I like to think that I'm a bit of a seasoned camper now. I've certainly been enough times that I know what I'm doing and perhaps most importantly I know what I think I need to take with me. I know that when we started out camping understanding what kit to buy and take with us was one of the hardest things. I even blogged about how we had what we thought was all the kit, but absolutely no idea if it was what we needed or not. With summer here again, I keep finding myself being asked for advice on what you should take camping so I thought it time to pull it all together into one blog post ... read more
Wine and Wigwams – more WI summer fun
Almost a year to the day since my WI story stepped up a gear it was time to again get the tent out, but this time I wasn't heading as far as Nottinghamshire (Tea and Tents is taking a year off this year, much like Glastonbury does when the organisers feel the need to put their feet up for a bit). Instead I was heading to a farm in Ware, Hertfordshire, for the Hertfordshire Federation of Women's Institutes (HFWI) take on Tea and Tents - Wine and Wigwams.I should probably come clean here and tell you that technically I was on the organising committee of Wine and Wigwams, but with life and loads ... read more
Blue Skies Campsite – Wells-Next-The-Sea, Norfolk
I briefly mentioned our latest family camping trip in a recent review post on here (the Discovery Kids Digital Walkie Talkies, if you're interested), but it is a trip that deserves more than one blog post if I'm honest. We'd been meaning to return to Norfolk for ages, and were determined that this time we'd be taking our tent with us. Our last trip to the area was a last minute stay in a holiday cottage and we'd loved the area so much that we were keen to return. Wells-Next-The-Sea is a lovely little place and we wanted to go back and spend more time there so we set out to look for a campsite ... read more
Discovery Kids Digital Walkie Talkies
With a year's family camping experience under our belt now we've learnt quite a bit about what sorts of things we should take with us on camping trips. Everything from a dust pan and brush to washing pegs. We've also learnt a fair bit about camping with children and in particular how the kids want to go and explore as much of the campsite as possible, yet it can at times be a bit hard to keep tabs on where they are, especially if on a large campsite. What we had spotted was lots of children having walkie talkies, either to talk to each other, or for their parents to be able to summon them back ... read more
My inspiring WI Summer
Yes, I know it's October. And mid-October at that, but I'm still catching up with the very, very long list of things that have been going on in my life that I want to capture here. In a way the summer seems like it was a life-time ago, but strangely it also feels like only a couple of days since it started. And boy did the summer start with a bit of a bang! I've blogged several times on here about the things that I've been getting up to at the lovely Herts Belles WI group that I joined here in St Albans a couple of years ago. Up until earlier this year though I only really went along to ... read more
Camping for real
With our trial run over Spring Bank half term saw us head off on our first proper camping trip as a family. This time we didn't have the luxury of our warm dry beds being just 20 minutes away. No, this time it was a proper family holiday. We decided to head up to Derbyshire and after reading about it on a couple of websites selected Callow Top as our base for three nights. I lived not too far from Derbyshire for most of my childhood and there were loads of local places that I wanted to revisit with the family and the convenience of it only being a couple of hours up the M1 made it an ... read more
Our first family camping experience
One thing I've learnt from seasoned camping friends is to do a trial run before a first camping holiday. Something local where you get to test out your tent and other camping equipment and also make sure that the kids don't totally hate the whole concept of camping. With a proper camping holiday planned for part of May half term I figured that we needed something before that so St George's day was booked in as the perfect opportunity for us to have a trial run. Mr C and I have both camped before, but not for years and we don't think we've ever camped together. It was also going to be the ... read more
Camping – nearly all the gear and absolutely no idea
I'm sat here writing this on the eve of our very first family camping trip. We're planning to go away in Spring Bank week (end of May) but in an attempt to be really organised when I joined the Camping and Caravanning Club (which lots of seasoned camping friends recommended we do) I also found out where our nearest site was and booked us in for one night. And that night is tomorrow! Argh!!!!! The logic was that I wanted a practice run before our first proper camping holiday. It'll be the first time the kids have ever camped, and the first time we've used our new tent, so we figured that if ... read more
Have tent, will camp
It seems like a lifetime ago that I blogged all about how we were on a quest to buy a tent and become campers. So much has happened since then that it seemed like it was time for a little update. I'm delighted to say that we are now the very proud owners of a family tent - after spending crazy amounts of time researching tents and camping equipment and spending our weekends dragging the kids round camping shops across the south east. The big tent purchase came though after a trip up to the NEC to the Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show on Mr C's birthday - we know how to celebrate a ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Learnabout Camping
I couldn't really feature any other Ladybird book after last week's blog post, could I? Learnabout Camping is one of the later books in the Learnabout series (series 634) and was first published in 1977. The thing which sets it aside a bit from some of the other Learnabout books that I've featured here before, is the inclusion of cartoons like the one on the cover. Whilst the book contains the typical Ladybird illustrations (this time by Eric Winter) there are also a series of cartoons by Martin Aitchison dotted throughout the book. These are very different in style to the illustrations ... read more