Camping

The reality and romance of camping have always intrigued me. Often the romance wins out and off you trot and then after a couple of nights of no sleep and basically roughing it you return to four walls and a solid roof in a foul temper. Camping like drugs isn't for everybody. I've done camping, from sleeping out in the small back garden in a canvas bell tent, blue on the inside and orange on the outside. You touched the fabric in the morning and you got soaked. You then gravitated to camping with the cub scouts in tents that had last been used in the Boar War, big fuck off turquoise affairs that housed about a hundred. Then as you got older you forgot how little sleep you got and you purchased the micro tents, the throw up tents, the ultra lightweight wild camping with go faster guy ropes and ultimately it was all futile. Camping just reminds me of being grumpy, permanently grumpy. More grumpy than when I am in a house which is really saying something because it seems to be a constant at the moment. Camping is an addiction because even now as a 53 year old grumpy middle aged male I still think of the kit I have up in the attic and yearn for a space where I can pitch my tent and just look at the stars or the roof of the tent listening to the noises outside. There is something about being in a tent that makes every noise into a bear or a psychopath. You cross your legs, not daring to go out for a pee just in case you bump into that psychopathic bear.  You want to make a fire but are scared of setting the forest on fire, you set up your little camping stove for a brew and the matches or the gas runs out. You eat beans out of a mess tin and then think why the fuck did I just do that? You wave and acknowledge other campers but don't get any further because you don't want them to know that you are an absolute incompetent. You pack up your stuff after two or three days, I've never gone longer than that and then you head home and think what the hell was that all about. Was it worth all the effort. The twinges in your back, the smell from not braving the communal shower block, the hunger, the lack of sleep. I hate camping, I love camping. When are we going again?