The campsite is at the end of a winding woodland path, necessitating a twenty minute trek pushing your kit in a wheelbarrow. I have no wheelbarrow skills, never having worked on a building site, and it was only last weekend when I barrowed my kit across the entire length of Glastonbury that I discovered the trick of tying all your gear together and then securing the heaped bundle to the barrow with an X of rope. So I made more of a meal of this task at Dernwood than was necessary.

The allure of wild camping is freedom. Freedom to have a campfire, freedom to arrange your camp as you see fit. And there is plenty of freedom at Dernwood. Our party consisted of a dozen adults and a dozen children, so the pitch-where-you-like system meant we could circle our wagons as we pleased.

My campfire skills are basic. I set bricks around a shallow fire pit, and sparked up the logs. The job of building and maintaining this fire was quickly taken up by two more experienced firebugs, and soon they were prepping wood, and erecting an ad-hoc cooking tripod from cast-iron lantern stands. The sight of iron and fire made my heart leap, and the boys crowded around the men, fascinated by this primal display.

Wild camping demands responsibility, especially when it comes to waste. At Dernwood Farm, I barrowed everyone’s rubbish back to the recycling bins at the entrance. When you spend the best part of an hour “putting the bins out” you are confronted with the fact of your own consumption. All that thoughtlessly acquired packaging at the supermarket comes back to haunt you. Most wild camping sites make no provision for rubbish. You are expected to take it away with you, and this is something to consider when you are loading up.

The facilities at Dernwood Farm stretch to a single WC toilet and water pipe. Check in at the farm on your way in to pay for your pitch and firewood. They also have freezers of their meat for sale.

At sunset, Cloud Farm staged a spectacular display of Gavs: a low mauve cloudscape gathered underneath a spectrum of purples enlivened with a streak of red

Of all the places we camped that rainy August, Cloud Farm was my favourite, and I will return. Like all good sites, you are encouraged to park away from the tents, only driving down to pitch or pack up. There was a good shop stocked with real ale and a cafe that the locals spoke warmly about. We wandered down to a pair of small fields and pitched beside a river, which was fenced off from our inquiring toddlers. Snug between the flanks of the valley, I set a fire. The last time I saw Tom, he demonstrated his device for checking the moisture level in logs; the Cloud Farm shop sold some wickedly dry wood, and soon I was roasting marshmellows over its uninhibited dancing flames.
I spent most of my twenties working and writing for The Idler. As Deputy Editor, I was part of a trio consisting of Tom, myself and art director and co-founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Matthew De Abaitua and Tom Hodgkinson of The Idler

Situated in Clerkenwell in the 1990s and the fun bit of the new millennium, we took full advantage of the city. Since those happy carefree days, each of us has sought out an individual vision of the English pastoral: while I beaver away on a book about camping, Tom’s bestseller How To Be Free posits a way of life that draws on medievalism and rural self-sufficiency; Gavin has enjoyed such international success with his Cloudspotting books that I can no longer gaze up at the clouds without thinking of him. My daughter even calls clouds “Gavs”.

At sunset, Cloud Farm staged a spectacular display of Gavs: a low mauve cloudscape gathered underneath a spectrum of purples enlivened with a streak of red. Purple is the colour of inbetween, the veil between reality and imagination, day and night. For a moment, I was transported out of my immediate responsibilities, that carousel of Dad Tasks, and experienced a sense of well-being that lasted until the sun went down; the silent knowing wisdom of idleness about which we had spent our hectic twenties extolling, but rarely experiencing.

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Keswick, 1968

We pitch our tents far apart so that our hearts may stay closer together

Back in the Hackney flat, I rose and dressed, and took the liberty of making myself a cup of tea. The previous evening I had broken the cardinal rule of pitching – I had set my bed in the dark. The arrangement of sofa cushions, bust sleeping bag and empty cans of lager did not represent best practise. My host remained in bed. On the balcony I drank a brew and watched the school run. Three children in yellow safety helmets rode bikes of descending size behind their mother. A brother and sister hurried to make the bell but still did not let go of one another’s hands.

In my mind, I addressed these youngsters with the self-satisfaction of experience:
Don’t pitch your tent within sight of the pyramid stage, I thought. You’ll regret it.
Don’t pitch your tent next to the bonfire, unless you like to fall asleep to the sound of bongos and conspiracy theories concerning contrails.
Don’t pitch your tent right next door to your friends.

There is a Bedouin proverb: we pitch our tents far apart so that our hearts may stay closer together. Far apart so that the sound of their snoring will not disturb. Far apart so that the first thing you see in the morning is not their battered hungover face as it emerges from the tent to verify suspicions about the weather. And, most crucially, far apart so that we are spared the hell of one another domestic routines. No-one should have to listen to me harrying the children into line. No-one should have to listen to Cath and I debate breakfast, the constant exchange of banal information required to keep the family on target. Let us get our shit together before we are expected to be social. Let me at least wash my face.

We are both currently off the treadmill of regular paid employment, as is the fashion this season

I often cite this Bedouin proverb when friends suggest renting a cottage together. Regardless of everyone’s good intentions, such holidays have an undertone of passive aggressive negotiation about differing domestic standards. Families can’t share kitchens. Camping is better – let us come together around the ancient brotherhood of a campfire, rather than around a dining table, with its baggage of bourgeois food performance anxiety and over-familiar topics of conversation.

Nine o’clock came and went. My host remained in bed. We are both currently off the treadmill of regular paid employment, as is the fashion this season. Still, I had an appointment to keep with a job I once had. A job that I meet now and again for coffee: the final negotiations in the break-up of a long-term relationship. I called up the stairs to thank my host for his hospitality but he was asleep. So I packed up the sleeping bag, restored the sofa cushions to their place, and crushed up the empty cans and placed them in the recycling. How you strike camp is as important as how you pitch it. One simple rule applies. Leave No Trace. I opened the windows to air the room and thus I left it just as I had found it.