My mum and me are a bit like peas in a pod. One, marginally older, slightly confident-er and infinitely richer pod on her side, mind. I’m like a petit pois.
How to sum up my mum. Hmmm.
Picnic baskets.
Cath Kitson florals.
Clarins.
Less JuicyCouture, more John Lewis.
Less ready meal, more slow cooker.
Less sushi and tapas, more hearty homecooking.
Good visual? Good, because I’m not putting a picture up.
As for the outdoors? Well, like mother like daughter I guess. She just headed off to the lower regions of the country (I shall not say bowels. Nope.) for a camping trip. Woah.
I like to give her a wide berth in terms of calling, due to the fact she has care of my half brother and sister and takes them on holiday, which results in my calls taking around an hour, being passed about, until the phone sits, forgotten, with me gabbling into it ‘Hellllo??????’ whilst they go make dinner.
So I email.
Now the idea of even me and the boy going camping fills me with a level of fear usually reserved for arachnids and things that contain more than 4 grammes of fat.
But my mum not only plans but looks forward to these trips to the backcountry with children.
So what do you do, when camping after the first flush of festival youth? And what do you need to know.
TEST- ARE YOU AN ADULT?
1) Are you planning on washing whilst camping
2) Do you intend to AVOID playing ‘what-meat-is-that’ with your burgers?
3) Will you be putting the correct amount of people into your tent?
4) Will you set an alarm clock at any point?
5) Did you ‘nearly forget’ about alcoholic beverages to be packed?
6) Are you taking an appropriate amount of clothes and warm layers?
If you answered yes to any of the above, congratulations, you’re an adult! And indeed, may I welcome you to camping, adult style.
The following are extracts from an email asking how the camping went and may help you out.
Or may just make you concerned.
No adults, children, tents or relationships were harmed in the undertaking of this holiday.
1. If in culinary doubt, stick to beans.
I did nearly set fire to the kitchen awning… flambe – ing bananas with Bacardi - seemed a good idea at the time…
First up – we sell stoves. We do not sell stoves for the purpose of cooking anything with acohol. Now don’t call childline, but mum has informed me that the above tale involving bacardi, bananas, and a naked flame was an event designed for food, and not entertainment, a twisted party trick.
And a tent.
Get the tent and the stove away from each other. Or my mum away from the booze.
We sell some just add water meals here, which although 365 days a year wouldn’t be conducive to a balanced diet, on a camping trip where the above stands as some kind of cuisine, may well stave off the onset of scurvy.
We can hope.
2. Bring Duct Tape
Learnt how to toast marshmallows (trick is to use duct tape (you just know who thought of that one don’t you) -made lots of cindered offerings.. quite scary letting them do it really, but I did anyway.
The ‘them’ is probably my brother and sister, flesh and blood, next of kins, running amok in the countryside with hot scewers, brandishing molten hot marshmallows and cruel intents, no doubt.
3.Take rubber gloves.
Learnt best way to kill wasps was to squish them with rubber gloves on (yes, I did take them)
Self explanatory really. Began, at this point in the email to be slightly concerned that ‘bare essentials’ and a low pack weight for my mum would entail rubber gloves and duct tape. And Bacardi.
Aware, that as well as loving her dearly, I would use her for blog matter, I hoped for luck in the next paragraph…
Def need a tent next time that comes with colour coded supports – as had to put up in dark/gail force wind etc.
4. Buy a tent with colour coded supports
Finally. Advice that avoids killing implements and doesn’t look like it’s been passed to me via Myra Hindley and a spiritual guide. Hurray.
The ‘etc’ hinted to me that this gem of knowledge has been passed on by The Boyfriend, who had been the one putting up the tent in these ‘gale force winds’ , no doubt as my mum made sympathetic noises from behind a thermos and a copy of She magazine.
Alas, good advice it is, color coded supports then are the way to go. And from my own experience, (festivals) any kind of distinguishing features are a good thing.
In a sea of khaki, tired, you have a choice of setting up squatter’s rights in someone’s tent until they turf you out, sleeping on the ground, or Travelodge.
Guess which one I chose..
5. Listen to Christmas Hints. Even In October.
The email rattled on for a bit, and I skimmed, catching words like ‘peg’ ‘knickers’ and ‘wee’ that I don’t want to read again. These were interspersed with lots of Christmas gift hints, which were about as subtle as being smashed in the face with portable camping gas-
We saw a wonderful camp fire on legs thing – chimneria??? (Read: I WANT ONE)
I will tell you about the young things who camped next to us….. lots of Orla Keirly tents (Read: I WANT ONE).
7. Sometimes being nosy is a good thing
My mum, unwittingly, did come up with a sentence that sums upthe nature of camping and humanity as a whole. Lucky, that.
Liked communal washing up areas, very sociable and interesting looking at other peoples camping crockery (or is that just me?? yes, suppose it is)
The idea of a communal washing up area as a novelty, seemed laughable in a deeper sense, in that at the heart of it, we are all sociable beasts, created be it by a higher force or something Richard Dawkins would approve of, like evolution, into a wonderful race, full of potential and atoms that link us, as they say- not only to Julius Cesar- but to each other.
And as humans, as a society in general, camping was once, for all of us ‘life’, before we set up home, rid ourselves of nomadic tendencies and settled in communities. We should use camping as a way of getting back into nature, exploring old rituals, meeting new people, stepping out of our territorial ways and shedding our desire to ‘Keep up with Jones’s.’ At the core of all of us, camping is where we came from, and where we should return for a degree of inner peace.
And then this:
Electric hook up meant I could take my GHDs thank god.
Which indicates that we evolved for good reason, and if your hair’s not good, you can scrap harmony and world peace, and get busy finding a plug socket.
Happy camping.
