Tent Fever

I posted earlier about our week in the Lakes staying in my parents' caravan.  It was great for a few days but there are some real annoyances with staying in a caravan.  While every bit of space is put to use in an efficient and useful way, this leaves very little room to actually live and you spend your whole time inside shuffling around each other awkwardly. Throw in a couple of boisterous kids and it's all a bit of a squash and a squeeze and causes any number of frayed tempers. It's also really hard work constructing and deconstructing beds every night. By necessity, meaning the lack of aforementioned space, it's a one-person job but it's really hard work and fiddly to do.

This led to thoughts of camping and the tent that we already have. We'd lent it to Nick's son who brought it with them when they came to stay for a couple of days where it was masquerading as a caravan awning. Loads more room to move around in there.

The only real advantage of a caravan over a tent is security (because, of course, you can't really lock a tent) and all the gadgets you can therefore have with you (ipad, tv, games consoles and chargers, etc etc). But then surely the whole point of that kind of holiday is to go off grid and really get away from it all.

Our poor old tent is looking a bit the worse for wear after 8 years so it's time to upgrade. Went looking at a couple of places that have tent displays, fell in love and bought this behemoth of a bivouac.

It's a Gelert Corvus Beyond 6+2 tent. That's right, it's an 8 man tent. It's enormous. It has a carpet. It's got windows. It's bigger than some peoples houses.

The girls are off for a weeks holiday in Ibiza with their grandparents and we are going back to the Lake District to try out the tent. Can't wait.  Might take the whole week to put it up. Soooo excited!