The weather.
We really do obsess with the weather, us British folk. On Friday it was beautiful - by the evening, us mums who had forgotten to put sun tan lotion on ourselves were glowing, sporting red noses and strap marks. However there was a figurative black cloud hanging over us the next day, which eventually turned to - literal - rain. There was moaning, wailing - what would we do now? People's tents leaked, the earth turned to a soggy mush, some had to go home.
But what tickled me was the way the men (and me, I won't lie, I did hover around them), crowded round the weather app of the occasional phone which had signal. One minute it was looking bad...we were all about ready to pack up and go home on the Sunday. The next moment there was a 95 percent chance of it being sunny...we were staying til Monday. Brilliant. Nothing brings a group of random folks together like the weather!
Rounders.
Oh I love a game of rounders. I look like the biggest wally when I run but man, I have fun. My kids got ignored for a whole hour, my husband and I nearly came to fisticuffs when he tapped me "out" on the fourth base, and I think there was dog poo and kids with spades, but no-one really noticed. (Probably because they were laughing too much at me running.)
I laughed a lot and nearly wee'd myself in the process.
The laughs.
Ok there were a lot of laughs. Picture this. A group of men standing around the broken car of a damsel in distress, (late at night, a couple of campers snoring loudly), when a wife (we'll call her Cath) of one of the men (we'll call him Alessandro) sneaks up and pinches his bum. She hides. This man (Alessandro) looks at the man standing next to him, crossly. The man (we'll call him Simeon) grins at him and nods his head knowingly (who is, naturally, referring to the snoring). The husband, Alessandro, gets more annoyed at the man, Simeon, who even says "I know". They stare at each other for some time, one smiling, one grimacing. The wife, Cath, pops up and laughs, breaking the tension. But now Alessandro has trust issues with Simeon and the two of them have to be chaperoned wherever they go.
I laughed about this so hard the next day I was silently weeping.
Camping was such good fun. I missed my camping family when I got home...I missed Tony shouting "Yes Fitch", I missed scavenging for food (because I'd forgotten most the essentials) and I even missed the long old walk to the toilet. Until next year......
