Another camping break

These posts don't write themselves, more's the pity. Hand-crafted quality like this takes time and effort. I'm feeling quite short of time, despite having no scheduled teaching today - going camping on Friday morning and coming back on Sunday morning has taken up the time that's usually needed for organising my life.

The weather wasn't quite as bad as it might have been, and Saturday was quite a pleasant day. I collected Lola II on the way down south on Friday, but I was half an hour late because of being disorganised (spot the theme here). We drove down to the accompaniment of DJ Lola II choosing tracks from our ipods that are particularly suited to singing. It was wet but not raining when we arrived at the campsite and pitched the tent.

No point hanging around the campsite when there's food to be bought and fun to be had in the local town. We drove down to Swanage, and Lola II was disappointed to realise that we've been there before. I don't mind that much - it's a nice place and I was happy to visit again. We went to the cinema this time, before driving back to the campsite for a late supper, prepared inside the wonderful porch of the tent. Over to Lola II:

One of my favourite parts of camping, apart from Lola's company of course, is the cooking. Lola has all the kit, and night-time cooking is the best. I think it's probably because sunset limits our options and it makes the tent warm too. Always a winner for me. The useful tent porch comes into its own. Table and chairs? Check. Headtorches in position? Check. On the right way around so the light is shining down, not up? It is now. Check. Ok, soldier, light that gas!

It was quite cold overnight, but dry, and Saturday breakfast was an outdoor affair: hotdogs made from frankfurters and Dairylea cheese slices in brioche rolls. I'd never go near food like that at home, but this is camping! I insisted on having some cucumber and tomato with it, because it is against the law to have a meal without vegetables.

Saturday was spent in Dorchester, initially in camping shops where I found a splendid wind-up camping light, and Lola II ingratiated herself with the staff in the shop to the extent that they let her use a staff cupboard to try out a headtorch (and the wind-up light). I encouraged them to lock her in there, but they insisted on letting her out.

We explored a little bit of Dorchester's history on foot, including a statue of Thomas Hardy and an excavated Roman villa. We would have liked to stay a little longer, but we headed back as it started to rain, and after a short nap we spent the evening on a pub crawl in Langton Matravers. There are only two pubs, but we had a drink in each, read the newspaper in one and played Trivial Pursuit in the other.

The rain continued on and off through the night, occasionally coming down hard enough to wake me up, and the wind was pretty strong too. There was a lot of noisy flapping - only a little bit of the tent had fallen down; the guy ropes holding the porch came off, but no damage done and nothing was too wet in the morning. But we didn't feel like breakfast, and saved ourselves for a slap-up lunch in a pub on the way home. Lovely weekend with Lola II, as usual.

Today I've been busy with little things, like trying to sort out car insurance, booking a car service, washing dishes and clothes and drying out all the camping things in the garden, while Alf and his sons continue mending and painting our house. I really must get down to some school work soon, or I'll be in trouble.