About Me

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Hi! I'm Eunice and I live in Bolton, Lancashire, with my two dogs Sophie and Sugar and an assortment of cats - well it used to be Sophie and Sugar, now it's Sophie and Poppie. I first began camping back in 1997 when my then partner took me to Anglesey for my birthday weekend. We slept in the back of the car - a hatchback - using the cushions off the settee at home as a mattress, and cooked and brewed up on a single burner camping stove. The site was good, the views were great, the weather fantastic and I was completely hooked. Following that weekend we got a two-man tent and some proper accessories and returned to Anglesey two weeks later, then over time we progressed to a three-man tent followed by an old trailer tent, then a new trailer tent, a campervan and finally a caravan. When my partner decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the street - literally - in April 2009 and I suddenly found myself alone after fifteen years, I decided there was no way I was going to give up camping and caravanning if I could cope on my own. This blog is the story of my travels, trials and tribulations since becoming a solo camper - I hope you like it

Monday December 10th 2012 - The end of the weekend

I woke to another clear sunny morning with lots of blue sky, and as I was in no particular rush to pack up and go home I decided to treat myself to an extra hour or so in bed with my breakfast - a bit of a luxury for a Monday morning as normally when I'm working I'm out of the house by 7am. First though was a dog walk round the lake, and as there was no point getting dressed if I was going back to bed I went out in my dressing gown. Now normally you wouldn't see me on a camp site in anything other than my daytime clothes but as I was the only camper there it didn't really matter what I was wearing; yes, there was a chilly wind blowing but in the sun it was actually quite pleasant and I didn't feel cold at all. I'd done two circuits of the lake and was just taking a couple of photos of the tent when a train went past - heaven knows what the passengers thought if they saw me. A woman in a fluffy pink dressing gown with hair like Worzel Gummidge, walking round a field on a cold windy morning with two dogs wearing little pink and black t-shirts? Sounds rather like a case for the men in white coats!


With my coffee and toast made I retreated back to bed and spent a very quiet and cosy hour reading my book before I decided to get up properly and make a start on packing up. I didn't really have a lot to pack so it didn't take long, then with the dogs in the back of the van out of the way I dismantled the tent. As I was working I noticed a very grey cloud coming over the sun, and I'd just got the tent rolled up and back in its bag when the cloud dropped its rain in a sudden heavy shower. It only lasted a few minutes though, and by the time I'd checked round the pitch for any stray tent pegs and taken the dogs for another quick walk the cloud had drifted away and the sun was out again.

With a cd to sing along to it was a very pleasant drive home in the sunshine and I arrived back just a few minutes after 3pm. After letting the dogs into the garden for a few minutes my first task was to download the weekend's photos onto the pc as I couldn't wait to see the results of Expedition Seal - and I was very pleased with most of them, I'd got some good shots in spite of not being able to go out onto the sand flats. All in all it had been a good, if all too brief, weekend - the camp site had been nice, I'd met up with a nice group of fellow campers and the weather, although cold, hadn't bothered me unduly. This had been my first solo winter camping experience and I'd survived - and to be honest I felt quite proud of myself!
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