Tag: Camping

Children, Life, Odysseus, Poetry

Keeping the home campfires burning

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April fools under canvas
Sunlit striking
Followed by lightning
Humans huddle
Around a smoky campfire
Back to basics
Hot and cold comforts
Austerity Britain
Keeping afloat with the Joneses
Unseasonal camping confirms
Keeping warm
With friends and family
Is all.

Despite my diffidence, we were early out of the traps for camping this year. Forecasts (realised) of thunder storms and temperatures of 2 degrees C were enough to deter six out of seven families on our first night – but not us.

Joined at midnight by family number two and then plucky three and four on the second day, it was initially very wet, then cold, then bright and breezy. In a man-made return to pre-history, a fire makes it bearable.

And once the kids are off to bed, with a glass of something warming in hand, there’s a camaraderie about camping which brings out the best in people. Everyone’s struggling a bit in this recession, but we’re keeping the home and camp fires burning.

Children, Life

Shower

20110718-105113.jpgMan – and woman – in the state of nature is not a pretty sight. Obsessed with feeding and drinking, scavenging for firewood, alternately soaked then sweating. Feral children career about, bumping and thumping each other. Sleep snatched fitfully as the elements do their worst. Not much contemplation here.

What, I ask myself, is the purpose of camping? I may never know. Csikszentmihalyi might posit a ‘rude’ form of ‘flow’. But I’m pretty sure Aristotle wouldn’t have rated it. Certainly not in England’s all too green, and, for much of this weekend, not very pleasant lands. Apparently there was a moment where the entire land surface of Great Britain was simultaneously being rained on. Certainly we were.

I found myself short of temper and shorter of humour. Only Dionysius with his warming grapes and a crackling campfire lifted my spirits. An extra thick sleeping bag and two angelic faces snoring next to me helped too. The family unit held together.

The high point was packing the tent. Both for the manly ‘flow’ I achieved as I dismantled, folded and rolled it and the several nods of recognition for getting it into its bag in one go. More though for what it signified – going home to civilisation.