Newsflash: It Rains In Wales

 

Q: How do you fit two adults, two dogs, three teenage boys, one girl child, a tent, sundry camping equipment including a carpet, TV, and a fridge into a little 1400 Citroen?

A: Don’t be daft!  It’s not a Mary Poppins’ Tardis.  You don’t; you get one teenage boy’s Dad to bring him along, with half your gear.  Thanks, Dennis.

About three weeks ago the Hub said, ‘The weather is supposed to improve; let’s go camping.  Let’s go camping and take the niece and nephew and Spud’s friend. Let’s go camping in North Wales because it’s only an hour’s drive from here and I can just about manage that with my ME.  Let’s go camping and forget our last experience of three days in a tent in October in a gale.  Let’s go camping because the Olympics will be over and the football season won’t start until a week later and I’ll be bored.  Let’s go camping.’

I’m pretty intuitive, and I began to suspect that the Hub wanted to go camping.

He looked online, found a nice camp site about four miles each way from Abergele and Rhyl, and booked four nights, five days for six people and two dogs, reasonably priced.

Come last Monday morning, we loaded up the cars and went off on a summer holiday.  We had no trouble finding the camp site; we were given a good spot – sheltered, near the water hole.  The tent went up in fifteen minutes with all those bodies and because we knew how to do it this time.  The gazebo and wind breaker went up even faster.

We sat; we rested; the children explored and played.  We braaied sausages and hamburgers for dinner.  We congratulated ourselves on our choice of week, weather-wise.

The heavens opened.  We scuttled inside the tent and made the best of it.

The heavens closed, leaving behind a rainbow.  The children, dogs and I went for a walk.  The children played football and badminton.

Night came.  We watched a movie and went to bed, having first scoured the wonderful clear sky for the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower.  Hub and Spud were fortunate enough to see a couple.  Me, nothing.  The one time in fifteen years I’ve had a clear sky to witness it, and I was in the toilet.

The clear sky departed.  It rained all night.

Welcome to Wales.