My first thought was that someone had been along during the night and silently stolen it but when I got up and looked out of the window properly I saw exactly where it was - almost on the ground. What I'd thought was light rain during the night must have been the beginning of a sudden snow shower which had landed on the tent and frozen, with the weight making the tent collapse. Two of the three poles had snapped completely and the end where I would have been sleeping, if I'd been in there, was totally flattened - thank goodness the dogs and I had been in the van otherwise the whole lot would have come down on top of the three of us.
The worst of it was, most of my belongings were in there under that lot - the larder unit, kitchen unit, chair, loo, the holdall with my clothes in and a couple of other items, and it was only the height of the tall larder unit which was stopping the other end from falling down completely. I had to get everything out somehow so I dressed quickly and with a combination of my bare hands and a sweeping brush borrowed from the toilet block I set to clearing all the snow and ice away and pulling the poles out. Once they were out of the way I managed to unzip the back door and crawl inside, then item by item I dragged everything out and packed it away in the van. And while I was doing all that it was raining steadily so by the time I'd finished there was water inside the tent as well as on it and I was literally soaked through to the skin.
There was nothing I could do with the tent just then and it was still securely pegged down so I left it where it was while I got changed, had a brew and some breakfast and got warmed up in the van. A while later, while I was standing there wondering how best to deal with a soaking wet tent and two broken poles, a guy from a caravan further down the site struck up a conversation with me on his way to the water tap, and when I told him what had happened to the tent he offered to come back later and help me with it. He was as good as his word and between us we managed to lift it up, get all the water out of it, and carry it over to the back fence where it was draped along to hopefully dry out if it eventually stopped raining.
In spite of the bad start and the constant rain I was determined not to waste the rest of the day sitting in the van on my pitch; the tent would be okay where it was so I decided to drive into Bala but that's when the second disaster struck - the van wouldn't start. When I'd put the blind up at the front window the night before I'd unthinkingly left the ignition on and the battery was flatter than flat - and once again it was Paul from the caravan further down who came to my rescue, jump-starting the van with his own trusty Toyota Rav 4. Eventually I got to Bala but the weather was no better there, it was still raining so leaving the dogs in the van I went to get some provisions from the Spar shop then had a quick walk along the top end of the lake before heading back to the camp site.
Back at the site it was later that evening when Paul came and asked me if I fancied a brew and a chat back at his caravan. It was a nice suggestion so I went down and spent several hours in good company, just the thing I needed to round off what had been a very difficult and trying day in more ways than one - it was good to chat to someone with a common interest and I enjoyed myself so much that it was 3am before I finally went back to my own van for the rest of the night.
