So We Went Camping, Also Known As I Learned Something About Myself
We went camping.
As you know.
We bought a great big fuck-off tent, which we assembled in the back garden prior to going because we didn’t want to look like newbie assholes.
(That’s Jeff in the background. Jeff is fab. Jeff’s face is also not going to be shown here, which you probably also know.)
It’s a good thing we did erect the tent at home, because holy hell was it complicated.
I booked a ferry trip to the Isle of Wight (a little island off the southern coast of Hampshire), where we have been camping for the weekend. After an uneventful ferry ride, we arrived at the campsite – 2 adults, 1 teen, 2 toddlers, and one very excited dog, plus a car packed to the gills with all kinds of camping gear.
Luckily we had some supervisory help while Jeff, Alastair and I pitched the tent.
We chose the site because it sounded lovely – in the travelling scheme of things, we’re Rough Guide people, and the Rough Guide to Camping in Britain recommended this site. The site did not disappoint, which is why we chose a pitch with the best view ever.
And our tent had the best location (luckily that’s not a straight cliff edge just there. I have a paralyzing fear of losing all the members of my family, and as a result am not ok with cliff edges, as one who is both paranoid and – let’s be honest – practical – behaves.)
Inside, we had three “bedrooms”.
And inside, we made ourselves at home.
And two little people had their own “bed in a bag” – inflatable mattresses complete with sewn-in sleeping bags. Their excitement was indescribable.
And the time there was fabulous. We didn’t do much apart from what we wanted, including time in the sea.
For all of us, that is.
Sunsets.
Sleeping when we needed to (for the record, sleeping with a snoozing Nora is wonderful. Honestly.)
And driving the occasional tractor.
You know – as you do.
And I walked to the reception every day with my washing up bowl of dishes and my thoughts, and as I walked I realized something – we were on a campsite full of families. Families with children of all ages, families with dogs of all breeds, just lots of families. And as I walked to the dish-washing site, I would look at the people around me. I realized something pretty fundamental there, actually – I realized I had hit a new stage in my life.
There I was, camping with my gorgeous family and my gorgeous dog in our gorgeous tent. The tent was from eBay, in fact, it was rather horrifyingly to those in the know a 2009 model, but it was brand new, never used, and it was a great deal. And I bought it because it was a great deal and because it came with an additional groundsheet and – I’ll be honest here – an indoor carpet. That’s right. I bought a tent with a carpet. When we toured a showroom, we found the carpets to be miles more comfortable than tents without one. So I saved us a packet by buying a complete set online for a ridiculous price that made me wonder initially if it was a mistake, but I bought it.
There we were, with our three kids and a dog (mutt, adopted from the RSPCA). We came in our posh (eBay) tent. We went to the nice Isle of Wight. I watched the other mothers march to the kitchen washing up place, with their quirky Wellies and their Boden cardies and their make-up free faces with casual short hairstyles, and I realized that I was camping amongst the Sloanies, the type of women who had posh educations and now drive Chelsea Tractors, the women who have children named Sage and Oliver and Isabella, whose husbands have curly hair and rugby shirts and linen shorts that never seem creased that hold iPhones with speed dials to work and to the garage that houses their company 10 Reg BMW.
I thought about this, while I washed dishes.
I have a number of Boden clothes myself (their sales are fabulous as are their clothes, although I hate the fact that they run one size too small, it always makes me feel like starving myself again.) I have quirky Wellies. I don’t drive a Chelsea Tractor, we in fact have a company car and a 10 year old minivan, but still. There I was, doing the washing up in my Abercrombie sweatshirt (eBay again), with my Gap flip flops and my Calvin Klein shorts (yes, those were real, bought 12 years ago in NC when I was making money hand over fist. Those old shorts, sadly, didn’t make it back home again, they gave all the life that there was to give.) Here were women who typified Sloane – families, monies, posh camping (called “glamping”), sparkly children and immaculate lives, and here was I – a few levels down, that’s for sure, but swanning around in this same world. It troubled me, a bit, but then I took it for being what it was – I was simply camping. Camping is, perhaps, the new black.
So I relaxed and enjoyed it. I was not alone in enjoying it.
We pet goats, we went on trains, and one very excited little boy got his first trip on a double decker bus.
I decided not to dwell on what my decidedly red inclinations meant. I went with it. We have a tent. We have two little people who love the tent.
And we have all returned greatly knackered, with a small case of gastroenteritis, and the small wonderings of what a girl who grew up fairly poor with a military background and a life she doesn’t quite understand but she tells herself that sometimes, a tent is just a tent. That’s maybe for another day. The socio-economic angst-like navel gazing can wait. For now, I need a new pair of Wellies.
-S.
1) THANK GOD it’s not just me that think Boden is Bloody Unforgiving.
2) A tent pitched on the cliff edge? You must have had a hell of a lot of wind noise (no pun intended) as part of your amazing view.
3) It’ll be a caravan next. Betcha.
You know, just because you enjoy the same things that the ultra-pretentious people do doesn’t make you pretentious. Odds are they’re there because it’s what they’re supposed to do, while you’re there because it’s fun.
Love love love love your hair like that.
It looks like you had a fantastic time!! What a fantastic camping site! Thank you ever so much for the links on the vocabulary, I feel so out of the loop here in America.
Looks like a fantastic time, and what a beautiful site.
A tent really is just a tent, even if it has carpet. No need to justify anything to us babe, and I hope you don’t feel the need to justify it to yourself either.
Oh what fun! Camping! Looks like a great time. The Isle of Wight looks absolutely beautiful, must add it to my list now.. :)
I have a hard time picturing camping as anything glamorous, no matter how awesome the tent. Perhaps it is because that is what all of our family vacations consisted of growing up. I rather think any navel-gazing angst can be safely saved for something else.
Freaking awesome tent, and even more awesome view!
Looks wondrous. And gives me hope that I can one day take my twins camping. I know what you mean though- what is it about tents that inspires introspection? Maybe it’s the whole stripped down thing, who knows. I love camping, used to go all the time with my husband, yet every trip we would always forget some vital piece of equipment. Like the tent. We totally forgot the tent once, and had to sleep on a rock. You can tell I’m not posh! Anyway, that trip was still a blast–flat rocks are surprisingly comfortable, and you can’t beat sleeping under the stars.
loved this – rang true with me in many ways as I often feel out of place yet comfortably camouflaged living in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, wondering if I somehow just grew to become right here. So strange.
You have summed up exactly how I want my camping experience (next week!) to go! And you have the same tent as us (bought on ebay too!. It looked gorgeous. And the kids slept -which I hope my 2 and 6 yo will do!!
BNMx
I have never wanted to go camping (glamping) more in my life! I thought I was done with all that. :)
Tents have sure changed a lot since I was a kid. My family went camping with this monstrous eight-person old Army tent that didn’t have a bottom. Then they came out with dome tents and we started using those.
FWIW, my dad the hardcore camper would have LOVED that tent.
So pleased you had a great time! We are going camping for the first time next week and our tent has a carpet…only dippy husband bought the brown carpet instead of the green one that matches the tent. The shame!
I too love your hair like that!
It just all looks so blissful.
And I bet you were the most interesting people to chat to on the entire camp-site.
(I get these weird feelings of displacement at consorting with the Sages and Isabellas and rugby-shirts all the time, and I actually AM a middle-class posho (but can’t fit my chestage into Boden, damn them). But then, we cheated and lived without running water or mains electricity for a chunk of my childhood because we were all Being Hippies and Playing at Self-Sufficiency. No idea where I’m going with this comment. Umm).
Sounds like you had loads of fun…by the way, I think Gorby is not a mutt at all, he certainly looks like a Border Collie to me. At least there was one there someplace in order for him to have the markings (tail dipped in white paint) that he has. He’s lovely no matter what…
I don’t understand “glamping” any more than I understand camping, or rather, their appeal. I’m not as much of a J.A.P. as my father claims, but I do have a strict “no-camping” policy. I tried it once. It didn’t go well. But if you guys enjoyed yourselves, power to you. And that is an awesome tent. It reminds me of the wizard tents in “Harry Potter” that expand to be split-level houses.
“Glamping”. That’s pretty funny. I was just wondering: where’s the Air Conditioning unit for the tent? :)
We live surrounded by mountains … the altitude makes for perfect camping sites. The trouble is, the only tent we own is actually mine, and it was bought for me as a toddler when I asked Santa for “a tent with stained-glass windows.” (I got the tent, but he failed on the stained-glass windows part.) As in, it’s only about 7 feet square and that’s IT. We once tried to fit three people in it … that did not go so well. So we don’t really camp. And definitely not glamp.
But I have this theory that basically, however you grew up, that’s how your comfortable, even later in life. As a child, I went to the “posh school” in town, we lived in a house in the suburbs, and in the summers we went back to Britain and I went to an all-girls’ boarding school. (I was a day girl though …) I’m sure I’m comfortable in some bizarre situations — like, for example, I’m comfortable interacting with posh British girls in a private boarding school. But cocktail parties? I can’t handle. Usually I’m there as part of the musician group, and I’m dressed like I belong, but I feel like I don’t … because that’s not the world I was raised to be part of.
And I recently started working (well, interning. I’m a youngun) for a place that actually has offices! and all this other stuff. I mean, I work at a place where my coworkers and I have office parties. Where we work together and problem solve and generally use our brains. Where there’s office gossip and an office kitchen and where we have volunteers and I tell them what to do. Where we are all casual and relaxed and flexible, so I stroll in around 11am and leave when my work is over. And it’s just so weird to me. I keep having flashes where I’m like “I work in an office!!” and I kind of can’t get over it, even though it’s been long enough that it should just be my life now. It’s just weird to me. *shakes head* I’m not really sure where I was going with this either. I’ll stop now …