Brief essays inspired by family camping
It’s the beginning of Bank Holiday weekend and the traffic into Dorset crawls past accident after accident. On the verge and in the central reservation, the beautiful dandy faces of cars faces have been bashed ugly, as if set upon by jealous brutes. The unlucky participants stand around dazed, compressing bumps and scrapes with...
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Math recently acquired a portable barbeque, the Weber Charcoal Go-Anywhere Grill. It has a pleasingly vintage shape, and is solidly constructed. We spent an afternoon at Homebase checking out the other portable barbecues, all of which felt rather neurotic and liable to fall apart in a complete collapse of nerve. The Weber has a...
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The BBC weather forecast is like my mother: it fears the worst. Some of the most beautiful weekends of my life were – as far as the BBC was concerned – big black clouds. I wonder if their weather predictions intentionally err on the side of caution to leave them less open to blame...
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Follow the track down into a clearing in the wood and there is a stage, a barbecue and the makings of a bonfire. On that stage, a young Amy Winehouse-lookalike in leopard-print dress, high black belt and fake tattoos is working through the hits with more precision than Amy herself can muster, these days....
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I woke up this morning on the floor of a Hackney flat overlooking London Fields. As I lay there, mind churning to restart, I considered the question of where to pitch a tent. On level ground free of stones or roots, with soil that is not so boggy as to indicate risk of flooding....
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The rule that there is always another island first struck me on the isle of Arran, which is further south than the Western Isles, directly west from Glasgow in Argyll. While staying in the southernmost pincer of Lamlash Bay on Arran, I looked out at the enormous hump of Holy Island, (not to be...
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The vision of an island, coming out of the fog as you approach it by boat, or surveyed from a beach on the mainland, is alluring. What is the promise of an island? Isolation? Certainly contemporary fears stoke in all our hearts a secret desire to hide away, with a good few miles of...
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Yesterday I met up with the neighbours for drinks. Talk turned to summer plans and I mentioned our intention to spend the whole season camping. The recession has introduced a natural break into my working life. I will seize the chance to live more freely, at least until the leaves turn in Autumn. On...
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The Met Office predicts that Britain is in for a hot dry summer: “Summer temperatures across the UK are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer.” After the wash-out summers of 2007/08, in which July and August were monsoon season, this is welcome...
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Tent reviews
We went for a stroll around a camping fair held in a field at the back of Middle Farm, near Lewes. Dozens of tents were pitched for the inspection of prospective buyers, from the Vango Dart 200 – a pop-up festival tent – to the enormous Wolf Lake 7, a grand’s worth of polycotton...
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