Regular readers may recall we had a very dubious experience in a pub recently – the Woolpack in Warehorne served the most awful food I think I’ve ever seen in a pub. This morning I heard through the grape vine that this pub will be under new management in a month’s time. So a return visit may be on the cards sometime during the autumn.
And then with the arrival of the Folkestone contingent and enough camping tackle to equip a small army we loaded the car. It amazes me that when we go to Bat-Camp it’s always the same. Far less luggage than we take to a kite festival, and it takes up far more space. We popped into B&Q to buy wellies, collected Martin and went to Sainsbury’s for beer. And then came straight back out again. Asda does three beers for four quid. Sainsbury’s were nigh on two quid a bottle – two bottles for four quid. It doesn’t take my degree in mathematics to work that one out.
We eventually got to the farm to set up. Another difference between kite festivals and Bat-Camps is that at kite festivals we get on with the setting up. With a few hours hard work at a kite festival, camp is ready. Not so today. We arrived, and had a cuppa. And then another. Then we went to look at the ducklings. After an hour we thought we’d get the camping gear out, and even then we still fiddled about with tow-bars on tractors and getting grease everywhere. We’d been at the farm for a couple of hours before we started putting a tent up; and even then it took ages. Once the main tent was up, we loaded in as much as we could. But we couldn’t get it *that* ready as the cookers were still back at the farm. So we concentrated on tents. We got ten tents up; admittedly some of them still have inners to be put in, but that can be a job for later. There’s only so much that can be done.
In fact that was all that could be done; with important phone calls due at the farm our tractor driver was forced to absent himself, and so me, Martin and “Daddies Little Angel TM ” went for an hour’s fishing; if only to check the pond out for the weekend. We decided the pond would do: between us in an hour we’d had over forty fish, including a rather massive one that got away.
And then home, and having dropped Martin off at the town centre we found the “Rear Admiral” and went to Asda, where Tesco were doing a price comparison. I’ve often wondered how supermarkets keep tabs on each other. It would seem they do it in a manner best described as “rather blatantly”. There was a bloke in a bright yellow Tesco tabard walking round shouting the prices of various articles into his mobile phone. I asked the Asda staff what they thought of it; none of them seemed too fussed. We came home with some more beer, quietly confident that we had enough, and then the phone rang. Martin had also been beer shopping for the weekend, and wondered if he could drop the beer off with us to save mucking about in the morning. We’ve now (probably) got enough to be getting on with. We shall see. But just in case we had a rummage round the cupboards. There’s some old cider that the cider drinkers amongst us can guzzle, and two half empty bottles of port from the last trip to Teston. We’ll take those too…
And so in the morning I shall be off on the fourth camping trip of the year. “My Boy TM ” remains in charge at home. Let’s hope he does the washing up. See you all on Monday…
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