It’s who you know

I can hardly believe we are at the beginning of September, and that almost on cue there were crinkled leaves that had fallen on my windscreen this morning as the chestnuts are beginning to turn. And today it feels crisp and chilly and makes me think it might be time to find some socks

I am a creature of habit when it comes to summer holidays. August always involves an exodus down the A303 to the field where we set up camp, put on raincoats, discuss the weather and sit around pondering  the fact that some people choose to go on Greek villa holidays. This year,  I left London on a sweltering sunny morning, even having a moment of madness thinking  that perhaps I didn’t even need to pack a raincoat,  as we seemed to be in the middle of a heatwave. Well, yes, everywhere was in the middle of a heatwave . Everywhere apart from our field in N Devon. By the time I got to Bideford the sky had turned black and as I turned into the farm it started to rain. Not London rain, but proper earthy peaty rain, the sort of rain that splashes right down inside every crease and wrinkle of your waterproofs and leaves your skin soft and smooth.

My favourite bit of camping life is the camp kitchen. As I have mentioned in a previous post we have an old army mess tent ( called Col Poppit) that we put up in the corner of the field tucked in to avoid the inevitable wind and rain. However many other tents get bent and blown down, the poppit remains steadfast and upright ( despite several rips). As soon as we arrive we open the back of my van up ( usually bringing with it a shower of rust ) and get everything out. Crates of plates, mugs, cutlery, cooking pots and pans, surf boards, fishing nets, ropes, tables, chairs, gas bottles, everything but the kitchen sink although my van does indeed already have one. 

Once the poppit is up we set about getting the kitchen ready. Water carriers are filled, crates are sorted into categories ( bread, tins, wine etc) cool boxes stacked with freezer elements , wind breaks hammered in, cookers assembled, coffee and tea decanted into tins, tables and chairs set out. I may be of simple mind but this setting up is the best bit. Apart from the actual cooking that is. 

This year we managed several spectacular meals. The first was during a storm of torrential and unforgiving rain, when the poppit swayed and strained against the battering wind  as if we were at sea. We had decided to cook a hearty meal of sausages ( meat and veg) onion gravy, mash, peas and beans. Amongst the wet card players, swaying lanterns and Eli in full waterproofs disappearing into the storm to adjust tent poles, returning looking like an extra from ‘Deadliest catch ‘ and interspersed with gulps of wine,  we attempted to cook as the gas burner strained in its efforts  to generate more than a half hearted sizzle as the wind whipped and whirled around it. Just as we thought things couldnt get any worse theentire cooker   blew over, rings still burning, tipping the large saucepan of onion gravy that had been simmering for the past hour and a half over the grass. Undeterred, we got a spoon and scraped up as much as we could find,  which we then served with the rest of dinner. I think the slightly chewy bit somebody found in their helping may have been a slug but you do your best.

My other favourite meals were on the beach at Welcombe.There were two last beautiful golden evenings before we went home and we spent them both swimming and cooking supper . We carried my cast iron dutch oven pot down the path and on to the rocks, perched as high as we could as the tide came in and made the most perfect exquisite roast chicken in cider, fresh herbs, with onions garlic and lemon. On the last night we met with Pop, Alex, Tony and Jay, this time only venturing  as far as the bottom of the steps as the tide was so high. We barbecued vegetables and potatos from their garden, sausages and kebabs from the butcher at Kilkhampton, Jay bringing  freshly baked bread in a basket, we toasted each other with chilled prosecco as we sat looking out over the silver shimmering sea, until the sky turned pink and the sun went down

Luckily my friends are creatures of habit too ( though these habits have not always been so welcome in the case of my children who did understandably sometimes mutiny at being made to sit in a tent for weeks in the rain) but the same group of us have been camping together for years , with inevitable comings and goings and gaps. The babies, chubby  toddlers and kids we used to carry down to the beach, who spent hours playing in the tipi, putting on endless plays, fighting, laughing, falling in the mud, hanging out in the shop buying sweets and dream catchers are now young adults. The visitor books at the craft fair and the museum ( good bolt holes on a rainy day), photos and endless videos bear testament to their presence over the past twenty five years or so. 

 Can it really have been that long? Since the time when a small Tashi was frightened of the seaweed,how she cried when the dog ate her maltesers  and Lucas was so terrified of the Hartland Carnival that I had to wheel him away in his buggy (in hindsight this showed remarkable good taste for one so young). And when we made a bed for baby Molly on the rocks while we swam at the quay and it started to rain so hard that she woke up and laughed. The mornings when they would all get up early, listening out of the sound of Colin’s quad bike as he would come and whisk them away for an hour of rounding up sheep, an hour of peace for us parents. How he would teach them about electric fences by getting them to hold one, and that we found out much later that Harvey had almost turned the quad bike over aged about four. When  Charlie the milkman brought his grandchildren up to have a look at our tipi and his horrified expression having entered to find a damp sleeping bag smouldering over the fire as a gaggle of wild eyed feral youngsters danced about. Suppers in the pub with a chef on holiday and the evening the rainwater poured down the fronsteps into the bar. Exciting wild high tides at the quay with squealing kids, Alex losing his glasses and finding them again as the next wave swept over the top, Ruth grabbing Molly by the scruff of her neck to avoid herfalling into the churning, frothing mass and just two weeks ago all of them running along the sea wall and diving in. Annual and much feared ghost  walks, Tess and I scurrying around the churchyard in the fat suits we found in Colin’s barn ( Bubbles from Little Britain had featured in the carnival that year), Tim hiding in the hedge moaning and wailing as the kids walked down the lane, lit only by moonlight. The way they ran so fast as they made their way back up the track past the farmyard as we threw handfuls of gravel on to the roof of the big barn. Hot chocolate and cheesy chips at the Quay. The first pint of Tribute. The hazy mornings and golden evenings on the beach when everything seems right with the world. Bone chilling swims under the waterfall, sunburnt cheeks and damp trousers, smoke drenched hair and laughter.

And being part of a tribe. Our summer tribe. Friends always and forever.