Tent Sniffing for Beginners

For a long time I have searched for the perfect comfy night's sleep when camping. As I'm in my 50s the simple thin foam mat favoured by my teen is just not enough for my older bones. So while a yoga mat may do for the young, for the more discerning sleeper something comfier is required. I have tried camp beds like these but found them to actually feel quite hard and uncomfortable. Then I moved on to the old staple, the supermarket inflatable . For years that's what I have used. I soon learned that sharing a double with someone is a nightmare - the heavier person will bounce the lighter around at every movement! So if you use them, use singles. The plus points are that they are deep and comfy. The negatives are that they are bulky, need a pump to inflate, and once you get a slow leak, each night is a slow descent to the ground.    After my trusty inflatable finally gave up, I searched around for other options. Lately at festivals I've been travelling light ...

Fancy a new festival? Looking for a festival for grown ups that is still child friendly yet not full of teenagers? I think that the Cornbury festival might be just what you need. This year, once again the weather was amazing. Glorious sunshine always helps at a festival. (though mud and rain can make for some fun memories) This year DD and I pitched up in our usual spot on the corner near the comedy tent and the bar, just a 2 minute walk to the breakfast bus, complete with vegan fried breakfast sandwiches and cups of tea. Campsite The general feel of the festival is one of middle class fun. Like a gorgeous English fete with music and a funfair and great food. We listened to the Beach Boys on a sunny afternoon, a wonderful moving set with the Kingdom Choir on the Sunday and Keane and The Specials played too. Much of our day was always spent wandering, cocktail in hand (in a reusable glass), people watching or shopping for jewellery or sequinned fancy costumes. On...

Every blogger that does festivals has blogged about what to take. I've done it myself because it's a thing that newbies, festival virgins, the uninitiated, always ask. But the more I think about the planet, the irony of banning plastic straws but taking wet wipes in your festival kit, the more I thought I needed to 'eco up' my game. Now festival going is never going to be all holy. You'll have to buy stuff, and travel(I'm trying the coach to Boomtown this year!). But here are some ideas to make it a little more environmentally conscious, a little more eco friendly, a tiny bit better for the planet we not only profess to love, but actually live on. You'll need a tent , try not to buy cheap to bin later. It's tempting, you might even kid yourself that 'the homeless' will use it or it will be recycled into clothes . In reality very few tents that are binned are reused, most end up in landfill. If you don't want to buy a tent to reuse year...

Anyone that goes to a festival in the UK knows to take wellies. Wellingtons have become a staple item in the wardrobe of the festival fan because whether it rains or not there will be damp bits. Often these damp bits will be near the showers, or the water points, or the toilets...we shall not dwell here. Wellies have come a long way from the days where green was fancy and black was normal. Now there are glitter wellies, fancy patterned wellies, wellies that look like shoes or regular books, wellies that have jewels and probably even bells. But wellies are not the only prep you need for a UK festival. The very first festival I ever attended was Eastern Haze in Suffolk. IT rained. It rained for days. The field become a swamp. The lorries to empty the toilets became stuck in the mud, the toilets over flowed, the car park was a lake. Oh and my tent pole broke. As you can imagine, surviving this was the best fun ever and I was then hooked on festivals for ever! As was my then seven ye...

Life and death? Bit dramatic, we are only going camping.  Every year there are one or two stories in the news about people that die, actually die , in their tents often while asleep. But what is killing them I hear you ask? The invisible killer is carbon monoxide. If you cook in your tent, if you use a heater in your tent, if you use a barbecue near to your tent, you are at risk. Carbon monoxide is a weird gas that can drift about, and being heavier than air can gather in an invisible layer in a tent and suffocate you as you doze. You can't see it or smell it and worryingly the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are headache and drowsiness, the very things that might tempt you to lay down inside the tent! But don't worry. All you need to stay safe is to ensure you either don't cook or heat the tent and stay far from barbecues (including other peoples!) or have a CO alarm in the tent. A CO alarm will detect dangerous raised levels of carbon monoxide and alert you ...

I recently wrote about my number one camping essential over on The Mediocre Dad , and that made me think. If I had some spare money and wanted to treat myself, what would I add to my camping arsenal? Which extra bits and pieces would I buy? So I had a little hunt about the internet, and asked a few companies what they thought I really 'needed' to add to my kit. Here are some of the things I found, and some things I was sent to test out! First up, a bit of comfort. I usually either have no pillow, or an inflatable one. Inflatable pillows are small and light and can be easily packed, but they are not always the most comfortable. I'm getting on a bit so was very happy to try out a new camping pillow. The Hippy Chick memory foam pillow packs easily into its own travel bag (it really does roll up small and go back into the bag easily!), is covered in soft Tencel, and is gorgeously supportive. The Hippychick Waterproof Memory Foam Travel Pillow is the perfect pillow for camper...

It's about time I got my festival fancy dress underway. Because I attend a few festivals each year I try to ensure I wear a costume that will be suitable for a few of them (I'm not made of money!) but I also like to get a new costume each year, and I like to lure my daughter into dressing up too. Getting kids to dress up is easier when they are small. At 10 she was happy to dress up and join in the fun and even into the early teens she was OK with it. But at 19 she's a bit reluctant, no longer young enough not to care, but not yet old enough not to either! DD and me at Camp Bestival for the Circus Themed Fancy Dress The theme this year at Camp Bestival is Heroes and Super Heroes and this gives wide scope for how it is interpreted. Who are your heroes? Will you be dressing as them? I predict some famous scientists, astronauts, explorers, doctors and ecologists among the costumes, as well as the more obvious choices of superheroes, such as Spider-man, Superman, Capt...