17. Blue Van Woman

I ticked off all the check lists and set off.?

Hornsea again – with the nice ice cream shop.? This camp site is great – the owners really look after you and Keith guides you to your pitch (in his golf buggy).? He chats and I tell him I’m going to put my tent up.?

He wishes me good luck and whizzes off.?

So I have maneuvered my van into the allocated space, avoiding the pitch number sign and the hook up point.? I reckon I have enough room for the tent.? There are quite a few things I like to do when I arrive at a site now.? Hook up to the electric, unfold the bed, get the lights hung up – those sort of really practical steps.? So here goes next – the tent.? Campsites are great places but you can all see each other.? I’ve seen some awnings put up with great ease – and I’ve seen others that necessitate large volumes of beer to ease the process.? I tried to look dead cool.? This is not possible.? There is nothing ‘cool’ about lugging a very heavy bag out of the van and pulling out acres of nylon.? There is nothing cool about trying to work out which is the back and which is the front and which straps go where.? Least of all in the realms of coolness is standing on a stool to tie the tent to the roof bars.? But leap onto the stool I did and tied the (right) ties to the van and wrapped them (as practiced on the vicar’s lawn) to the wing mirrors.?

And do you know – the rest of it fell into place.?

I remembered where the key pivot points were and blew up the tent.? Now I am so pleased that I do resistance work in the gym five times a week.? It means that I can haul the tent about and use the pump with relative ease.? And the tent rose up like a sphynx.? I unwound the ropes and adjusted them and used the vicar’s super pegs to anchor them.? Thank goodness for those pegs – it was really windy and the pegs supplied with the kit just wouldn’t have held.?

And then I played sort of mini house game– blinds up, blinds down, door open, door closed.? I got the table and chairs out and it was great.?

Off I set – quick walk down to the beach.

When I got back the tent was flat.? All was not lost – a kind woman and her husband came over and together we found the fault (a split seam) and the man spent a long time trying very hard to mend it.? Keith came over with tape and glue and it did hold for a bit.?

I think I pumped it up about fifty times over the weekend.?

Somehow it didn’t matter.? When it was inflated it was great and I could see the huge benefit of having it.? I learnt loads about the whole set up and felt really confident that I could do it again.? The sheer sense of achievement of putting up that tent alone was amazing.?

A year ago there was no way I would even have thought of doing that.?

I took the tent back to GoOutdoors this week and they were spot on.? They gave me a replacement – absolutely no problem.?

So the countdown to Scourie begins – watch this space!

Written by Marion, hosted by Carrie