Mr Pretzel and the glowsticks

As we were packing up the KA with all our essential camping equipment, ranging from the tent and air bed to the whisky and camping kitchen, I realised that I we would need a minor miracle, or a trailer to transport all these ‘essentials’!

Somehow we got all the stuff in the back of the KA and we were heading to a campsite in York, this was third stay at this campsite and is now known as yorkenbury – in preparation for Glasto.

We were the only ones in the tenting field, which is just the way we like it! We set up the tent, had tea, then settled down with a few cans of cold brothers strawberry cider, the laptop and the film Goodfellas – living the camping dream! 

Linz doesn’t quite get the idea of canvas being thin, and everyone can hear everything, so as we were getting ourselves sorted to bed, linz was trying to plug her phone to her charge, and said quite loudly – just put it in, I immediately wondered what the sensible looking ‘caravan folks’ in the field behind us were thinking, followed by Linz telling me to ‘put your hands on me’ in a bid to defrost my frozen hands, this led to an innuendo bingo game that continued throughout the weekend!

We live in a really quiet area of Leeds, where there are very little noisy distractions or wake up calls, so imagine my delight at 4:50am that all the birds in the field decided to sing in unison! Oh the joys of sleeping outdoors! As we were awake nice and early, Linz cooked a breakfast of champions – bacon, sausage, mushrooms, egg and bread!

As Lulu and Darren were arriving later, as they were a wedding reception, we volunteered to take and put up their tent, (yes that was two tents in the KA) we set about putting the tent up and then the winds came! We managed to hang on to it, and put it up after a fashion. We also bring a gazebo in case it rains, so we all have somewhere to hang out. (Yes, thats 2 tents and a giant gazebo in the KA).

The wind picked up, so we headed to our tent, as I turned to check lulu’s tent and the gazebo, I saw the gazebo heading into the hedge, a mess of mangled metal tubing and guy ropes, luckily we managed to grab it, and force the metal poles back into shape, and ‘duck taped’ all the snapped plastic joints. Which leads me to think, is there anything that this magic tape can’t do? It comes with me on ever camping trip and glasto, and has helped fix things at home, including the green house – magic stuff!

Friday was a day waiting for arrivals, first up Kim and Si arrived about 1:30ish, which is a respectable time considering it was Si’s birthday on Thursday and a few beverages were sampled. Next up were Ant and Lellen, who had recently bought a new giant tent, so we all sat and watched them put it (Obviously we couldn’t help them , as when they are camping in Wales they won’t be able to do it on their own – that’s our excuse, and we are sticking to it!). The innuendo bingo continued with Ant putting up the flag pole, and other such comments and giggles. Finally, Darren and Lulu rock up after 10, as the wedding had overrun, but as their tent had been expertly put up, they got in the gazebo and joined the party.

As the rain set in, we all sat under our slightly battered gazebo, in our fisherman’s chairs drinking our warming alcohol – and obviously it was only for its warming properties that the alcohol was consumed..... by the end of the night, we had solar powered fairy lights adorning the battle scared gazebo, all the occupants wearing their glow stick glasses or rabbit ears.

During the night, there were several confessions, Lellen thought that Joseph Fritzl was in fact called Joseph Pretzel and was very near to texting Radio 5 about Mr Pretzel and his crimes, that Star Wars had a character called Dart Vader, and discussions of the song ‘there is a hole my bucket, dear Nigel’ and my personal favourite a quote from the film ghostbusters – who ya gonna call – blockbusters!

In conclusion, camping should always result in adults in hoodies, wearing glowsticks, muttering happily about the weather tomorrow and that it is not that cold.......