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 November 18th 2013 - Packed up just in time

I woke that morning to another very grey day and lay for a while trying to decide what to do with the few hours I had left before I had to leave for home. I was in no rush to go so I did consider going back to Cleethorpes and maybe having a look round the shops, but the local weather forecast for that day said there was to be rain from lunchtime onwards. Not wanting to pack up a wet tent then try to find a way of drying it out once I got home I decided to stay put, so after a dog walk round the site and a leisurely breakfast I made a start on sorting things out and getting them into the van.

Finally, with only the tent to take down, I transferred the dogs to the back of the van then went round and pulled all the pegs out. As an experiment I'd left the bedroom pods in situ - it would save some setting-up time next time I camped - but when I eventually got the tent rolled up it was so bulky that there was no way it would go back in its bag. Luckily I had some bungee straps stashed in my camping box so a couple of those wrapped round and hooked to each other kept the tent in a reasonably neat bundle, and the unused bag was tucked in the camping box.  I'd just folded up the footprint groundsheet and was putting it in the van when the first drops of rain appeared - it seemed that for once the weathermen were right, and my decision not to go back to Cleethorpes had been a good one. 

 Abandoning any ideas of taking the dogs for another walk I checked quickly round the pitch for any forgotten tent pegs then set off on the drive home. The rain became quite heavy after a while and I was glad I'd managed to get packed up before it had started, though as I drove across the M62 it started to clear up and by the time I was within twenty miles of home the sun was beginning to shine. Having left Willow Lakes earlier than I'd intended I was home before 3pm so I had plenty of time to download the weekend's photos onto my pc before I went to work, and sorting through them later on I was really pleased with most of the shots. It was a shame in a way that the weather hadn't been brighter, but in some instances sunshine isn't everything and just being able to see and photograph the seals had given me yet another weekend to remember.
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