The camping season begins

July 2018

Lola II and I have been off for our first joint camping trip of the year. In fact I don't think we have another trip planned together this year, but you never know. We went to Badgell's Wood in Kent, and the heatwave continued, but we survived because the campsite is a forest and all the pitches are in deep shade - it was almost chilly for some of the time. Lola II was a bit disappointed that they weren't allowing any sort of open fires because of the drought and heatwave, but I can take it or leave it when it comes to camp fires.

We shared my tent, partly because I drove and Lola II went by train, but partly because my tent is so good that we heard two boys who passed our pitch in the woods saying "Look at that tent, it's so cool!" It's been a while (decades) since I possessed anything that could be described as cool by a young person. My tent is also so good that Lola II and Mr M have finally bought one just the same.

There were a couple of downsides to the camping situation. The campsite had no drinking water, so we had to buy some - not really a problem. We also discovered only as we were about to leave that the office would have charged our phones for us overnight if we had asked, but instead Lola II covertly plugged hers in whenever we were in an establishment with available sockets. I just spent the last two or three days without any phone except when I could charge it in the car. Nobody ever phones me except Lola II so this wasn't really a problem either. The site was really quiet when we arrived on Wednesday, but a lot of children arrived on Friday night and made a tremendous racket.

After I picked up Lola II from the station we headed off for a fine lunch at a local pub, pitched the tent then went foraging for water, milk and other provisions in West Malling. Frank's restaurant was advertising their Mussel Night the following evening, so being fans of the bivalve we booked a table and it was delicious - Lola II triumphed with her fennel, chorizo and cream sauce (no onion or garlic), although mine was good too.

The mussel feast came at the end of a day when we visited Eltham Palace and gardens, which was built by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld on the site of a 14th or 15th century hall that they also renovated and used for balls and parties. Both the house and hall were opulently and lavishly decorated - the owners were astonishingly, mind-blowingly wealthy. Virginia was a keen ice skater, so her husband built her an ice rink in London. Anything they wanted, they could have - gold plated taps, underfloor heating, sound-proofed bedroom walls, a pet lemur... and then war broke out, and they just couldn't get the staff. They had bought the place in 1933 and moved in three years later, but by 1944 they were tired of getting bombed and headed off to Rhodesia, where presumably there were plenty of workers.

A trip to Sevenoaks another day was underwhelming except for the James Corden lookalike in the watch shop. We tried to get a bit of culture in the Sevenoaks Museum and Art Gallery, but the fire alarm went off after we'd been there for no more than two minutes and we had to evacuate the premises. Maidstone was another matter altogether - a large museum and art gallery which was quite interesting in parts (and no fire alarms), many many shops, a theatre and a river. We even went to a show, which stopped us spending much time near the river. It was an amateur local company performing 'In The Heights' and it was pretty good but stiflingly hot.

Lola II has taken up crochet in a big way. By this, I mean that she is obsessed with it, and seems to have several projects on the go at the same time. To my certain knowledge she has made a cushion cover for Mr M, I received a unique (translation: slightly non-rectangular) tea towel and also a dish scrubber, and she has made at least one scarf and probably some more things too. What this means is that each morning I was able to sit and read a book quietly for at least an hour while she crocheted, which I'm pretty sure hasn't happened on any of our camping trips before.

Lola II had ordained that I would be in charge of ridding the tent of anything with more than two legs, which duty I fulfilled despite my own squeamishness. We tried to play a game one evening in the dark lit by one head torch and two wind-up lanterns which had to be regularly wound during the course of the game. It required sets of cards to be laid out flat, which was pretty precarious without a table as we had to balance everything on our duvet-covered laps while vigorously winding up the lights. The most interesting moment came when an eight-legged guest made its presence felt at a crucial moment mid-game.

LOLA II: "Aaaargh! Get it! Get it!"

LOLA I (trying to trap spider in paper towel without scattering game cards throughout the tent): "Missed it!"

LOLA II: "There it is! Squish it! Squish it!"

LOLA I: "I can't! I'm a Buddhist!" (not true but I really don't like squishing creatures)

LOLA II: "I'm not a Buddhist! Squish it for me!"

The spider escaped, but was evicted along with its mates next day when I could approach the situation unencumbered by wind-up lanterns, game cards and duvets.

Camp cooking included a cracking onion-free spiced chickpea concoction with watercress in pitta bread, mozzarella with pesto and tomato in pitta bread, and pasta with mushrooms and truffle pesto. Snacks included wasabi peas, strawberries and cherries, anchovy-stuffed olives and a can of gin and tonic. On the last day we thought about going to Chatham dockyard but in the end, after striking camp, we went to a local Country Park for a late breakfast, walked around for a while, ate some cake and went home. It was a very hot holiday, but a good one.