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

Friday March 30th 2018 - If only I'd known in advance....

....what was going to happen over the weekend I wouldn't have gone camping for Easter. The day started out well enough when I left home in the sunshine for four days at Felin Uchaf in North Wales, and although it clouded over a bit en route the sun was out again by the time I reached the camp site and things were looking promising. I'd been given pitch no.1, the same pitch as last Easter, though this time instead of it being a grass pitch it was now a hard standing one; it was no problem though as I had plenty of rock pegs so I laid out the footprint groundsheet and set about putting up my nice new tent. With only three poles it proved to be very easy to erect and once it was securely pegged down I found that there was more space in the living area than there had been in my previous tent, though I didn't need to put too much in there as I'd already decided before I left home that I would be sleeping in the van.


With the tent up and my few things set out inside I took the dogs for a walk down to the village and back then spent a pleasant hour or so chatting to Nan and Gwyn, the site owners, and a couple of the other weekend residents. The late afternoon and early evening were spent relaxing in the van with a book then just before it went dark I took the dogs for a final walk down the site track to the lane and back. I'd just got back to the van when the first drops of rain appeared and from then on it was heavy and prolonged showers on and off all night; it was great for testing the waterproof-ness of the new tent but as I got into bed later on I was just hoping that this rain wasn't a sign of things to come for the rest of the weekend.

**Tent photo taken from the internet, I didn't manage to take one of mine in situ.



8 comments:

  1. Things can onnly improve Tigermouse. How disappointed you must have been.

    Yvonne.

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  2. Things may very well be better in the future but they certainly didn't improve that weekend and yes, I was very disappointed and disillusioned :)

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  3. Easter was a washout with the weather, very disappointing for you. It was sensible to test the tent before sleeping in it.

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  4. In view of following events it's a good job I wasn't sleeping in it! :(

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  5. Uh oh. Easter was a terrible washout, wasn’t it. Some years the weather is glorious, but this year... well, it was dreadful 😖

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  6. This was the third Easter in a row that my camping holiday in that area has been blighted by rain and grey skies but neither of the two previous ones have been as bad as this one :(

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  7. Feedly tells me I am 8 posts behind on this blog . . . so I'm going to have a little catch-up with you whilst I drink my tea :)

    I've already noticed what happens later . . . so sorry.

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  8. To be honest I hadn't noticed that you've not commented on this trip until now, but I know you've been away yourself plus you've been busy in the garden so you've got a good excuse :)

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I really appreciate good comments - who doesn't? - but due to a recent tide of spam from anonymous readers all comments will now be moderated, and only those with a direct bearing on this blog will be published. I'm sure my regular blog readers/commenters will understand the need for this - and to anyone whose comment isn't published, you know why.