This year we were looking forward to loading the car up as soon as my wife’s school broke up, heading for the coast and sailing across to France and going down to a camp site approximately 50 miles south of Paris. It was part of a planned campaign to get away more at weekends, both for our own benefit and that of our son who is approaching 4. We reckoned he was getting to the stage where he’d get a lot from the experience, get him used to longer journeys and going around the country to places we like or haven’t been to before.
We were going to start slowly by setting the tent up and spending a weekend camping in the garden which would give us the chance to test all the gear, make sure the tent, which has not been out for a few years, remained rainproof and if not, either repair it or fiind a new one.
I was excited about getting all the kit out as some of it is quite cool and good fun. We have for instance, a paraffin Tilly lamp which is not only a powerful light but – useful on cold nights – also kicks out a lot of heat. Best of all, is the camp kitchen which we purchased when on holiday in Abu Dhabi and with which I fell in love immediately. It has a work surface, shelves and cup hooks and is equipped with a kitchen sink and draining board and folds down into an easily portable case. It’s tremendous, and when coupled with a bbq brings a whole new dimension to camping in regards of cleanliness and making life around the tent easier.
The question of the campsite bbq is getting better, the problems beforehand have been ones of ease of use. That’s if you are allowed one on the site which isn’t always the case. But the general problem of whether to take a charcoal barbeque or a gas barbeque comes back with a slightly different twist.
The problem of taking a charcoal barbeque normally involves the amount of time and skill required to light it, keep it going and safety when it’s all done. With camping comes the consideration of space and a bbq of any description can compromise this. A “disposable” bbq may seem to be the key but I once almost set fire to my tent and a field when the thin foil tray that it was contained in collapsed due to the heat.
A gas barbeque can be a good idea but problems may occur if you also have a camp hob as well and you discover, like we did that they need different sorts of gas and so 2 bottles are necessary, again not helping the space issue (and weight come to that).
But, developments have happened recently which have seen strong %KEYWORD3% units which are able to fold down into smaller more manageable sizes which mean that it is easier to pack into a limited room in the boot of a car. This also applies to a gas barbeque as well although the question of the bottle remains.
However, all schemes for us for this year were thrown to the winds when my wife was found to have cancer in the early spring which has lead to putting off all plans but, as football fans say at the end of a season in which nothing has been won and relegation avoided – there’s always next year.
