Peak Camp June 2012

Goodness, it was wet initially.  Rye and myself arrived last Thursday, it rained the entire journey.  Thankfully, when we arrived the sun made an appearance.  Although, I was slightly worried it had been cancelled as no one else seemed to be there, and no phone signal, whatsoever, to check!

After a little dithering I decided to just set up camp and take advantage of the dry spell.  Good plan, because later that evening it began to rain, and boy did it rain, and all Friday too, and the wind, blimey, thought the tent was going to blow away!.  Pretty miserable and plans to come home were been made. 

Sunday, eventually brightened up, alas Clare decided to go home with Chris; hayfever, wet and feeling yucky meant she decided not to stay on.  Such a shame to see them go, it was lovely to see them again though.

 Rye was filthy for the entire camp.  The field was pretty boggy in places, felt like clay under the tent, I sank every time I walked in. 

 Look at that foot!

 The sun did shine from Sunday evening onwards.  There was a lot of cloud and the odd shower, but in the main after Sunday the weather really picked up.  Monday was glorious.

 The new tent, I really like it.  Plenty of space for Rye and myself.  More room for standing too, and the double height queen airbeds were lovely to sleep on, very comfy.  Although there was an equipment malfunction on the second night; I was adding a bit more air and realised the seam on one of the airbeds had come unstuck.  Thankfully, one of the other campers had some glue so I was able to fix it.

Loved the bunting, big thank you to Emma!
The other malfunction was the tent, unfortunately I caught one of the guy ropes toward the end of the trip and pulled it clean away from the tent.  Drat!  It should be fixable, I will call the company in a bit though, and see if I can get a replacement, as it really shouldn't have come away like that.   

 The field behind with lots of cows and calves frolicking.

 Rye borrowed one of his new friends' bike and had a whale of a time cycling around.  Next time I will take our bikes as some of the group went for a lovely bike ride on Tuesday and Rye really wanted to go too.

 Popped into Hartingdon.  Lovely wee village, there isn't much there, we just had a wee wander, sat by the duck pond for a bit and then went back to the campsite, with a new toy aeroplane, bubbles and fudge!

 An amazing campervan turned up, it was really stunning.  They weren't a park of the camp though, just passing through.

The tree swing was very popular.  There was also a gnarled hawthorn three that the kids spent an inordinate amount of time in, climbing!  Rye (in orange in the background) was very taken with a young lad in a wheel chair. They had loads of fun, and goodness the lad couldn't half whiz around in his chair!  The muddy field didn't slow him down at all!

 We were very snuggly in the tent, I learned from Peak Camp and took a hot water bottle too, which made all the difference the first few nights, when it was tipping it down and blowing a gale.

The chandelier was lovely too, although I did extinguish it at one point as it was spinning around quite alarmingly with all the wind battering the tent.  The tent its self held up well, a few usual wee puddles in the corner, which were probably condensation rather than leaking, although the puddles were near the vents so it might have been a bit of leakage through those.  I just made sure I mopped them up each morning.  The battering wind did mean we did get the odd sprinkling of condensation "raining" down on us, in the main though we were dry and toasty. 

Phew, when the sun came out the tent was very, very warm, even with the door and the vents open!  But then, when the sun was out, we were out enjoying it!  Really, did enjoy Peak Camp, the people were friendly, and as the week went on, and the weather improved, more and more families turned up.  Over the weekend there were gaggles of Duke of Edinburgh kids, and bless 'em, they had a game of rounders and Rye and a few of his friends joined in.  Rye was rather taken with the older kids, so when he wasn't hanging around with the Duke of Edinburgh kids, he was throwing grass and been chased by the home ed teens, or playing footie etc.

On an eve, after the kids were in bed, the grown ups sat under a large shelter and nattered.  No campfire allowed at Peak Camp unfortunately, so we had tea lights in jars.  Bbqs were allowed though, so I could have taken my tripod, nevermind, I'll take it next year.

I had planned to pop over and see Rye's grandad one day, alas the lack of phone signal meant I couldn't arrange it, which was a shame; next time he's down in Portsmouth, I'll take Rye down, as he's not seen his Granddad for ages; Rye was also very sad not to see his Aunty Rachael too.

I really enjoyed the trip, very chilled.  I didn't get to explore as much as I'd have liked as alas the sciatica was back with a vengeance so walking was very painful.  I think hurting my hip before going, and then favouring that side, is what caused the sciatica.  Nusience because the toilets were a very, very long walk, thankfully I had the trusty camping loo with me though.  The times I did need to go to the toilet block I took the car down; not quite as lazy as it sounds as I would take the loo to clean, the rubbish to put in the skip, and washing up; so too much to carry anyway...... and that's the excuse I'm sticking to!

Looking forward to going back next year, a very cheap camp (£36 for Rye and myself for 6 nights), so well worth the diesel to get up there, and we made new friends we are looking forward to seeing again.  I'll go for the full ten days next time though, as we really didn't want to come back yesterday, plus we might be able to arrange to go and see Rye's Granddad and Grandma for a few days too.