We decided to go camping last weekend with Denise, Tom and Hannah. Denise chose a lovely campsite near Lynton and Lynmouth called Channel View Camping and Caravan site and off we all went on Friday afternoon. Somehow against all the odds we managed to get everything in the car (we did have to go through everything and pick out stuff we definitely could do without and it took us 3 days to pack the car!) and after packing Harry in his car seat alongside everything else, we set off to pick Andy up from work. Normally we go with our usual group of friends so it doesn't matter so much. We just stuff bits in other people's cars but because Denise and Tom were coming down from Meriden we had to be brutal in our packing.
The plan was to meet them at the campsite. They were going to be leaving a couple of hours before us so we asked them to get us a big pitch. However they left an hour later than they planned and we left earlier so as luck would have it we met them at the services just past Weston-Super-Mare. We decided to follow Denise and Tom and after 2 or 3 detours and quite a few muppets on a not very to easy to overtake road we got to the campsite about 7.30pm. Not great when it's ridiculously windy and you have 2 tents to put up, a baby to feed and a toddler running off every 5 seconds. We finally put children to bed and had our tea in the dark about 10pm. Thinking everything was ok we were looking forward to bed both of us being completely knackered. But oh no, because as bad luck would have it, the combination of us talking outside the tent, the tent pitched on a slope so he kept rolling to the bottom of the travel cot and it being bloody windy, the boy woke up about 10.45 and wouldn't go back to sleep screaming the tent down. Mum and dad being very very tired and cold bundled him into the car and went off for a drive with the heater on full blast. Harry didn't sleep but we were very tempted to sleep in the car. However it didn't come to that and when we finally got out of the car and put Harry in his cot he drifted off to sleep...bless! He did the same thing the next night but he went back to sleep about 11pm, woke again about 5am and lucky for him got to share mum and dad's double sleeping bag - a tight squeeze I can tell you.
You'd think camping in August based on the previous few weeks weather would be fine so we omitted to take our ski jackets and the like. Oh how stupid we were. We wore the same clothes for the whole weekend because they were the only warm clothes we had. Harry was ok because when it comes to packing I always have to make sure he has 3 times as much stuff as he needs and we just try to pack the bare minimum so it fits in the car.
Overall the trip was good. It was really nice to spend some time with Denise, Tom and Hannah, and we went to a part of Devon that I have never been to before. The scenery was very very dramatic, more like Wales or the Lake District, and I had a really good cream tea - that made it all worth while.
Moral of the story, don't pitch your tent on a slope on top of a headland facing the wind unless you want no sleep ever. Oh and we need a bigger car!
