen.
Each of the tent pitches has electrical points and taps. What more could you wish for, I beamed?
A happy camper I may be I am not one of those girls who boasts about their ability to put up a tent in the dark after half a bottle of vodka; it’s just another of life’s necessary evils. However, when a man adopts the ‘I don’t have to ask for directions’ method of tent construction and refuses to take the clearly explained directions on board, the pressure valve explodes.
It emerged that yes, the directions were correct and yes, four of the six poles were indeed a different size to the other two. And so 20 minutes later, the lopsided edifice had to be torn asunder and Rome built again. It was then that I reached into my cooler bag to find a chilled can of cider...
Another 20 minutes later and we did indeed have a three roomed tent — well two bedrooms with a ‘sumptuous’ lobby. It was at that point that we also realised that we had forgotten to bring a pump for the airbeds and at that point that P decided the river was teeming with fish. And so over the hill he disappeared and as meat grilled on the takeaway barbecue and sauce bubbled on the camping gas, myself and the two boys decided to turn the rapidly disappearing evening into an extended balloon blowing contest.
Camping, while the ideal way to get away with children, does require practice and organisation. Because they are outside constantly, they are filthy by nightfall and so I’d recommend changing the early morning shower for a late night scrub up. And while getting children to sleep at summertime is never easy, when said children are going to sleep outdoors (and are understandably excited), it is a mammoth task. And so by 10.30pm that night and 10 stories later, I was abandoning any traditionalism and admitting that hooking a lap top up to the outdoor socket would be a godsend. I was also kicking myself for having forgot to bring a deck of cards.
I fell asleep with the boys and when P arrived back, he woke me with a nudge. “We forgot to put up the shower!” he whispered urgently.
While buying the stand-up tent, we had become fascinated with a solar shower for sale. This is a plastic device that you fill with water and leave outdoors for up to five hours in the sun.
Attached to the plastic bag is a shower head and attachment and hey presto, five hours later with water heated up, you can have an appallingly smug eco shower. We thought it was the coolest thing ever. It had been forgotten however in the tent construction melodrama…
Nonetheless, 10 hours later and four really good powerful electric showers later!, we found ourselves eating breakfast on a deserted beach in a lukewarm sun. The children nearly mutinied at the suggestion but when they got there they admitted that it was ‘kind of fun’.
We ended up spending what seemed like an endless day on an Irish beach, walking, building sandcastles, swimming, reading and barbecuing lunch.
Camping with kids is much different to camping a deux, requiring a military approach to planning. We learnt a lot from that particular trip.
Despite barely having room to sit in the car it was so overpacked, we managed to forget the mattress pump, a deck of cards, tea towels and washing up liquid. We did, however, have a memorable weekend that the children chattered about for weeks since. And that is what it is all about.
1. Put up a new tent for practice before you head away on a trip.
2. Pack the car the night before, if you possibly can.
3. Don’t forget to bring a pump for airbeds.
4. Get the Ireland 2011 Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Guide — the essential guide to all the sites and facilities in Ireland.
5. Think out your meals in advance so you can bring minimum amounts of food — unless you have a trailer.
6. Do not laugh — but a laptop transforms into a very handy DVD player when kids can’t unwind at night.
7. Don’t forget washing up liquid and tea towels. You will need to wash up.
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