practicing camping
I pitched the little tent in the front garden again today, I’m getting much faster at putting it up now which is all for the good as it will be one less way I’ll stand out as teh Newbie at Guide camp! Still no idea where 1 pod and 1 groundsheet are (grrrr) but I can replace the groundsheet with something better anyway and if it’s only the two of us we only need one pod (and if it’s all 3 we would be in the hobbit hole!) It is a very poor excuse for a tent really though, compared to the utter craftsmanship of offering like my Vango and the Kyhams I’ve looked at one MP camps. Nothing that I can’t live with and for £40 you can’t expect a lot (although it’s meant to be £80 at which point I would have been seriously p***d off!) but you can’t get anything taut enough to stop it flapping in a stiff breeze (no adjusters on the tension straps) and the guy lines are in odd places so you can’t pull it tight that way either, oh, and the doors have a design fault so rain can get in a bit and , and , and….. still, it’ll do til I can afford a decent make of small tent!
Anyway, Aprilia wanted a pic of herself in her camp uniform and thus stayed in it all day. Yellow really does suit her! There was some sort of sniping going on in the morning as her "best friend" was being nasty to her and not letting her join in with a game. All seemed forgotten later though, I do hate those bitchy bickering moments that even small girls seem to have!
As the tent was out we had tent ed including another bribary session with her reading to me in return for extra Harry. Wonder if I’ll be able to recite whole books before she actually learns to read them for herself! Mind you, at least it’s a good read, it’s already been established taht her Fairy Magic books only get read out to her once, after that she can work out how to read them herself……. awful books!
She’s still awake, singing Brownie Bells over and over, just wondering if it’s time I went and told her to shut up and go to sleep or if I should just ignore her and hope this means a lie in tomorrow 
Just wondering which small tent it was that you purchased as I have to also buy a small tent for scout camp and have been looking at one that normally costs 90 but is reduced to 40 in Woolies.
Comment by Linda — May 25, 2008 @ 8:03 am
that should have been normally 80 quid not 90 quid, sorry…
Comment by Linda — May 25, 2008 @ 8:04 am
Linda, it’s the ProAction 6 man tent from Argos, this is the link http://tinyurl.com/6pdcq6
I suspect 6 small people could get in it but they would have to love each other lots and not be too long in the leg otherwise they would make the inner tent touch the outer.
It got a bit of a weather testing last year and did okay but did sweat a little. I’m hoping that a good long soak in re-proofing solution has cured that (well, I was doing the big tent so I thought I may as well do the little one too!)
Comment by Administrator — May 25, 2008 @ 11:49 am
Ahh, the one in woolies is a different one, bit of a relief in some ways …
But
I think our ‘big’ tent is the one that you linked to, we haven’t been camping in it yet though so have no idea how it will perform…
Comment by Linda — May 28, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
Linda, put it up and do a hosepipe test with it, and I mean really soak it for a good while or of cousre, you coould just pitch it in this delightful weather we are having…. if ti gets a bit damp inside tehn invest in a bottle of tent re-proofing stuff, I used the stuff you soak the tent in for a while, it will dramatically improove it’s bad weather performance!
If you are after a really small tent then what about the Gelert pop up ones? they are CHEAP and aparently they are good enough for normal camping weather - not for snow camping you understand, just a normal wet, windy British summer camp!
Comment by Administrator — May 28, 2008 @ 7:52 pm