Pieces of eight....

To celebrate Annies 40 somethingth birthday, and needing an excuse to camp we went off again to Brook Meadows this weekend

As it was going to be a late arrival on a vile dark rainy Friday night, I turfed out all the tents from Tillie and just took the pop up, deciding to sleep in her for the weekend

Annie was set up early, there was no sign of Rachelle and Mr Rachelle, and Nick and Jayne had already arrived and were in the process of pitching the bell.

Nick is very passionate in his knowledge of tarps - ask him any question about tarp sizes, poles, eyelets & materials and he is your man.  Unfortunately this failed to impress Jayne when she discovered that the 'Aerobed' blow up double bed which was packed in a nice black bag ready to bring, was inadvertantly swapped with a nice black bag, minus the words 'Aerobed', and in fact was a 20ft x 10ft tarp.

Whether Nick had plans to strap up the world largest hammock for the night remains to be confirmed but he was in the bad books

Nick & Jaynes palace - looks lovely but lacks a bit of bedding

 

 

Rachelle arrived about 8pm and went off to pitch the small 3m bell.  2 hours later she joined us in the pop tent for a few quick beers before we turned in for the night.

Having never met Rachelle before, I was  suitably impressed with the speed at which  she managed to change from a sweet tiny little welsh girl to a blazing absolutely rat arsed individual after about an hour

Everyone decided to go to bed before Rachelle needed her stomach pumped. And with an elegant exit from the pop up tent, via the route of face first over the folding bench she was safely zipped in her own tent.

Next day me and Annie went for the customary trip into Market Harborough, purchased some rum and juice and fruit, ready to make a nice pirates rum punch for later (which got demolished mainly by me i think)

We also had a visit from a rep for 'Cool Camping'. She took loads of notes, got all my details, then took a picture of someone elses tent :(

The 'fish tent'

Annie has wanted to dress as a pirate for the last 18 months (i dont know why either) so we agreed to dress up on the Saturday night

Got back and we changed into our prat outfits about 5pm

Rachelle went with facial hair...

Annie finally got to wear her pirates outfit, after a bit of a battle with the corset

 

 

After a bit of a struggle getting my boots over my woolly socks I was ready as well (Annies fault we are posing like prats)

 
And my ships mateys even got their own bandanas

Jayne got to wear the hat later, much to her protests of hats make her look like Sue Pollard...(which in fairness they did)

It was Dans turn to get rat arsed tonight, although this may have something to do with the fact he had been starved of any dinner.  He made do with 12 bags of new 'walkers easy ridge crisps', a bit of brie and some horrendously large marshmallows that resembled an ogres tampax

Then came out the 'pièce de résistance'...Rachelle had made a cake for Annie - stunning huh??

Annie was looking less Ann Summers and more the 'Headless Pirate' by this stage

Barley got a bit bored with all the pirate stuff and decided to go off and do her own bit of plundering.  So my thieving hound went and robbed Rachelles whippets dog treat....and hid behind the tent with her prize...who need doubloons when you can have rawhide

We had a pretty early night and finished at 10:30pm (actually we got a bollocking on Friday for being noisy gits and we promised to keep quiet.  I blame Rachelles trapeze act)

Next morning was packing up time - weather forecast was awful, so we were all up and packed pretty early. It wasn't till then that I witnessed Nicks other quirks....Not only is he a tarp expert he also specialises in tissues.  Evidently some brands work so much better than others at mopping up your groundsheet....(no I dont bother either)

Nick and his tissue mountain

was home for 12pm :(

but was a fun weekend!