A Few Photos of our Last Camping Holiday

I know you can't really see any photos of tents and that's what camping is all about really, isn't it? But our photographer, aka the Chauffeur, doesn't actually do photographs all that well. These are the pic of the best. 

But it was all fun, though, and that's what matters. A nice enough site with a lovely tea room in a large old house serving enormous cream teas with lashing of cream and jam for the homemade scones, is a good feature for this site. Plus it has reasonably good washroom facilities. The showers (two, to be shared between the sexes) in the same converted barn as the sinks for cleaning teeth etc, which is partitioned off from the sinks for washing the dishes. This, for us, is a step up from the converted '70s caravan with tiny sink and toilet added in to it, in our usual site.

The main problem with this site is the noise. The camp site is split into two with the section we stay in next to a road. At night the car noises are amplified. It is also near a busily running stream. One friend was discussing the night noises with me and another friend. She talked about the road, water, and the other friend brought up the loudest dawn chorus which we agreed was louder than any we'd ever heard before. But she also brought up the noise of the men - Snoring. Hmm. I had to agree. We both had partners snoring on one side of us, and there was also several other men in our company doing the same which can be heard clearly at night with only canvas walls between us, Snoring in Stereo as she succinctly put it, yes, absolutely - of course we ladies don't do that, do we??

Another interesting feature of this site is that at the other end of the fields is the oldest river swimming club in Europe. People come from miles around to swim in it. The weather was exceedingly good while we were there, as it was last year too, and  so the field next to the diving boards was filled with picnickers and bathers. Shame we have no photo of it, maybe next time, but here's a link if you're interested

http://www.stowfordmanorfarm.co.uk/swimming.php

Anyway, here are the photos. Daughter # 2 and a friend in the holey dingy, apparently they got very wet when it leaked and sank.

Daughter # 1 walking past the Bell Tent belonging to some other friends. I am so envious as I have been after one for ages. We might stay in it at some point this Summer as the friends are living in their yurt and have this up next to them as their guest tent. Is she eating something? Looks like it, we do eat well while camping, plenty of food and plenty of hunger in the fresh air.

Little shot of D#2 outside our tent next to our cooker.

Wide shot. The people sat down are in front of our tent. Everyone always seems to come to ours as the communal one, no idea why, ours isn't the largest or even the nicest but they always gravitate to ours so there is always a semi circle of chairs around us which people sit and go off, return, etc, for the camp duration.

 Me and some others, well you got to have a photo of someone with a cup of tea - a staple at campsites. This one is me drinking it.

Camping is great and people are so friendly there. One incident to let you know how is that Daughter # 2 ran out of water when in the shower. I was drying my hair with my portable hairdryer while a couple of other people were queued waiting for their turn in the showers. I had no 50ps to give her to pop in the shower meter and was about to run all the way back up to get some more when the man in the next cubicle to her popped his head out of his door and offered me a 50p piece, and also some more shampoo as he'd heard her asking for that too. How nice, to stop his showering and do this with all those other people around (he did keep himself well covered up). I made sure to find him to return his money. Just an example of how everyone mucks in while camping, it's a real leveller.