Drip Drip Drip

Of course, camping begins with putting up the tents.  Tony swiftly put up his and Natali's tent with the methodical, cold blooded efficiency that makes him simultaneously both great and intensely annoying to go camping with.  As for me, well I did my best.  I got a fair way through my tent before I was required to ask for Natali's assistance which she provided along with lots of "humourous" jokes about my having erection difficulties.

Part (although by no means all) of my tent raising issues derived from an injured finger which after two weeks I am reluctantly accepting must be broken.  Thus my tent raising was punctuated by little whimpers of pain and frequent swearing.  This was irritating for me and must have been more so for my companions because as soon as the tents were up Tony grabbed my hand and taped the offending finger to its neighbour which I must admit is helping a lot.

Perhaps the most important element of camping, as it is on any holiday where they are present, is amusing the children.  The easiest way of amusing children is to attempt to kill them and not quite succeed.  Thus over the course of the weekend we tried to feed them to giant lizards, drown them in the ocean and bury them in mud. Jasmyn and Abigail found this delightful.  The other way to amuse children is to give them the opportunity to kill something else.  Which helps to explain why I spent much of the weekend on my hands and knees being bludgeoned with pillows by hysterically laughing four year olds.  This had the advantage of amusing Tony and Natali as well.

I cooked on Friday night and everybody was nice enough to say it was delicious and not actually spit the food out in my presence.  The gloomy weather ensured a near deserted camping group which was delightful.  Unfortunately Saturday turned into a day of unparalleled magnificence and we were awash with fellow campers by sundown.  Natali went running on Saturday morning so Tony took the kids to the shoreline and attempted bury them in mud while I recovered from a pillow induced concussion.  I joined them later using my lack of swimming gear as an excuse to avoid getting absolutely plastered in mud.  Jasmyn and Abigail were as happy as hippos which didn't stop them later invading the sanctity of my tent and hitting me with pillows all over again.

Spaghetti bolognese arrived on Saturday afternoon accompanied by Gemma a friend of Tony and Natali's.  Gemma was a little late and our pleasure at seeing her was prompted partly by concern for her well being but mainly because we hadn't brought any backup food in case she didn't arrive.  As the only person without ties or kin present I was pretty sure it would be me who got the short straw in any cannibalism lottery that might have taken place.

Sunday dawned bright and clear.  Tony and I looked at each other knowingly and we had the camp broken down in half an hour.  This enabled us to haul our stuff to the pier, catch the ferry back to Palm Beach and stuff everything in the car before the rain started falling.  After an early lunch we made a slightly damp procession home.  It occurs to me that we should try camping in drought affected areas.  We'd probably wind up saving a lot of farmers crops.