Good Camping, Bad Camping

Things I like about camping:
1) cooking tea and toast outside on a ridiculous stove. In fact, it would have been quicker to cook toast and boil a kettle on a tepid stone. But a stone doesn't make the same hissing noise that a gas cylinder does.
2) the frisson of excitement knowing that there is only a thin layer of nylon between me and marauding animals at night.
3) being able to sit outside in a sleeping bag and nobody thinking it's weird.
4) the 'zuuuuuuuuuuuuppppp' sound of all the zips going up and down and up and down as one enters and exits one's cmping palace.
5) discovering what all those little bits of velcro strapping attached to the inside of the tent are used for and finding a very useful floor-to-ceiling fabric pocket storage doo-dah which I filled with all sort of camping tat for easy access. 'Darling, where are the extra-long matches?' 'In the pocket doo-dah thing, dear.' 

Things I don't like about camping:
1) screaming children
2) the air-bed collapsing during Night One in a 'ship-going-down-slowly-then-very-quickly' kind of way
3) having food poisoning on the last night and spending all night running up and down to the loos, swinging my solar lamp and avoiding marauding wild animals. The loos at the site we stayed at were about 300 metres from our pitch. And believe me, 300 meters is a LOOOOOONG way when you need to use the loo NOW!

So, the Great Camping Trip was a mostly success. The weather was good, the outings and explorations were fun and educational. It was odd being without TV and radio and newspapers for a couple of days, but I read most of 'Sense and Sensibility' by the lovely Jane Austen and sniggered in a very juvenile way over phrases like 'and in winter his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not suffering under the insatiable appetite of fifteen.'

And whilst we were away, Chris proposed to Leane, so now they are engaged! And also whilst we were away, the courgettes at the allotment grew like maniacs and which meant we picked a good 30kg of them yesterday and they are now staring at me from the corner of the kitchen as if to say, 'C'mon then - whotcha gonna do about us, eh? Eh??'

More about camping later. Well, mostly stuff about an enormous flowery pot and a very exciting find of 'Limonade de Pamplemousse'. But now I have to a) decide the fate of the courgettes, and b) find out what has happened to the pictures of you, my tres bonne followers, who have disappeared for some inexplicable reason, thus requiring from me some in-depth technical expertise to get you back, or possibly a spot of shouting  'Andeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy!! Can you get my followers back for me PLEEEEEEEEEEEEAASEEEEEE???? Mwah, mwah!'