Hopalong camping

So here I am back in the field, almost a year older but sadly not any wiser, and certainly less fit. Arthritis that has grumbled away in the back ground for the past few years now shouts and jabs into my hips making walking painful and hopscotch impossible. And then in order to perpetuate my reign as Mrs Clumsy, a month or so ago I managed to trip down two very small steps in a large and impossibly ramshackle farmhouse that I was meant to be house sitting. An hour into the stay I opened the kitchen door leading into the dark hallway and neglected to notice there was a step, so down I went. A visit to Whitstable A and E for an x ray revealed a hairline fracture in my metatarsal, and I left with this months must have accessory, a delightfully ill fitting surgical shoe. Not only was it too big, it also had a weird heel which meant that my left leg was 5 inches higher than my right one so after a week my hips were really protesting. Luckily my Ray Mears survival saw came to the rescue and I removed it. Anyway enough of this moaning on, it sounds like a Saga magazine article.

Because it’s August and because we are creatures of habit we are back in North Devon in our corner with my old van, and the Poppits, the old battered Army dining shelters that have saved us from many a weather upset over the years, crates of food, tables, gas burners, Dutch ovens and large cooking pots, bell tents, small tents, vans, braziers, Cobb ovens, you name it, somebody has got it. Because I am under orders ( trying very hard to obey) not to scamper about too much I am actually writing this from bed with the Archers omnibus and a cup of tea as I watch my fellow campers busying themselves like worker ants as they set up camp, getting out all the old familiar mugs and plates, emptying the spiders and dust out of the van, filling up the water, connecting the gas cookers, getting things in the right order, just how we like it, just as we have done it for years and years. The spade is here for cutting the turf for the fire and C will be bringing the tipi poles up on his trailer later. In a nutshell, camp life is shaping up nicely, the wind has died down and it isn’t even raining ( yet).

The joy of coming to the same place every year is that people come and go over the years, a bit like the tide. Small children who once complained and whined about being dragged every year to this windy wet part of the world where it was muddy and wet and there was no telly, when all their friends were on villa holidays in Greece, still come in their own cars with their partners and friends, old faces turn up, people return after long gaps, we gather, we feast, look for shooting stars, batten down the hatches, battle with storms and guy ropes, laugh and argue, shout at the camp dogs, talk about the weather, play games, deal with broken tents and bent poles, convince ourselves it will brighten up ( it barely does), manage to rustle up delicious suppers even the time when during a massive storm the cooker blew over, spilling the lovingly simmered onion gravy into the grass. Undeterred we scooped it up and served it anyway. One lucky diner even got a complimentary slug with his portion.

On Friday night, our first night, we went down to the quay for a pint. It was dark but we could see the white of the churning waves and hear the whooshing and frothing water as it was sucked out around Life Rock. There was a group of people on the headland who were letting off fireworks in memory of a family member. It reminded me of when we fired Tims ashes from the standing stone at the top of this field that bitterly cold day fifteen years ago. Nice to think that others love this place too.