Friday September 16th 2016 - A drastic change in the weather

I woke that morning to find that the sun had gone awol and had been replaced by a very cloudy grey sky. I didn't mind too much though as I needed to get some supplies from Asda in Yarmouth so I could have a shopping day instead of going out exploring. I didn't go out until mid morning and it was still fine then but while I was walking round the shops in Yarmouth's main street a fine drizzly rain started. I'd parked the van a ten minute walk away at  Asda and by the time I got back there I was just ever so slightly damp, but that was nothing compared to later on.

Leaving Sophie and Poppie back in the van I went into Asda to get my shopping and by the time I came out again it was raining quite hard. It looked like I definitely wouldn't be going anywhere else just then even if I wanted to so I just drove straight back to the camp site - and that's when I got a totally unexpected and unwanted surprise. When I went out I'd left the tent sitting on ground which was so dry and hard that I'd had difficulty knocking the tent pegs in when I set up camp, but now it was sitting in the middle of a small swimming pool a couple of inches deep and there were pools in several places around the field.

I knew the water wouldn't actually get into the tent as it's fully sealed with an integrated groundsheet and a high mud wall, plus there was a footprint groundsheet underneath it, but if the dogs and I had to splash through the pool get in it was inevitable that some of it would be transferred from outside via our feet. I didn't want a wet mess in the tent so I needed a solution, and quick. 

As I'd just driven through the static caravan section of the site I noticed that one of the caravans at the end of the path near my tent had been taken off its pitch and there were lots of small flags left; it took me four journeys to get what I needed but within fifteen minutes I'd laid a nice little flagged path across the pool of water to the tent door. By the time I'd finished I was literally soaked through to the skin so as I couldn't get any wetter I got the camera and snapped a photo of the tent sitting in its pool of water, then I got my wellies out of the van in case I needed them later and the three of us went inside to get dried off.

An hour or so later I looked out of the tent door and was surprised to see that all the standing water had completely disappeared; the hard dry ground had eventually soaked it all up and my flagged path wasn't really needed but I left it where it was just in case - you never know when a flagged path might come in handy!

It was late afternoon when the wind arrived and as time went on it got so strong that I clipped the storm straps in place in the tent to stabilise it; it was pegged down very securely but I wasn't taking any chances. Although the rain eased off a bit it never really stopped and it was still at it when I took the dogs for their very brief bedtime walk - and when I snuggled down in bed a while later it was to the sound of the tent being severely battered by the wind.