Bell tents aren’t only for camping!

In our last post we confessed that we hadn’t camped as much as we’d like to last summer, but that our tent had been up to other things. Turns out bell tents aren’t only useful for camping in…

One of the goats had the honour of being her sister’s bridesmaid this summer and with that came responsibilities for a hen party. With the help of a party decorator Sandy the Bell Tent and Gary the Gazebo were transformed into a stylish venue for a garden hen party!

R & L

2021 season

We may not have done much blogging, but we did fit in a bit of camping – mainly revisiting old favourites.

This summer we went to Climping in West Sussex , Bridport in Dorset, Kent twice – near Marden and near Crowburgh and finished off with one of our favourites near Andover in Hampshire.

All the reviews are up to date if you want to plan your trip for next year.

In the next post we’ll show you what our tent was up to when we weren’t camping…

L & R

Recycling your camping gear

Camping can be a ‘green’ way to holiday, but your choices can make a difference to how eco it is.

I was pleased to see this advert in my local Cotswold Outdoors store.

The man workng there explained to me that good stuff is reused by charities and other stuff is broken down into it’s constituent parts and recycled. Apparently shoes become that spongy surfacing in playgrounds!

I’ll have to have a rumage in my loft and see what I can recycle!

L

Wild mountain goats

A guest post for you this week – can you believe I’m related to these mountain goats?

Most of their adventures sound harrowing to me, but this one sounded fun – I think you’ll like reading about it too!

L

This has taken some planning, the main challenge being how to pack so that 2 adults can carry most of what is needed for 6 people to camp overnight and enjoy a day in the hills!  1,764 more words

Wild camping and walking in the Cairngorms: Glen Callater and Lochnagar — Miles Together

Top camping tip #2

Here’s another top camping tip idea we came up with recently… pack a thermos flask to save hot water!

Nothing happens quickly on a campsite, but boiling the kettle seems to take forever! We spend a LOT of time waiting for the kettle to boil… although perhaps thats because we spend a lot of time drinking tea and coffee!?!

Once it has boiled, put any hot water you don’t use into a thermos flask. It will stay warm enough for washing up, or if you want another cuppa later, then using warm water in the kettle will save precious camping gas!!

R

The most important meal of the day #3

Sometimes we think it would be nice to have something lighter for breakfast … but it’s generally only a thought. We pretty much always end up having a cooked breakfast when we are camping – usually a fry up.

Sometimes we pack breakfast cereal. This is a good option if some of your camping party are the type who wake up hungry and can’t wait for the fire to get going and food to cook! The downside is that you need to store the milk for it. Long life milk could be an option, but we’ve a super cool box (which is just as well as one of the goats is a bit of a milk snob and likes fresh milk!!). Even so, milk is bulky.

Porridge is a good option, especially on chilly mornings. Even better it can be made very successfully with powdered milk, which is a versatile camping staple. I use a cup of rolled oats, 2 tablespoonfuls dried milk powder, 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt, boiled up on the stove to serve 2.

And of course porridge can be jazzed up in numerous ways – adding raisins is one of our favourites, or a sprinkling brown sugar on the top. Alpen museli also makes a good sprinkle topping. Or how about a swirl of cinnamon? Or stir through berries or chocolate chips? I like that ginger you get in syrup finely chopped and stirred through, but the other goat would not approve of that!

An alternative take on porridge is to make baked oats over the fire. This is oats (2 cups), sugar (3 tbsp), milk powder (3 tbp), baking powder (1 tsp) and a pinch of salt mixed up with an egg and some water (1 1/2 cups) and baked like a cake. Add some raisins and this also works well as a tasty snack for elevensies.

Being as you’re on holiday – how about treating yourself to pancakes?

Banana pancakes work well for breakfast: mash 2 bananas then stir in 4 heaped dessertspoonfuls of self-raising flour. Next stir in an egg, 2 dessertspoonfuls of sugar and 2 of milk powder. Thin the batter using 200 ml water and then cook spoonfuls in an oiled pan, turning to brown both sides. The end result looks like little scotch pancakes and taste delicious on their own as breakfast or with a little drizzle of maple syrup to make a dessert.

And who says you need to be camping to enjoy these breakfasts – I had banana pancakes this morning!

L