Following Gary’s sad demise, a new gazebo was in order. This isn’t just any gazebo… but more of that to follow!!
We were grateful that it arrived in time for our latest camping trip as Monday was pretty rainy. We abandoned our plan to walk the fourth part of the pilgrims way (again more on that to follow) and instead hunkered down in the gazebo with mugs of coffee.
Fortunately it wasn’t rainy enough to prevent us cooking breakfast – this is our latest breakfast find, Irwin’s potato breads. Available in Sainsburys in packs of four, they are easy to warm up on the days when you haven’t the time to make potato cakes from scratch. It was pleasing to discover that 4 fitted perfectly on the griddle pan that cam with the primus stove. We had them with bacon and fried eggs – tasty way to start the day.
Last weekend’s adventure was planned to start in civilisation, so I thought I ought to clean my walking boots to look vaguely respectable! Although I’m always careful to dry my boots, I rarely do anything else & they usually bear the muddy souvenir of the last adventure. Consequently it had been a long time since the tread on the sole had been visible, so I got a nasty surprise to see that the outer sole had worn away on one heel. There was a hole where I could see through to the spongy inner layer of the sole.
I love my scarpa boots they are leather & goretex (taking no chances!) and extremely comfortable. My first thought was to get them re-heeled, but I’m not sure that’s possible due to the spongy layer. I also had to acknowledge that the leather on the top was showing signs of cracking.
They’ve done me well, I’ve walked hundreds of miles in them & only once had a blister. I guess I have to accept its time to start looking for a new pair. In the meantime I intend to wear them entirely into the ground.
Towards the end of last weekend’s walk I was faced with a long stretch of path that resembled a steam!
It was so deep I had to walk on tip toes to avoid the water over topping my boots…but do you know, even with the cracks & worn soles, my toes were toasty & dry. Grateful to my good old faithful walking boots!
Firstly, don’t panic – Gary isn’t a human! Gary is the name of our gazebo! (Yes, we know we are a bit odd – maybe that’s why we like sleeping in fields when we have perfectly good houses with beds?!).
Gary join our camp equipment family in 2019. You can read about his arrival here. He has worked hard over the last few years – he’s been a sunshade and a rain protector, he’s been battered by the wind at many campsites, been dusted in frost, held puddles of rainwater on his roof and once got weighed down by a pile of hail stones! Over lockdown he put in extra hours turning gardens into outdoor rooms hosting dinners, lunches, tea parties, beers round the fire and even a hen party. Every time he gets bowed down, he bounces right back up – literally! Although we don’t leave him up in high winds unnecessarily, it is fun to watch him be pushed right down by the wind and spring back up a moment later!
Hard work takes it’s toll and Gary developed a tiny hole along one of his seams. We hope he has many adventures ahead of him this summer, so we wanted to repair it as straight away before it got worse.
Step 1: purchase some ‘seam grip’ and some ‘tenacious tape’
Step 2: working on the inside, clean the affected area with hand-sanitizer
step 3: cut a little strip of tenacious tape, just bigger than the hole. Peel off backing and smooth over hole, pressing down firmly.
step 4: now clean the outside with hand sanitizer.
Step 5: apply seam grip over the hole. Leave it to dry a little bit.
Step 6: cut another strip of tenacious tape and apply on top of the seam grip
Hopefully Gary is now almost as good as new and looking forward to hosting many more adventures!
Dry bags are great – little water tight bags that you can used to both organise your stuff in your backpack and to keep it safe and dry. I have these ones from sea to summit in a variety of sizes:
The different colours are helpful, but once you’ve bought more than one of each size, you might know something is in a bag, but which one?! We are super proud of this nifty tip – a bit of ‘decoration’ with a permanent marker and there’s no more confusion. Particularly if the doodles match the thing in the bag eg the footprints oneonce had clean socks and change of shoes in, the one with the spirals had things like charger wires and headphones.
Hope this tip helps you pack for your next adventure.
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In the last post we talked about the end of season sort out. But once everything is cleaned, dried, repaired and stocks replenished then what?
Having dedicated place to store camping equipment is helpful. It keeps everything in one place, making it easier to pack and unpack – and as a result hopefully you are less likely to forget something (having a list also helps with this!).
Be mindful of what you are storing. It is better to store things like sleeping bags inside the house. And generally you are advised to store them loose, not tightly screwed up in their compression sacks to help preserve their loft (that is their fluffy-ness) and warmth.
It is also ideal to store tents indoors, particularly if they are canvas. However, not many people have space for this and ours live in the garage.
We’ve found the best way to store things is in plastic storage containers. We particularly like the ‘Really Useful’ boxes as they have proved to be sturdy and durable. They are also made in the UK and can be recycled in the rigid plastic section of your local tip… although I’m not sure we’ve actually broken any to need to recycle them!
It’s helpful to store items in your in categories. For example, we have a. kitchen box, a peg box and a lighting box. This makes it easy to find things… especially if the next time you are looking in these boxes is in the dark in the middle of a camping field!!
Be careful where you store food supplies. Animals are good at getting into lofts and garages. Only keep tinned items in these places and then in a plastic box to make sure they don’t get damp. One winter a squirrel tried to gnaw its way through a plastic box in the loft to get at our supplies! Since then the sleeping bags are also in a roomy plastic crate in the loft – imagine getting your sleeping bag out for your first trip in Spring and finding that baby squirrels had also decided it was a warm place to sleep!!
If you are storing in the garage, it’s probably worth investing in some shelving. These metal mesh shelves in my garage keep everything organised and easily accessible and also keep the tents off the ground and with the air circulating to avoid them getting damp.
Hopefully the kit won’t be in its Winter hibernation for long… counting down until the camping season begins again!
I love the fact that even though the days are short, it’s getting chilly and the weather is generally blowing a gale, every single week someone asks us whether we’ve been camping!!
We hate to disappoint, but actually our camp gear is tucked away waiting for the new season to start!
After the last camp of the season is a good time to take stock of items that need to be replenished or replaced. You may even get good deals in the sales! It’s also good to have items before first camp of next season – the UK weather is unpredictable and you want to be ready to go at short notice should we get a mild Spring!
This is also a good opportunity to do more thorough cleaning and repairs if needed. For example, you might undertake any tent repairs or give the stove a thorough clean. Make sure everything is properly dry (particularly tents) before being stored away for the season.
At this time of year we give all our camping kitchen items a good wash – and even Henrietta gets a bath! For those of you who haven’t met Henrietta before here’s a photo of her. Clearly a tea cosy is an essential item of camp equipment!!
Henrietta guarding some Welsh cakes!!
We also clean out all the boxes. These are plastic storage crates of varying sizes which we store our camping bits and pieces in. Not only do the boxes keep things safe and dry when you’re storing them, but they make packing the car, transporting equipment and keeping the kitchen tent organised much, much easier.
Batteries should be removed from lanterns and head torches when you put them away for winter to avoid the batteries from leaking and potentially ruining your lantern.
If you have leftover camping food supplies, be careful how you store these. Go through all the items checking their best before dates and if it’s before next Easter put them in your kitchen cupboard to get used up at home. If you have items that you have decanted into separate containers (eg sugar and flour) it’s best to use these up and start afresh next year.
Although it’s always a bit sad to have reached the end of a camping season, taking the time to sort through things now, means that as soon as the days start to get longer and warmer again, you’ll be ready to go at the drop of a hat!
It’s a good job goats have waterproof coats… and trousers…and wellies! We certainly needed them last weekend!!
Always, always, always pack them all… even in the middle of July. Although you can hide in your tent when it’s raining, waterproof trousers are handy so you can sit down even if your chair has got wet in an earlier shower.
Even on a sunny trip, wellies are useful to wear in the morning when the grass is wet with dew. And being able to pull them on without worrying about laces is a bonus in the middle of the night!
We’ll tell you more about our soggy camping trip soon.
(Well not anywhere other than our own gardens … and I’m afraid my garden isn’t exciting enough to be worth the effort!!)
… but I have started getting in training! I put this up in 15 mins – all by myself!!!
Super fast inflatable gazebo!
I can assure you that Snoopy dog was no help at all… he only came out afterwards to inspect my work!
Tomorrow morning my neighbour is hosting a socially distanced prayer meeting in her garden… and there’s a chance of rain. Hopefully now it will be able to go ahead whatever the weather!!
It did make me nostalgic for camping trips… hopefully not long now.
L
PS you can read our review of our much loved inflatable gazebo & the other gazebos in our lives here
I know you’re keen to know about the new campsite we tried out last weekend.
It certainly scores well in terms of an attractive setting…
sunrise
Situated in a bend of the river Thames in Oxfordshire, Barefoot Campsite certainly is pretty. We were fortunate to have riverside pitch. Somehow the white noise of the weir was oddly calming, distracting us from the normal campsite sounds of what was a pretty busy campsite.
View from our pitch
And not only can you enjoy the view of the river, you can swim or kayak too. We hired kayaks from the campsite and paddled upstream to the pub for a drink.
Kayaking on the River Thames –
This is a well organised campsite, but unfortunately that means it comes with quite a lot of rules! They were enforced in a friendly manner, but I was asked to alter where I’d pitched my gazebo and move my car 6 inches to the left (someone over-estimated my ability to park with any degree of accuracy!!). The booking process was hard work and for a campsite that is clearly fully booked every weekend of the summer, they could do with more toilets…but they get away with it, as it really is a beautiful location!
Embrace your inner goat 