By: Blonde Two
As I mentioned last week, Blonde One and I camped in relative luxury last weekend with all sorts of mod-cons. My favourite had to be our tent in which we could stand up, lie down and sit on actual chairs. There was space for visitors and bags and decent sized stoves – we even had plates although we forgot to use them. I have never had a carpeted tent before but I would thoroughly recommend it – it soaked up the rain blowing in through the tent door very well. Did I mention the cat flap? – Blonde One couldn’t remember what it was really for but it was big enough for a largish cat or a smallish dog – we had neither.
Which was ironic because during the night we acquired a neighbour who did have a smallish dog but in the smallest tent I had ever seen. This tent was around one foot high and dark green in colour which explains why I nearly tripped over it on my way to the loo. The dog was very sweet – he appeared outside the tent on a lead in the morning, but he must surely have taken up a lot of the very limited space in the tiny tent. I suspect the tent was actually a bivi shelter – I am not an expert in these matters but it made my one-man Dartmoor one seem palatial. The chap who emerged seemed perfectly happy with his limited space and hairy bed-fellow and had quite a long lie in.
So it would appear that you can sleep well and have fun in any size tent. There is no doubt that there are disadvantages to the large ones, they need a car to transport them and take much longer to pitch, strike and dry out. Blonde One and I have discovered recently however, that if you really fancy a bit of luxury, you can overcome all of these issues by bringing along a few slaves.
I like to sleep in a tent but I would not like to wear it! I don’t like tent pyjamas! I don’t mind a sleeping bag suit
Sounds like a bivvy to me!!! My dad had a near nasty disaster with a couple of bivviers up in North Wales. He had pitched his mountain tent then driven off to the local pub for dinner. On his return in the dark he went to swing the car into the space next to his tent only to get the shick of his life as he slammed on his breaks to find two people in dark green bivvies in the space he had earlier vacated!!! Although he nearly soiled himself, the two bivvy inhabitants seemed sound asleep and blissfully unaware of how close they came to being squashed!!!
Personally I don’t think I could sleep in one because I get really claustrophobic even in tents!!! I can just about manage a 2 man tent!!!
Remember one guy holed up for a week in his one-man tunnel in some of the foulest camping rain I ever encountered; he had to do everything lying down – well, nearly everything – there was an Elsan on the site. I think he was having first-hand practice at being a worm.
After a week in the rain, he was lucky that the worms didn’t munch him up.
Remember that lovely song about the squishy-squash worm on your pillow at night?
Do you think they are warmer than bigger tents? I forgot to mention in the ‘cold’ blog that i have also bought a smaller tent in an effort to stay warm, but it’s not that small.