Carry on Camping!

It is true to say that camping polarises people; rather like Marmite, you love it or you hate it! I love it, and have been lucky enough to spend nearly three weeks under 'canvas' this summer. This love affair with tentage and all that goes with camp life began a long time ago. I can clearly remember the first time I stood in a tent at the age of about nine. My Aunt and Uncle were camping near Plymouth and were washed out by relentless rain, so for a few days they came to stay with us to get warm and dry out. We must have gone back to their tent to collect some belongings. I had never been in a tent before but I still can remember the smell of warm wet canvas and grass, a heady smell that hit me as I stood inside their big frame tent.  Excitement welled within me and I knew that when I grew up, I wanted to camp!

Guiding days!

My first proper taste of camping came at the age of twelve, when, as a newly enrolled Girl Guide, I went on Summer Camp to a farm near Brent Tor, just outside Tavistock. We camped in big heavy canvas tents and learnt the art of camp craft. Living in a city, I had never woken to the sound of a cock crowing, or smelt the early morning dew. I had never whittled wood then lash it together.  This for me was magical and I was hooked!

By the time my Girl Guiding days came to an end I had already started dating the love of my life who would later become my husband. He owned his own tent, and when he passed his driving test we discovered a new found freedom and a shared interest. Excitedly we would take off in his Mini, imaginatively called 'Little Min', packed with the Vango Force Ten, and head to Cornwall. We loved Sennen Cove and would camp at a small site called Levant  House at Pendeen on the north Cornish Coast. Happy Days!

Camping gets you back to nature. It strips you back to basics and is good for the soul. There is nothing more breathtaking than the night sky, when you trek across the field to the toilet block to clean your teeth before turning in. The air is clear and almost intoxicating and the sky is full of stars not normally seen at home, the milky way and shooting stars, all of which remind you that you are just a small part of a much bigger picture.  And with that thought you turn in for a night of slumber; cosy in a sleeping bag on hopefully a perfectly inflated airbed.

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.        Isaiah 40:26

Over the years I have camped in places more far flung than Cornwall. My mallet has driven tent pegs into the turf in Malta, France, The Lake District, Scotland, Dorset, Norfolk, Northumbria and of course glorious Devon! Ah Devon, with it's rolling hills and it's scanty flat pitches. This is where I have spent this summer camping!  Tucked away in the South Hams, on a farm with views of fields of gold ready for harvest.  This is where, in the midst of such simple beauty, I reminded myself that life really does not get much better than this, and that I hope for many a year to come I will get to 'Carry on Camping!'

Fields of Gold