It has become a tradition amongst our group of friends to go either to a festival or camping at least one weekend every year. It keeps us young and it is a lot of fun. This year, we decided against the festival circuit since the tickets are expensive, sell out too quickly and we have already had a good year of gigs. We instead decided to go camping. This year, I did not organise it which was both a blessing (since I didn’t have to do anything) and a curse (since I didn’t have to so anything). We ended up at a campsite in South Wales near the Rhossili Bay. The beach at Rhossili is just outstanding: a very white expanse with plenty of room for beach games.
We arrived late on Friday night – 8 of us in all although we arrive in three spearate cars. After putting up the tents in the quickly departing daylight (and the pitch black for the las car which arrived at 10.30!), we carcked open some beers, made sausage sangas on the disposable BBQ and relaxed in our camping charis.
The next day, we rose to a warm but overcasst morning. Breakfast consisted of baked beans with mini sausages on toast (a camping must) cooked on our trusty camping stove (Rich and I have enough camping gear to stock a small Millets even though we only go camping once or twice a year max). We packed up all the games and headed off for the beach. Suntan lotion was forgotten by all because of the hazy weather (which was going to come back to burn us – literally) but we had our cricket set and boules so that was the main thing.
When we arrived at the beach car park, we promptly headed off in completely the wrong direction meaning we had a lovely clifftop walk with all the gear before having to turn back to find the path the beach.
When we finally arrived at the beach, we spent a few minutes relaxing and wandering to the water’s edge before starting the first of the games – baseball! We did not really play a proper game since there was not really enough of us and we really only wanted to test out our bat which we had bought in Orlando in January. No one made any catches since the ball comes at you fast when you don’t have a catcher’s mitt. Before we can play properly, we need a softball or 8 mitts!
Next was cricket which is just the best English tradition going. All along the beach, friends and families played beach cricket (a mix of normal cricket and French cricket) and it felt good to be a part of that tradition.
The rest of the afternoon was spent snoozing, playing nerf ball, playing pétanque, and generally getting fried since the sun was really making a big effort to fight through the cloud until at last it shone for a good two hours.
That evening, we made a pasta concoction which was divine (and served in our washing up bowl since we had nothing else big enough to mix it all up in!). After all the play and the beer that followed, people started to make their way to bed pretty early and the first drops of rain sent the rest of us to our tents so we were tucked up by just gone 11pm.
The next morning, the rain was pretty incessant which meant that we had to pack all our stuff away wet (gross!). We all stopped for some brunch on our way home and then said out goodbyes before driving between 2 and 4 hours home (some lived further away than others). It was a superb weekend which I really could not face on Friday morning – I was so not in the mood to camp. I was equally glad to be home on Sunday – there is nothing like drinking tea on the sofa with the TV after sleeping in a field for two nights! But I wouldn’t have missed the camping trip for anything. In fact, I feel very motivated to go camping again before it gets too cold. Then again…
