Tent Sniffing for Beginners

It's a dilemma. Do you take a load of cash to a festival. Or a card and hope for cashpoint machines? Or both? Taking cash will save you time queueing at the ATM. If there are ATMs then they will probably charge £1.50 or so a time, so you'll need to keep the visits to a minimum, that's beer money going to waste! If you take cash you will probably spend it. If you take a card it's only one thing to keep safe. But if you lose it you've lost all hope of a fun beer filled festival...and possible petrol for the drive home. Assuming you don't lose it, you will have extensive funds and when you see that sequined jumper with the fur hood at the retro clothing stall for £150 you will be able to buy it. I tend to favour taking both, I budget for what I can afford and take that in cash, but I also take a card in case of the aforementioned fur and sequin thingy. Whatever you choose, how can you keep your cash, card (and car keys, phone etc) safe, not only from the

Well well, poor old Ed Sheeran took a lot of abuse over on social media last night. Actually he didn't because he wasn't on social media, he was busy headlining Glastonbury , but he came back to it this morning, and he even felt the need to wade in to confirm that his set was live, there was not backing track, it was all about the loop pedal. Never thought I'd have to explain it, but everything I do in my live show is live, it's a loop station, not a backing track. Please google x — Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) 26 June 2017 And that made me remember a comedian that DD and I loved at Camp Bestival in 2015 . Rob Deering is a comedian that used the loop pedal to the max! Explaining it to us, the innocent audience, and then using it, and his guitar to keep us in metaphorical stitches for half an hour or so. So when I thought loop pedal, I though COFFEEEE ! I can't wait to see what the comedy lineup will bring this year. As with music at festivals, where there are

I was sent a table by Millets recently. They asked me to share with you what I thought of it and to see if it could make camping a real home from home . Now as you will know if you are a regular reader, I am a 'bare minimum' sort of camper. No electric, not fussed about flushing toilets and shower blocks, happiest in a wood or a field just me, my tent, some beer and a book (and DD of course, my regular camping companion) so how would a table work for me? Well I picked the rather super looking  table with storage under it , and to say it changed our camping lives is not an understatement. One of the reasons Mr Tentsniffer doesn't camp with us (along side having a bad back, and preferring an evening in front of the TV to one trekking across a field to the loo,) is that he hates mess and when DD and I camp, we are messy. I'm messy anyway, chucking things down and leaving them where they land, and in the tent that soon becomes a royal pain in the bum! "where

As you will recall I was invited to the Byline festival as a guest , with the lovely DD, to review the festival and tell you all about it! So you'll be wondering if it lived up to the hype - or was it fake news! Byline Festival was described on its own website as A RIOT OF FREE SPEECH PROTEST AGAINST FAKE NEWS AND ALTERNATIVE FACTS something that rather worried the chaps at the local BBC radio station it seems. Sussex festival criticized for "teaching people how to riot" @BylineFest pic.twitter.com/QeATONRaqC — BBC Sussex (@BBCSussex) June 2, 2017 But they needn't have worried, far from fields of violent rioting hooligans, the fields were in fact full of a diverse band of intelligent people, keen to learn how to spot truth from fiction, how to survive in a world so rich in information that it can be hard to spot the important bits, how to be their own journalists but also how to find journalists to trust...and why even today in a world of 'ins

Over on Facebook today I saw a post sharing a truly frightening story of a young girl getting her hair caught in a pool filter while on holiday, and subsequently nearly drowning. She lost chunks of hair and had to be treated in hospital, she was lucky to survive this terrifying experience. I have read about pool filters and the dangers of them before, and whether at home or abroad it's easy to forget safety when we are on holiday and having fun. When DD was younger she had waist length hair and because wet waist length hair is a pain when you are trying to swim, we bought her a swimming hat. While she initially hated it and thought it looked a bit silly, she soon realised the benefits, no wet hair all over your face as you surface, no tangles after swimming (or at least a lot fewer than when it's loose) and even slightly better speed when swimming as there is less drag! When we holidayed in Spain there were signs all around the pool telling guests to wear a swimming hat