Around the Campfire

Camp NCT, Derbyshire, 24th - 26th June 2016

Highs: the teacher training day which meant we could get on the road early, good weather (despite the wet forecast), beautiful, craggy scenery, long walks, children running free, bacon sandwiches, toasted marshmallows, wine around the campfire, but most importantly friends - dear, life long friends - (including some who recently moved to Australia but were back visiting), and laughter, chatting, hugs, children and adults all picking up where we left off last year, catching up with each other, talking long into the night. 

Lows: Brexit shock, the journey, feeling cold at night. That's it. The rest was amazing and the feeling of being with my kindred spirits kept me warm all week long when we were back at work and in reality. 

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"Camp NCT" is our name for an annual camping tradition that has grown over the last five years and become an event that keeps a group of us in touch. Previous years are here:

2015 - when we camped for the first time, in the same place near Ashbourne in Derbyshire.
2014 - sleeping in a pod in Pateley Bridge, Yorkshire.
2013 - visiting for the day in Appletreewick, Yorkshire.
2012 - Pateley Bridge again, when the children were really small. 

Coming up for ten years ago, we all met at our local NCT coffee morning in Leeds, hence the name. Our NCT days are long over now and many of us have moved away from Leeds, but the connections remain and there were nine families there that weekend. The friendships we form when our children are young are often enduring. If you have children, are you still in touch with those people you met when your babies were small and new?

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Sorry for the absence. I missed you all, but I needed to take a little blogging break for a while there. I had everything to say, and also nothing at all. Recent political events in the UK left me first shocked, then angry (not with those who voted differently to me, but with the behaviour and actions of our politicians), then just downright depressed. Not depressed in the mental health sense of the word, but just disappointed and weary. Flattened. Also, I am so very tired. I've been on antibiotics for the last two weeks and I don't think they've agreed with me, and work is exceptionally busy at the moment. But, I am coming out of it now; life goes on and there is a summer out there, ready to be enjoyed. 

This Is Why We Have Weekends

We spent this last weekend camping in Derbyshire with our friends from Leeds and it was completely glorious. I am still floating.

We drove up after school and work on Friday night, arriving at about 9.30pm with just - just! - enough daylight left to put the tent up. It was a mad rush and a nightmare journey which included us having to turn back due to a road closure and pull over on the hard shoulder because something was flapping out of the top box on the car roof. But Saturday morning dawned bright and warm, just as you'd want it too, and we ate breakfast outside. With our friends, all 28 of us embarked on a walk in the countryside surrounding the campsite. After a few hours some of us peeled off and went back for lunch, others stayed and walked longer. I spent the afternoon lazing around in a meadow with magazines and drinks, chatting about this and that. It was too hot to work on the crochet I'd brought with me. As the sun dropped, fires were lit and more bottles opened. Someone had the good sense to bring Pimms. The children who'd been largely absent and feral for most of the day, coming back only for food, returned filthy and suntanned, ready to toast marshmallows. 

There was a perfect moment when the sun was setting, when the atmosphere was convival and easy and warm, which I wanted to go on for ever.  One of those rare and magical moments where time is suspended. Happy children, happy adults. Food, drink, warmth, laughter, friendship. This is why we have weekends. And fire pits.

Of course it rained on Sunday morning and so we had to pack up a damp tent, and the journey home was long, and the washing mountain is huge, and we are all very tired. And all the jobs I would've done over the weekend didn't get done, so I'm playing catch up there as well. But was it worth it, just to sit in that meadow with our friends for a few hours? Absolutely.

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Doesn't my crocheted blanket look at home in that tent? I was glad of it's warmth this weekend for, while days were largely sunny, the nights were still cool. It's too nice to be folded on the back of a chair, it needs to go on my bed and so, as some of you suggested, I'm going to buy some more yarn and crochet some more rounds on the border. But not any time soon, because it looks like warm weather is coming. YAY!  (Shh, don't say it out loud, it'll get scared and run away and normal British Summer will resume.) It's time to get out the paddling pool.

I ♥ Camping

Something rather remarkable occurred in the Yorkshire Dales over the weekend. John and I got bitten. Not by the midges (and there were plenty of those) but by the camping bug. I've always said I don't mind camping, but, if there's a choice, I'll take walls and a roof over canvas any day. (I should point out that we haven't camped in 15 years, not since we slept in a tiny two man tent on someone's farm in Cornwall to watch the eclipse in August 1999.) But we had such a wonderful weekend with our friends, on a really lovely campsite near Pateley Bridge, that we thought hmm, maybe we can do camping after all. Maybe all our pro-camping friends are onto something.

When we arrived on Saturday lunchtime is was raining a little and it was all rather cold and bleak, with that kind of heavy, grey sky I dislike so much.

We weren't thrilled, to be honest, and I was glad we had no tent to put up, as we were sleeping in a "pod".

It's a fabulous idea. Small and basic inside, with two single bed frames and room for a double mattress, it has electricity*, a kettle and a useful things like a water canister, picnic bench and fire pit. You bring your own mattresses and bedding, and I wasted no time making it look pretty.

It was comforting to know that, no matter how much it  might rain outside, we would be snug. 

After a cup of tea we walked down to the river that runs through the campsite and spent a while down there. I say a while but it was all afternoon, I think. Time seemed to stand still. We were a large party, about 20 adults and 20 children, all families we've known for years. We met through the NCT when all our eldest children were babies or toddlers and, 8 years on, still like each other. 

It was so gloomy down there, with no sunlight to filter through the trees, and it was all very lush and still. 

Beautiful wildflowers were everywhere you looked.

There was a lot of clambering and paddling fun to be had in the (cold) water. A lot of the kids were in wetsuits and were having a great time.

 Bella, like me, preferred to watch from the riverbank.

The clouds parted as the evening wore on and we lit the barbecue and opened the wine.

The kids finally went to bed very late - I've actually no idea when, time just seems to pass when you're camping with no routine to ground you - but not until they'd listened to stories around the campfire. We all sat outside until even later. It was pretty cold and I was glad of the fires.

We woke to a beautiful sight on Sunday morning:

I mean, how can you not be happy and glad to be alive when you see those hills, the spectacular beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, and that blue sky. Nothing more to think about than the task in front of you. Boil kettle. Find mugs, Make coffee. We had breakfast (rolls, butter and jam because it was easy) and I was glad I'd remembered the cafetiere. 

And I think it was at about that moment that I had my mini-epiphany and thought that, actually, me and camping might be friends after all.

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*Although there is electricity there is no wifi, which was fine with me. Also, since it's in the middle of nowhere, there is no phone signal either!