camp comp

Our new summer veg pot hits the shelves this week and to celebrate its arrival, we're thought we'd have a little competition to help you dine al fresco by your tent this summer.

We've got 3 sets of camping stoves, pots, pans and a whole box of our new summery recipe to give away to the three best camping stories we get.

Post your entries below as a comment by Monday 15th June and let burnt-baked-bean-instant-noodle surprise be a thing of Brownie Camp past.

This competition is now closed. Well done to Adam, Natalie and Nia. Camping stoves on their way to you very soon. Meantime campers, remember to always pitch your tent on the leeward side of a west facing slope on Wednesdays.

Comments

[nicky thomas-davies]

camping in scotland on a farm, mum, dad and i were putting up the tent when we heard a yelp from my little brother. he came running over in tears.. when asked what he had happened he showed us the electric fence around the field ad said 'i just did this' and proceeded to grab it again. muppet! then there was the time he jumped into as many 'muddy puddles' as possible... only they werent mud. !

[graham at innocent]

When I was little I was a Cub Scout. We went camping one summer and during a wide game I tripped and fell in a cow pat... the cow pat eventually washed off but unfortunately the nickname didn't. For the next two years everyone called me 'Dollop'.

[Sally]

So, we found this campsite in Watergate Bay, Newquay. Pitch our tents. 'This is all very nice', we think. We go to bed, everyone's all snuggled up nice and cosy. About 6am in the morning, I'm lay in bed watching the sky get lighter through the tent and listening to a plane rev-up at the airport not far away. It gets a bit louder and I'm lay thinking it's going to take off soon. Then it takes off, and I can hear it getting closer to us as it flew our way. All of a sudden, my Mum sits bolt upright next to me, starts saying some very un-Innocent words under her breath as she's frantically trying to undo the zip on the tent but can't find it, and starts saying over and over agin 'Gotta get out, gotta get out'. I start saying 'Mum, it's a plane, lie down'. I say it a few times, then shout it as I aim a bit of a kick in her general direction. 'Oh', she says, lies back down and goes to sleep. A few hours later when we're all awake, I ask her what she thought was going on. Turns out she thought a massive great big lorry was coming straight towards our tent and insisted she could see it's headlights (it must have been the sunlight). It was only a few days later that I realised she hadn't, at any point, attempted to wake me or my Dad up...
To this day she will insist that she could see headlights coming towards the tent. Rest assured, this story is retold at any possible moment, with plenty of dramatic re-enactments...

[Isabel]

My fondest memories of camping consist of starlit sing-songs, counting shooting stars whilst several families around me sang along to Uncle Tom thumbing away on the old strings. Not only did we sing the classics like Streets of London, but had a crack at some less well known like one that was in an eskimo dialect and one in Scottish which a Scot even translated to us! My all time favourite has to be the adaptation of Guantanamera
for which the first lines were changed to
"Viva Porthcurnon!
I need some paper for my bottom!" This referred to the need to use your own toilet paper supplies as the rudimentary campsite's were severely inadequate! :)

[ellietricity]

It's the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award and my friends and I are on the Brecon Beacons having the time of our lives. No, really - there is something brilliant working together as a team and carrying your life on your back as you tiresomely curse from the top of your lungs trekking up and down mountains just to get to camp and cook a nice hot dinner.

So the teams reach camp and we do our traditional flop-groan-sigh-"what's cooking?". What is cooking indeed. It was the last night of our hike so we decided to bung all the readymade camp meals together and have ourself a feast. A combination of beef and (very soggy) dumplings, chilli con carne, meatballs and tomato sauce, chicken curry... beef stroganoff, need I go on?

This, however, turned into the worst idea that had ever occurred to us. Let's just say that hiking behind the lads up Lord Hereford's Knob with an oncoming breeze the next day really was the icing on the cake to a rememorable week!

[J]

We used to go camping a lot when I was a child, and I loved it! But one camping trip in particular left a scar on my childhood memories... if only my parents had remembered that tent 'walls' are paper thin, and sound carries very well in the dead of night!!!

[Nics]

I've never been camping :o(

[frightened camper to be]

I'll soon be popping my camping cherry as my sister, husband and brother-in-law are forcing me to go camping next month.

After reading the stories above I think I'm slightly terrified!

[Little Jo]

My family used to camp in the 70's when I was in my very early teens. One year we arranged to meet my godfather and his family in Ingoldmells (near Skeggy)as it was halfway between their house in Yorkshire and ours in Northamptonshire (in a roundabout sort of way).
The big day arrived and it was blowing what felt like a Force 9 hurricane! lol Well both sets of parents got to work pitching the tents while all the kids held them down to stop them blowing away and we spent what must have been the most miserable first night of a holiday EVER in a howling gale, with thunder, lightning and torrential rain.
Our tent flooded, every stitch of clothes we had got soaked despite having left them in the boot of the car - old car = leaky boot - and to cap it al the zip on my godfathers tent ripped so they had to come and squeeze in with us - 4 adults and 5 kids all squashed into a 4 man tent.
Needless to say the next morning we up sticks, packed the cars and high tailed it up to Yorkshire - where the sun shone for 6 glorious days!
Funny though - don't remember going camping after that....

[elaine g]

we used to go away every year as a family in our trailer tent. we traveled across most of ireland and lots of france. when me and my sisters were too young to be a help setting up the tent we were sent off on arduous task like, find the water tap and explore the campsite.these were the good times.
once we were tall enough we were roped in to help. the sound of daddy saying 'break the legs' in his mock mafia voice and getting irate saying 'don't nip the canvas, whatever you do don't nip the canvas' is one of the main lasting memories of childhood holidays.
also, the time i woke up in the middle of the night, thought in my dreamlike state, oh theres a furry hat, stroked the hat, only to realise it was a CAT!a stray cat had climbed inside on a rainy night. this led to that side of the sleeping area to be called catsville for the rest of time.

[pip]

The last time I camped was with my rugby team, the Henley Hawks Ladies team. We camped at the Bournemouth 7's rugby tournament in May on a campsite with about 3000 other people. The toilets were grubby and the beer and bacon butties were expensive but the sun shone all weekend and we ended up winning the ladies tournament so it was fab! Roll on next year!

[Naomi H]

I was a girl guide and had several memorable camping trips with them. My first camp with them was in North Wales during the summer so needless to say it chucked it down for much of the time. We were staying in old canvas ridge style tents that laced up to close at either end. There were six girls to a tent, each with a separate sleeping roll of ground sheet, sleeping bag and camp blanket. We camped for a week and each night we had to swap our positions to make it more fair as although we all got wet from the water leaking under the edges of the tent, the girls at the end got soaking as the ends of the tent blew up in the howling gale and they has water blowing over their face, feet and one side of their body. They also got clambered over by anyone wanting to get out in the middle of the night to use the loo as they had to undo all the laces, let more rain in on the poor unfortunate girl on the end and then get her wet and clamber over her again when they came back from the loo. Then we had to get up in the morning, place our soggy sleeping rolls on the racks constructed from polls and tent pegs, then roll up the edges of the tent for the day to air it out.

For some reason I am still a keen camper to this day and I am looking forward to two weeks in (hopefully) sunny Cornwall this summer under canvas with my lovely man. Our tent is a lot better than the ancient ones we used at guides though!! Just wish I had photos to prove how rough and ready it all was.

[Amy Shepherd]

My Memories of Camping are always brilliant - due to the fact i'm either with a large bunch of mates at a fesitval (food prices there are ridiculous so some cooking sets would come in handy!)

Or with a large group of mates down on the Welsh, Devon or Cornish shores trying to pickup lovely waves whilst all making idiots of ourselves - We then normally stay up late playing silly games and feeling that warm glow on our faces after spending the whole day on the beach! mmmm Love that feeling!

Camping Should definitely be embraced! Whatever the situation!

[Claire Baker]

I put a cane toad in the bottom of my friends sleeping bag whilst we were all around the camp fire in the Northern Teritory in Australia. He was laid in there for a good half an hour before the toad wriggled against his feet! He shot out of the bag so fast he only just managed to miss the fire!

* No animals were harmed during this practical joke- the toad was just enjoying being kept warm.

[Matticus]

Festival camping at Reading - avoid invoncenient loo stops by taking loads of Immodium... spend 5days without a number two. Go to sleep in a tent conveniently and cleverly situated next to the "road"... wake up in the middle of a small lake almost floating on your airbed.
3 days of cold food.
So worth it!

[Caroline Bannister]

so many family camping holidays as a child - so many stories - most memorable - Camping as a family in Scotland and it rained, and rained, and rained. Our tent had seperate groundsheet to the canvas and water was seeping through the back of the tent running under and over the groundsheet, so my father and I took a couple of trowels - packed for those toilet emergencies in the wild! - and proceeded to dig a mini-moat around the outside of the tent to encourage the water to drain around us.
Smelliest - my sisters socks - extremely ripe stilton!
Funniest - camping chair breaking and having to sit on an upturned bucket for the last few days of the holiday.
I could really do with some camp cooking apparatus though as my kitchen is currently being taken apart ready for a new one to be fitted starting end of next week - so will only have the use of the kettle, toaster and microwave for a couple of weeks

[QuiteKate]

We camped annually in a field in Dorset with fellow members of an amateur theatre group when I was a kid.

Favourite moment: peeking out the tent on a stormy night and seeing one of our friends sitting on a porta potty at the edge of the field having had his toilet tent blow away mid session.

[Debbie]

Oh I've got so many ..... actually have just spent the worse weekend of my camping life camping with 19 Girl Guides in a down pour that started 5 minutes after arriving and didn't finish until 24 hours later. At several points the rain was so hard it was sideways! We were all VERY wet (I was wet in places that I didn't even know I had) and there was so much mud that wellies were muddy on the inside. Many a hardy Scout abandoned camp the morning after arriving but we soldiered on!! The girls did archery, assault course, death slide and many more things even though they were soaked through and muddy. We had a really great time despite the wet, muddy conditions.

[robin atter]

I went camping to cornwall when i was 10, it rained every day, and in those days there was no innocent to tuck into, else we would have been eating those

[abby bookham]

We were in Wales in the luxury of a caravan (sort of camping), it was dark, raining and thundering. It was great in bed hearing the pitter, patter on the roof. The rain got heavier and heavier so we all got out of bed and looked out to see darkness and then everytime there was lightning you would see fellow campers running round the field in a panic with tents flying about in the wind. As we were warm and dry, and I was only 5 it has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

[natalie meehan]

Right so it turns out I haven’t been to all that many places. When I was younger my parents were more likely to be flicking through a brochure for camping holidays in some far flung corner of the British Isles than jetting us off to Florida, forcing my sister and I to wear plimsolls and socks in the sea so we wouldn’t get stung by weaver fish (not a good look. Not at all. Especially for a 10 year old eager to prove she was cool) and sitting huddled on some freezing beach in Cornwall in April, picking sand out of our jam sarnies, desperately attempting to forget that the wind chill factor was pushing minus five.
One of my most memorable British breaks was a trip to the lovely Isle of Wight. I have a tremendous amount of affection for the perfectly formed little island, which is surprising considering the tales I am about to tell. This particular trip was when I was 13, it was the height of summer (therefore the temperature must have been pushing at least 10 degrees) and we headed off from our home in Sussex to catch the ferry. The first problem was that my Dad had recently taken it upon himself to undergo a little ‘cost saving exercise’, namely being that he had traded in our trusty Sierra for some falling apart Volvo Estate which had definitely seen better days. On the way to the ferry, with our tents, fold up picnic bench, gas stove and the most insane amount of tinned beans ever to grace one car the exhaust decided to fall off down the motorway, the car overheated, and the windows got stuck. Cue a coathanger holding up the exhaust, litres of orange squash being poured somewhere into the engine and brown parcel tape in the place of glass as windows. The Clacketts were on their way. The car also hated us so much that every time my Dad tried to start the bleeding thing it would kick out soot and enough fumes to singlehandedly create a hole in the ozone layer the size of the Outer Hebrides. Incidentally, when we returned home after the holiday, my Dad sold the car for £50 and had to buy a new, slightly less terrible one- not quite the cost saving exercise he was after!
The Isle of Wight is quaint, with teeny little tea shops huddled together offering cream teas with thick clotted cream and off-the-wall little cider shops selling a myriad of shiny bottles you won’t find anywhere else. A visit to the truly unique Blackgang Chine is always brilliant, a truly eccentric treat which shouldn’t be missed. The fact that it’s falling into the sea at a rate of knots shouldn’t put you off- it’s all part of its charm.
Our campsite, Whitecliff Bay, offered all the usual amenities, and a lovely sandy beach. It was on this sandy beach that I managed to fall over in the sand whilst trying to impress a group of boys playing cricket, and managed to break my leg. I was stretchered off the beach, covered in sand and wearing a hideous neon pink bikini, and left in a hospital waiting bay to the great delight of my sister, who thought it was hilarious. However, my greenstick fracture didn’t put off Ande (yes, his name was Andy, but he decided to spell it with an ‘e’ on the end, to make ‘it cooler’.). He was 16, a whole three years older than me, from Wolverhampton and a right catch. He spent the rest of his holiday helping me hobble along our campsite and charging my phone for me. Their pitch even had an electricity point. I really knew how to choose them.
We explored Alum Bay, with its colourful sands, and forced my Mum to brave the chairlift against her will. I don’t think we will ever be forgiven.
A trip to the Isle of Wight is always a delight, and even though I ended up with a broken leg, a broken car and never wanted to see a baked bean again for the rest of my life I’ll always remember that holiday as one of the best.

[Adam Knight]

When I was a wee boy I went campign with my older brother and Dad. At the top of the field was a toilet block, which my father wandered off to for a quick wee.

As older brothers do he dared me to lock dad in the loo (it was lockable from teh outside). So I did. Only problem was that I forgot to tell my brother and we headed off to the other end of the field where our camp was.

Cut to angry and red faced father 4 hours later storming down the field towards us, this prompted my memory somewhat and my brother wet himself laughing at what I had done. Apparently my dad had been screaming for hours until a passing farmer had let him out. In his screaming rage he asked me what he would have done had there been a fire in the block, to which I cooly replied 'well it WAS a toilet block, theres loads of water in there'.

Rather smart for a six year old I thought.....

[Georgie]

At a festival last summer a friend brought a camping stove so we could make noodles. We filled up the pan from a bottle of water, turned it on, and waited for it to boil. And waited... and waited... Until the pan suddenly burst into flames.

Turns out that the "water" we were cooking with was actually somebody's vodka. Oops.

[Debbie]

.... and there was the time when I was a kid camping (again with Guides) when my Sister announced at 8am in a really loud voice "I'VE GOT SPOTS". Turned out that she had chicken pox and had to be sent home. Problem was that 2 weeks later just about everyone at camp came out in spots too ... thanks Dawn!!

[Dawn]

hey don't mention it sis, I know how much you loved having chicken pox - Dawn

[Dominique King]

When returning to my tent at a music festival last year I found a rather large naked woman comatose in the tent wearing a much loved (and now ignored) jumper.

After pondering the situation we proceeded to prod with sticks until we received some form of movement and called security.

We felt the best option would be to leave all items contaminated by said persona at the campsite. Didn't spoil a thing just added a bit of flavour to the memories :)

[Jen]

When out camping with some friends, we awoke the next morning to the smell of burning. Upon exiting our tent, we discovered the boys in our group with their socks in the frying pan "just drying them out". We refused their offer to cook us breakfast - just as well as they nearly burnt the tent down cooking their sausages!

[Jody]

we go camping every holiday and love it despite the rain, dampness, lack of sleep, rock hard ground and early mornings. However we climbed Scafell Pike last year in April, our first holiday in a hotel, reached the summit and lo and behold got hit by a freak snowstorm (sunny at the bottom!!) we then skiied down the tallest peak in england, on our backsides, down a "path" which we later discovered was a waterfall. ended up battered and bruised at the bottom and started the long walk back. darkness approached before we realised we were hopelessly lost, and maps dont make any difference if you cant pinpoint where you are on it. we then discovered we were walking through bog, and were soaked, frozen, and cream crackered. ended up having to "bed down" for the night on the side of mountain, in a bivvy bag (rather like a large plastic sainsburys bag actually) for 1, squeezed in, being trampled on by sheep in the middle of nowhere, not a light to be seen or a sound to be heard, or a mobile signal in sight. Up at the crack of dawn the next day to wander round aimlessly, getting more and more lost. No more food or water left, so were purifying stream water (translate to drinking chlorine, its not nice!!) Eventually a mirage appeared, the first human being for 24 hours! we then got back to our lovely hotel from his directions, 36 hours after we started our 5 hour walk...! We've since given up booking hotels and bought a campervan instead.

[Chris]

I attached my sleeping bag to my mate's whilst he was sleeping so that when he woke up he was trapped and couldn't get out. He freaked out for a bit which didn't help as I'd also given him a toothpaste moustache!

[Nia Davies]

Ah the D of E days! I think all expeditions can be summarised in a few choice quotes:

-'I thought you were bringing the toilet paper...'
-'No! THESE are doc leaves and THOSE are nettles'
-'why do they put trees right in the middle where everybody wants to walk?!'
-'That stretch of river isn't that deep - you should be able to wade it. Little bit chilly in winter but you should dry off in the cold.'
-'Just go down this road until you see the barn, turn left until you see a brown church at the next cross roads, turn left, go about 1 mile, at next road turn left, then look for a red barn, turn left there, only a little bit further from there!' easy...
-'Last one to the camp site has to share a tent with the guy thats brought beans for dinner'
-'why is there a sign saying 'bull in field?' Oh. That's why.'
-'Aww don't worry...on the bright side, maybe the sheep's poo will stop the bugs from coming near you?'

And more. These are the moments that make sleeping on a patch of grass instead of in a B&B worth it!

[JennyStav]

I love camping (at least in good weather) but my dog is more a 5* hotel kind of guy. He makes his feelings known by refusing to let us put up the tent - i have sent a photo

[Susan]

Tent up, sleeping bag laid out, me by the fire having a last cup of tea with my mates. When I finally crawled into my tent to go to bed, a big hard lump inside my sleeping bag GROWLED at me, and I executed the fastest reverse-out-of-pup-tent manoeuvre in camping history. A fox!

[Beckie Saunders]

My childhood is full of camping memories because that was how my parents could take 4 children away on holiday without remortgaging the house! In particular, one night in Cornwall, when it had been raining all day, we had played just as many board games and rounds of charades as possible and had been tucked up in our sleeping bags. The rain turned into thunder and lightening and I, as the oldest, was trying to brave it out. In the end I gave up and crawled into my parents bed, only to discover that my siblings were already there (the youngest being a few months old and in a special camping travel cot). We just ended up being a pile of bodies in sleeping bags on top of my parents! The next morning Mum let us don wellie boots and get covered in mud. Just goes to show that camping in the rain can be just as much fun as camping in the sun!

I <3 Camping! :)

[Nick Ackland]

Our school has an annual leavers 'school trip' to Spain, where you camp and hike in the Spanish mountains for three weeks. Rations usually consisted of dry crackerbread, and some peanuts, so a few of us spent copious amounts of money on delicious meat from the campsite shop before heading off for a 4 day hike. On our return from a hike, to our campsite in the mountains the following day, salivating at the thought of sausages for tea, and fresh from gloating to our friends, we were greeted by rucksacks thrown open, trampled tents, and sleeping bags pee'd on. Several large mountain cows who could smell the meat, and who refused to give up dispite lacking any thumbs to undo the zips to access said meat, had done everything in their power to get to it. We were left to clear up after them, and to enjoy more crackerbread...

[Edwina Fearnley]

I have always associated camping food with fried, fatty and often burned fare. How great it will be to have something TASTY and HEALTHY. Go, go, go Innocent.

[Sue]

First ever camping trip on hockey tour in Bournemouth. Arrived, pitched and went to bar. Several hours (and much beer) later, having watched the wind blowing a gale and rain lashing down, the bar closed and we head back to comfort of our lovely warm tents! These were now unfortunately water logged, tent poles buckled under the strength of the wind, and one tent had taken off and landed in the trees! We spent the night shivering in the shower and toilet block and booked in at a local B and B the next day.

[Martin]

When I was a child we used to go camping on a Chermoula farm near Chott El-Jerid in Tunisia. We used to all help out with the harvest, which was hard work but fantastic fun.

One summer a film producer called George Lucas came to our campsite looking for extras for a film he was shooting. My brother and I both got to dress up as some creature called a Jawa for a week. George also wanted some local food for the film crew, so my mother made a massive pot of a local speciality using aubergines and spinach, with some yoghurt and of course the chermoula from the farm. They absolutely loved it, and apparently the way the spiciness of the fresh chermoula contrasted with the yoghurt later inspired the film to combine the spiciness of their characters with the freezing cold of carbonite.

We still go back with our children every year, and perhaps we'll have an open air viewing of the film on our campsite one summer, if we can ever remember what it was called. Think how special it would be to sit down with an innocent veg pot, telling the children stories about those bygone days.

[Ella]

When camping with my boyfriend in Scotland, I was woken up in the middle of the night by a low growling noise and the sound of heavy breathing outside our tent. Terrified at the thought of becoming the prey of a wild beast, I shook my boyfriend awake and signalled to him as quietly as I could - "Bear! Outside the tent! Arrrrrrgh!".
My boyfriend, ever the hero, armed himself with our oversized torch and placed himself by the door of the tent, ready to face the invasion of the Beast.
"Not a bear, darling," he whispered, in what I think was meant to be a comforting tone, "although... it could be one of those escaped pumas..."
He retreated from the door a little, having scared himself at the thought.
After what seemed like an eternity of petrified silence, the torch held ready to strike and both of us frozen to the spot, a sound -
"Moooooooooo".
The torch dropped, and in between breathless laughter, my boyfriend turned to me and groaned "I can't believe you woke me up to fight a cow!"
"But the growling, I really thought..."
"Haven't you ever heard a cow digesting?"

[Gemma]

We went camping a few years back to New Quay in Wales and stopped on a lovely little campsite run by Mr Hand called Wern Mill. The one night my partner did a lovely BBQ for tea on a disposable BBQ. I had a bottle of wine to drink and a couple of hours later my burgers and sausage made a re-apperance on the BBQ :-( I was that hungover the next day I couldn't face moving the BBQ! When I finally recovered we had a lovely few days.

[Emma]

I was about 10 or 11 when I experienced camping for the first time. I was settled in for the night with my friend, and her parents in a caravan next to us (outside the tent of course!)
I woke up the next morning after a sound night's sleep, but couldn't work out why I appeared to be lying 1 or 2 feet higher than my friend. We looked outside and peeked under the tent - a mole had tunnelled underneath the tent, but only where I was sleeping! I had gotten much closer to nature than I'd expected, or indeed realised.

[Emma P]

Last Bank Holiday weekend - first camping trip of the year and our tent awning was visited by a thief during the night. First he stole the remainder of our fresh baked bread, then he came back for a cornish pastie. The third time, when he poked his nose in to see if he had missed anything, my boyfriend managed to catch a glimpse of the bandit.

We had to forgive him, it was a badger!

[Rebecca Crisp]

It was our Year 6 end of school trip and three of my girlfriends and I were sharing a tent. The only thing I can really remember is the 4 of us being really scared during the loudest thunderstorm ever and the following day, when my friend Christina woke up, she was so deeply curled up in her sleeping bag that when she sat up, we all thought she had been decapitated! Mucho scary at 11 years old!

[Jackie]

We had all the kit ready for Glastonbury, pop up tent, roll mats, sleeping bags, stove, loo roll, everything was packed and we were due to set off on the Tuesday - and on the Sunday my husband got gout. Gout, I ask you.
His foot swelled up to the size of a rugby ball, couldn't get a flip flop on, let alone a welly, and couldn't walk. The tent stayed packed and we watched Glasto, with much anguish, on the tv.

[Laura]

When my friend Shona and I were about 14 we decided we wanted to do some wild camping so her Dad drove us around some farms in the area asking the farmers if we could camp in one of their fields. One of the more friendly ones agreed so we pitched our tent and set about savouring our 'freedom experience'. We soon realised there wasn't much to do except go to sleep. We awoke with a strange noise outside- it was a sheep rubbing its bum up against the tent! Our teenage selves completely freaked out and (due to no mobile signal) had to walk the 5 miles home in the dark to find our parents in the pub savouring their 'freedom experience'.

[Hadley]

I hate camping, i get wet :(

[Karen]

A weekend near bonfire night a few years ago, I received a distress call from my sister describing an argument with her smelly (now very ex) boyfriend while on their way to Ottery St Mary for the night of barrel burning.

Determined to prove that she could have a better adventure without him, I was hastily recruited as partner in crime.

"Who needs men?!!" we cried.

We jumped into her ancient but cool VW campervan and headed off on the B Roads of Dorset and Devon. The van didn't have 1st gear. The roads had lots of hills.

Surprisingly, we arrived in time for the health & safety-flouting evening, dodging strong men, women and children carrying barrels of burning tar. We danced in church halls, drank cider and generally had a great time.

Then it started raining. We returned to the van, and attempted to sleep on a bed made soggy by a leak.

Eventually morning came - it was early, as mornings always are while camping. We discovered our camp site (well, temporary car park) had changed from grass field to slippy bog. VW don't supply caterpillar tracks for their vans (or at least they didn't when they made them in the 1970s!). We slipped and slid for over an hour and progressed just 20cm - in the wrong direction.

We were stuck, hungry (the van had no mod cons) and were on the verge of a not very sisterly argument when we spotted a young man getting into a tractor on the road. I'm ashamed to say we both slipped into damsel in distress mode. Yesterday's cheers for indpendence and questioning the necessity of men had long been forgotten. The poor guy didn't stand a chance and was soon dragging the camper (which amazingly stayed intact throughout)through the mud.

In the meantime a field full of fellow campers with similar slippy field problems watched and waited hopefully.

Unfortunately (but not for us)our hero had to get to work, we followed him up the road trying to ignore the field full of faces in varying degrees of disappointment, envy and resignation.

We got over the guilt with lashings of ginger beer and a sing-a-long.

These days, I camp in a tent and take a man with me whenever possible.

[Arabella]

I once went camping with the Girl Guides. We went out for a walk and were charged by a herd of angry Bullocks. We managed to survive this only to be woken up by the Guide Leaders at 6am and forced to peel 100's of potatoes with plastic knives/pen knives as punishment for talking in the night. Put me off campaing for a while!

[Jane Winstanley]

My boyfriend and I hadn't been able to go abroad recently due to the credit crunch and all that jazz so we decided that a nice trip to the lake district in a tent would be much more up our street. We had got all the stuff ready about a week before, a brand new tent, a mass of food...Only we wouldn't be camping that weekend...the weather had other ideas...

It took us roughley an hour to get there, up and down the windey rounds, as I watched the dark clouds gathering and splats of rain landing on the windscreen, my hopes of being able to enjoy a camping weekend out in the sun with a beer proped in one of those chairs that always feels like its going to fall through when you plonk down on them..where slowly dwindling away...

We arrived on the site, as I looked round, all I could see where strudy camper vans and motor homes..No tents. Not one little tent...I knocked on the site office and he said he would meet us on the field...I looked up at the field, No tree's, No shelter, no other tents. The site manager scooted up the hill on his quad, and I looked round in dismay. Not only was my hair blowing around as if I had been in a drop top the whole way there, I hadn't I'd been escourted by a clapped out Almera...No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't seem to get the tent out of the bag, it was being wipped away from us, I dropped to my knees and decided that the only way of holding the tent down was for me to lay on it, whilst my boyfried tried in vain to bury the pegs....The site manager was looking at us like where where..crazy to say the least. He churped up that it wouldn't be a good idea to be camping in this weather and we had best call it quits..

Not to be defeted, we continued. I was becoming engulfed by a tent! I could no longer see my boyfriend, just the blue material of the tent wrapping itself around me. I shouted for my boyfriend, just knelt up a little bit...and Whoooosh. Thur...she blowwws...

We had no tent, it was wrapped around a large tree, Much to my relief that it wasn't wrapped around me...

We ended up calling the camping weekend quits and trundled back home..

Needles to say We haven't been again since.. ;-)

[Lynsey Hollis]

I can't think of a funny story.

[clare Horan]

In 2007 i did a tour around america with a travel company. i met a lovely bunch of people, some who had came from kids camps, like me, and others who had just flown from britain to do the tour. It was great, the weather was lovely, apart from maybe one rainy night (thankfully me and my friends tent didnt get flooded!)

Anyway, we were staying in nashville. it was our first proper "night out". we went into nashville, and hit the bars. we found a great club where we could have a dance, do some kareoke, and get some rather cheap alcohol!

a few people went back to the campsite early, but me and 4 others stayed out till about 3 in the morning! when we got back, we tried to be all quiet. i went to the toilet, and when i came strolling back past the tents, i forgot one issue - Guy ropes!!! i crashed on top of poor Matts tent. Thankfully i didnt knock it down, but i probably did let out a big scream followed by lots and lots of drunk laughter (laughing at myself!!)

Off to scotland to do a tour this summer, camping out, driving around, finding lovely places to stay. Will just try not to find the local bar - I've learnt my lesson!!!

[Louise Mizzi]

only started camping 2 years ago ..
my first camping experience was with friends in weymouth and was a resounding success - 2nd was with my then housemate in the new forest .. success story number 2 ...
3rd experience was not too successful ... 3 am opuuting up a tent on the side of a welsh hill ... spent the night sliding down into one corner of the tent and having to crawl back up and woke up in the morning to find we were on a path with "walkers"walking past ...
after that it was AFRICA .. wow ..2 weeks camoing in africa with limited showers -- still amazing .. scariest night was when we were told not to leave our tents at night to go to the toilets as there were no campsite guards and there were lions and hyenas around . I was .. "nervous" and fell asleep imagining the lions prowling around outside. I was awoken at 3am by my friend with her arm outside the tent yelling at me Help me help me !!! .. I imagined she had been gotten by a lion and huddled into the corner ..
but apparently we had not done up the fly sheet properly and it was tipping down with rain and we were getting wet inside the tent ...
still love camping ..
and would love a little camping cookset

looloo

[Deafinitely Girly]

I am very deaf, I am also happen to be shortsighted, too.

While camping on a uni climbing holiday in the middle of the French forest I went out for a quick loo break before going to bed.

I forgot my glasses and wandered through the night to find a tree.

I then got lost and was quite unable to see or hear a thing.

Panicking I stumbled around blindly and fell down a hole. At this point I started shouting for my mate who was still up reading. He came charging through the trees thinking I was being savaged by a wild boar to find me in a hole just 100m from the tent almost hysterical.

*cringe

He's never let me forget it!

[Claire B]

All of my childhood holidays were spend going camping, and so a few years older, about 14, when our youth club suggested a camping weekend in Hornsea, on the East coast, me and my friends thought it was a great idea...what we didnt think about was that it was the middle of April and freezing cold.

So we packed our warm clothes and set of for 'costa del hornsea' as we nicknamed it, arrived at the site and set up camp. That evening we all went to bed and realised that there was something missing from our camping equipment...ground sheets. None of us had them and the ground was frosted hard, and so cold you couldnt imagine. We spent the weekend sleeping in vests, leggings, pajamas, jeans, polo neck top, sweater, coat, gloves, scarf hat, at least 2 pairs of socks and our shoes, inside a sleeping bag and were still cold.

Needless to say I've never been camping in the UK during April again.

[Natalie]

my love-affair with camping began during my early youth, through those unfortunate dysfunctional family holidays parents force you to take part in. Although I maintain those holidays are pure evil they did kick off my whirlwind romance with my tent. What followed was crazy camping with my friend at 12, when we fabricated an entire world based on crows; treks through the dolomites, which made me realise unadulterated love of soap and this summer it will be the insaneness of camping at a festival in Budapest. Aaaaaah!! Too cool.

[Woxi Woxi]

I'm all for saving the planet but you can't beat camping next to the strip at santa pod... tent or camper van there is no greater feeling than that of waking up in the great outdoors with the people you love and the cars you dream about around you... That and the noise of the jet car starting up before you even have a chance to down your breakfast cider!

Its no competition winner but its the truth and we could really use some pans for the camping stove :) Plus I've not tried these new fangled veg pots yet and pay day isn't for another 6 days!!!

[Jessica]

Mum was never keen on us camping as she had horrible memories of being a girl guide and weeing in a bucket. We went on a pony trekking camping weekend twice though. The first time a friend and I enjoyed a fantasic sunny Welsh weekend. The next year we took my sister and her friend and it rained all saturday! We went to Hay on Wye instead of riding and my sister and her freind spent all their sunday lunch money in the local cafe for lunch! I bailed her out on sunday of course. We were really dissapointed when we couldnt do it the next year.

[Rachel Allen]

My fondest memory of camping is with my family - mum, dad my brother and I up north (Cumbria I think).

I used to love feeding the ducks and made a great fuss of making sure we didn't forget the bread when we went for walks. However one day we left the tent and when we stopped for our picnic, we realised that in our haste to pack everything up, mum had picked up stale 'duck bread' instead of the breadbag containing our sandwiches for our lunch. Truly a case of Mother's Pride!

We still laugh about it now if we put sandwiches inside breadbags for picnics.

[Lynne Cowley]

Camping in Glencoe, my husband and I retired to bed as the rain began to fall. A couple of hours later the ground felt wet. We were OK in the bedroom area as it was a sewn-in ground sheet, but where had this river just outside this area come from? I called my husband ( you don't need to know what I called him!) sufficient to say that he heard me and realised the enormity of the situation.

So we got up ( and made ourselves decent). We then proceeded to undo the tent pegs and guys and, with help from nearby tent dwellers, we all walked our tent and possessions to higher and less watery ground for the rest of the night.

If anyone recalls this incident about 30 years ago - thanks for the tea. At that time in the morning it was sheer nectar. Of course, they didn't have Innocent Smoothies then and I don't think the little darlings that make them had even been born yet!!!

[Dominic North]

At a music festival a couple of years ago, we had decided to wait in the main stage tent for the rain to stop before heading back to our tents after the main act was over. The rain persisted and a group of us ended up sleeping on the stage instead of returning to the tents.

When we emerged the following morning, we squelched our muddy way down to the campsite - which looked as though a pacifistic version of the Sommme had been reenacted there. The tents closest to the river were either floating or peaking their tops out of a river now much wider than the previous night. Looking around, there seemed to be a distinct lack of surviving tents, then we saw a long line of tents, including our own, bobbing up and down behind the hedge on the far side of the field, walking down the road!

After trudging across the field, we learned there was a mass exodus of around 500 tents down the country lane to higher ground and the host town was cut off from the outside for the remainder of the weekend due to the floods! We had essentially been turned into a muddy little oasis of music for three days. Wellies sellers did well. Good times.

[Chris Gordon]

Your new veg pots sound like a great idea! Anything to make camping easier and more relaxing christyg

[louisa Pickworth]

A few summers ago, back when it was raining when it should have been sunny, my band at the time decided it would be a great to tour the UK.

We bought a Van, HMS alciabides, and loaded it with everything we thought we would need plus our instruments and drum kit and Henrietta the plastic party heron that had appeared one day in our back yard (never underestimate what can fly in on a strong wind).

So we gigged around the south coast but ofcourse, our planning had not included sleeping places. the back of the van was full with the instruments. We did however have tents.

One wet weekend in between gigging was spent on a hill in an otherwise water clogged farm. City folk that we are we barbecued onions and sausages by candlelight and spited the rain. i think the farmer thought we were just a few lost kids (he wasn't far off) and turned up the next morning to see how we were doing, being as we were on his land and all. We chatted, and he wondered off talking about bringing us something good to eat.

An hour passed and he returned with a dead rabbit.

in the spirit of adventure we attempted to skin it with our 1" pen knife (not as easy as you would think) and cooked it on our small bbq.

About this point my inner adventurer died of pneumonia and i resolved to get the first train out and as far away from the band and the wet tour as possible.

Maybe if we had had Veg pots instead of partially skinned rabbits the band would have been a successes and we could have all quit our day jobs.

So it goes...

[Steven F]

When on an Venture Scout experdition many, many years ago, we were walking and camping a route that would include climbing Pen-y-Fan in the Brecon Beacons.

We were eating dried rations in order to keep the weight down.

One dinner time, water was duely collected from the stream, purified and then the rice pudding and raisins added.

Just at the point of adding the dehydrated mixture, someone shouted that there was a tiny fish in the water.

By that time it was too late.

Once served up, everyone was checking each and every raisin to see if it was the fish.

No-one found it!

I don't put raisins in rice pudding when I have it now...

[Emma]

My partner and I go camping a lot! Partly because I have an obsession with lambs, chickens and ducks, anything that shows me a passing interest really. For my dads 50th birthday we decided that he too should get involved in the camping experience.
I issued him with a shopping list, 'study shoes' 'warm jumper' 'outdoor trousers' and 'waterproof jacket'. Our trip was planned for last weekend. I arrived at our campsite nice and early and the rain started just as we put the tent up.....then my dad arrived.....now he's always thought of himself as trendy and seeing as I talk to ducks I can hardly criticise his taste but...
out of the car emerged my father dressed in the following:
bright blue plimsols the type you used to wear for PE when you were four only the same colour as a Chelsea strip,
Beige cotton trousers that seemed to attract the rain water thereby running into said blue plimsols and causing them to run
No jumper or jacket but a poncho that made him look like an american tourist in Disneyland. As if our laughter wasnt enough the comment from the four old in the next tent of 'are you wearing a bag or are you meant to be a monster?' finished it off :)
Happy times

[Lara]

We always had family camping holidays when my sister and I were little, one of our favourite places being a campsite in Somerset that we went to most years. There was a really nice swimming pool which we spent most of our time in, until I decided to try out my new (first and last!) bikini. I thought I looked pretty good in the yellow daisy print and was having a lovely time until I went to jump out of the pool...leaving my entire bikini floating in the pool...
On a more teenage camping note, I was at Latitude 2 years ago with a group of friends. One morning, I got up, had breakfast and went to do my teeth using our stash of water bottles. Unfortunately, I soon realised that my friends had replaced all of our water with vodka. YUM.
We have a lovely teepee that we took festivalling last year that really would like a camp cooking set to complete it, it does sometimes feel rather lonely and would appreciate the company :)

[abigail]

We used to go camping every so often in the summer when we were younger with the family. On one occasion we had hit Tenby, Wales. Of course, its a novelty to children when you need a wee in the middle of the night and are actually allowed to go racing across an open field in your nightie with a torch at 2am to the toilet block. Done and dusted, we dived back in our sleeping bags and curled up asleep.
Oh dear. I awoke in the morning to find a peculiar feeling on my toes. Oh yes. She had stood on a SLUG on her midnight jaunt and there it lay until morning, between the old toes. Did she scream? Yes! And the moral of the story is- always wear your jelly sandals when you go for a widdle, as you never know whats lurking! ( Could have been worse I suppose, could have had a slug for each foot.)

[Harriet]

i was camping in Mexico a few years back and whilst i was cooking my dinner unbeknown to me a large iguana walked into my tent and took up residence. i only realised when i went in to get ready to go to sleep and found i had a very spiky and angry squatter. i had to take up the tent and shake him out and hope he didn't have too many friends near by.

[Alice]

Two summers ago we went camping in Treyarnon Bay in Cornwall in an orange VW camper van called Miss Molly. We lived off sausages all week and had to 'build' the cooker in the campervan every time we wanted to eat. We had some surfing lessons with pro-surfers and ate pasties from Snack Attack for lunch. The best bit was a picnic/barbeque on Treyarnon bay beach, eating sausages wrapped in bread while watching the sun go down. Definitely one of my favourite holidays.

[Karl]

Whilst camping during DofE we had a great time laying trails of bread into the other groups tents in a desperate attempt to lure the resident peacocks inside. On one particularly memorable occasion the peacock we named Bryan came particularly close to going inside, and in an attempt to encourage him in we decided to scare him a little. Unfortunately this had the opposite effect and Bryan leaped onto the top of the tent, making the main supporting pole buckle underneath him and then fire him into the air, where he proceeded to fly off screeching in a very disgruntled manner. Ah good times :D

[Vicki]

This is a story my father once told me from his days in the navy - TOP SECRET stuff!
Half way through their training, my father and five other men were shipped off to Dartmoor (not literally! ..hehe.. ) There they were set a five day trek across the moors.(Please bear in mind: This story is set in January when the average night-time temperature was around -30 degrees celcius.) Each night they had to set up camp - Not with a modern, light-weight tent, but with a canopy which barely protected them from the wind. (Hardly five star quality you'd expect from the 'Royal' Navy!). On their third day they met their commander who pointed out to them a sleeping bag on the side of their path which was filled with rocks; and next to it was another canopy and several wooden poles. He said to them: 'This is your injured man - you must carry him with you for the rest of your trek.' So, not wanting to displease him, they hastily built him a strecher and continued on their way.
That night as they crawled into their 'tent', their officer approached them and asked them why their 'injured man' was outside the tent and that it was 'essential' that he got prime position away from the cold. So the group shoved the 'man' in and settled down to sleep.
The temperature fell drastically that night and my father awoke in desperate need of a Mars bar! He finally found one and managed to get the wrapper off (a great success for a trainee with numb fingers!)But he found it was as hard as I rock and he couldn't bite into it!
But my father persisted - he would not give in! And hence he broke a tooth...tutut...
So in the dead of a freezing winters night with a pile of rocks as a sleeping buddy, my father broke a tooth on a frozen Mars bar...

Ooh plus...he also managed to shoot himself in the foot with his own air-rifle...(But that's another story...)

[Alicey]

My most memorable camping experience was my first, which was at the Reading Festival back in 1996 or so.

My friend and I had no idea what camping was like, and being teenagers had little idea about cooking or shopping for food. We had some 'unusual' meals that weekend, including a rather delightful breakfast of cornflakes with Lambrusco.

Not for the faint hearted!

[Sarah Brewster]

Stayed at a lovely campsite in Stiffkey, North Norfolk, arriving on the Friday afternoon. A path lead from the campsite towards the sea, about a mile away so we decided to investigate en masse - adults, toddlers and buggy alike. The nearer we got to the sea, the boggier it got, until the inevitable happened and I went over in the mud, all captured on video camera. The next morning when we woke up, the sea was at the campsite edge and the path taken was completely sumberged. Moral of the story is check tide tables and read the large signs telling of danger!

[Kaf]

Funniest thing heard on a campsite? At 2 in the morning, an angry scottish female shouts:

"Of course I'm not alright. I'm sleeping in a tent full of sick!".

Taxi pulls up moments later. In morning, a man is spotted in toilet block blearily scrubbing vomit off his sleeping bag.

Been camping many many times with husband and friends and now take our toddler. Love it. Hopefully your new pots won't make us be sick on our next trip. Just make our neighbours sick with envy, boom boom. Am sure they'd liven up our hols and we do need new cooking equipment as ours is 10 years old. Thanks!

[Eleanor]

We used to spend every summer camping in the south of Ireland. I can remember befriending a stray and very scrawney tabby cat one year in a campsite in Sligo. I felt really sorry for it and spent a week eating 'vegetarian' meals after picking out all the meaty bits to save for the poor wee critter but it was still too scared to let me pet it. On the last day I woke to the screams of my mum trying to rid herself of fleas and ticks after my friend had decided we weren't so bad after all and spent the night curled up on the end of mum's sleeping bag :)

[Mme Mojito]

I always loved the idea of camping when I was young, but my parents didn't really go in for that kind of thing. Therefore, me and my sisters had to make do with camping in the back garden. On one of these occasions, I decided to make the experience as authentic as possible, so despite having a perfectly well-equipped kitchen within several yards of the "campsite", I dug a hole in the lawn to make a campfire. I might even have also added bricks. I then dragged (and I do mean "dragged" - it was extremely heavy) my dad's very expensive Le Creuset frying pan into the garden and used it to cook bacon over the campfire. It didn't make me very popular.

[Anastasia]

oooh sounds fun. I go camping with my dad all the time. but there is not enough camping stuff for the both of us. The new veggie pot seems nice. I would love to win. I would be able to go camping more because i love it and it will be easier. I could eat the veggie pot on the camping stuff. COOL

[Jo]

Once I woke up in the middle of the night in a tent pitched on a campstie in the north york moors and felt like something was leaning on me. I realised it was a sheep asleep leaning on me from the outside of the tent. When I rolled over it ran away and made a satisfying baa noise.

[Julia Hodgkins]

Camping in France just the two of us all very romantic next thing I know a very large and I'm talking the size of a small dog...toad starts gribbiting(sp)loudly in my ear. You have never seen anyone move so fast and we left the tent, packed our stuff and stayed the next night in a hotel! Meanwhile the toad had tent luxury all to itself for the next night!

[Twiggy]

The one and only time I went camping was in Namibia! We set up camp in the middle of the desert, and being very young, I had no idea what we were doing! The concept of sleeping OUTSIDE was beyond me, I was so scared.
We opened up the boot to the big car - half of it opened out flat - and started cooking on a really really tiny gas cooker thing, I don't even know what it was - mini BBQ maybe? Then we realised that cooking on the car probably wasn't the best idea. We were underneath a tree, and I recall asking my mum if any leopards could get us, knowing they could climb tree's. She reassured me otherwise. Time came when we had to go to bed, so we climbed into our 6 man tent, my dad and brother on the outside, with me and mum in the middle. I didn't sleep for aaaaages, and once I knew everyone was asleep, I slowly unzipped the tent and poked my head outside. Suddenly, I heard a noise! I looked around frantically, it being quite light because of the moon, but I couldn't see anything.
Then I smelt it. My dad or brother (maybe even my own mother! O:) had the nerve to FART in the tent! Glad my head was outside the tent for ventillation, I turned over in the hope I could do some star-gazing. Instead I was reminded of the tree we set-up under. But to my immense surprise, right above me on one of the brances, there sat (what I now know to be) a Southern Pale Chanting-Goshawk! It looked asleep, so I thought I'd go back inside the tent before it pecks my eyes out (I'd recently watched Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds)
I'd managed to get in a little bit of sleep, before I was woken up by my mum saying we had to pack up and go quickly. So I helped put everything away - it wasn't a scared packing, it was exciting.
Once we packed up, we drove off, and stopped at the base of a massive sand dune. My mum told me this was Dune 43 (43? I can't remember sadly, its a guess) and that we had to climb it very quickly.
Which of course, was very easy for me - I was small, didn't weigh much, so I glided over the sand, unlike my parents who just sunk!
Once we all reached the top, we looked around for ages, and then, suddenly, from behind another dune, the sun rose. It was the most amazing sunrise I have ever seen - brilliant orange!
I haven't had the chance to camp since, because I haven't had the equipement!!(all that was my parents)

[kirsty higgs]

the thing about camping is that every trip is different - usually because of weather or the people you go with.
worst 2 - at a festival in weather where the BBC 'do not go outdoors' and we're camping - got back from stint on the dance tent door to find tent in tatters and 6 month old daughter screaming her heart out - dad? - asleep in the caravan next door after a few tinnies! Same daughter - Lake district - storm coming - take down tent with her holding a corner (she's 9 now) and it took off with her attached!( i grabbed her ankles)
School camp - Lake district again - claim to fame - I was the only one who could make custard for 60 people in an army billy can - known as custard queen at school!
with a group of friends - lads got it sorted (early seventies) got car, got tent - oops - no poles. tied tent to car and tree - walked to the pub. camping near to the pub is best? -

[Gail Williams]

I'd love to enter the comp, but haven't got any memorable stories that fir the bill.

We cooked on open fires (some of the best food ever (Innocent wasn't around at the time)), We sang around the campfire, we discussed Charlie in Casualty (the first time around), we cleaned the toilets and we generally had a jolly hockey stick type of time.

The only memorable incident was gonig for a swim, and the chlorine reacting with our hair and all us blondies going a nice shade of green - yum!!

[Simon Parker]

Best camping story has got to be a Snowdon Trilogy.

Part 1 of the trilogy involves a foolish idea to go camping in Snowdonia in April some 6 or 7 years ago. Arrived to find everything good - nice camp site in the middle of one of the valleys, went for 1/2 a hen and chips at the local hostelry and arrived back at camp and tucked up for the night. Roll on 3 am when the worst gales and rains were battering our tents to smithereens and cue me, escaping from my own tent to my mates nice snazzy North Face one for some safety and comfort.

Part 2 of the trilogy involves the same camp site, same 1/2 a hen and chips only we thought we'd been smart and camped at the end of May - surely the weather would be better. Roll on to 3 am and a howling gale, monsoon rains and a collapsed tent. Unfortunately our friends hadn't come on this trip with the snazzy tent so cue me and a mate, running up a swimming pool style campsite in only a pair of boxers and sodden sleeping bag and spending the night in the tent. Wow was Pete's Eats busy that next morning with bedraggled campers. Marks are still on the car seats to this day where we'd slightly 'soiled' them with our damp pants!!!!

Trilogy 3 - the perfect tale of a beautiful weekend on the same camp site, another 1/2 a hen and chips and baking Welsh August sunshine.

Moral of the story is only camp in Snowdonia when you are convinced that there's no risk of gales or rain, because you can guarantee that the worst of the weather will hit you!!!!

[Bonnae]

My first ever camping trip with my beloved boyfriend. Resulted in him bringing the single blow-up bed rather than the double and an empty pump box! We're still together but since then I pamp (in 4* hotels) rather than camp!

[leo]

There are two funny things that have happened to me. Once when we were camping as a family in a camping ground my mum and i went to the showers- you get five minutes of hot water and then you have to come out- as you go into the cubicle you press the hot water button to get it, so you have to quickly change and hop in. I was waiting for a shower with this other lady and my mum was in the shower washing her hair- when the water ran out she came out completely starkers to press the button- and the lady looked like she might die of fright! and my mum was laughing at her and said- 'oops didnt think of that', and the lady thought she was mad and kept well away from us anytime we saw her about the camp!
2nd, DofE
i was camping next to a farm- which had a portoloo thank goodness! camping with three VERY city girls and they are the sort that find dirt disgusting and cant stand not having a shower- so it was very funny. I wasnt in their tent but, being city girls, they first tried to 'toast' marshmallows over a roaring gas stove with a plastic fork! the result was hilarious with squeals as the fork melted and the marshmallow was set alight! then next morning, screaming from their tent when they had forgotten to zip up properly from going to the portoloo- they had left the gate open so all the sheep were in our field and their zip open and a hungry sheep was trying to get into their tent!!! that was funny- they were all crying for ages!!!- it was like 5 in the morning!

[leo again]

also when me and my sis were lttle our dream was to go camping so we saved up all our pocket money- my sister one £40 betting on horses- we were like 8 and 10! and we put on shows getting our grandparents to pay and we had loads of money in the end and then my mum and dad wouldnt take us camping in our tent because their too tall and we hadnt bought the right equipment! thats why they only caravan!!!
so we were VERY sad :(

[Kish]

A perfect summer's morning... one lazy boy + classic fm on full blast just outside the tent = classic

[Christina]

sounds like a good idea for festivals!

[rachel]

camping?
no oh no
can't be bothered with that like my ensuite facilites too much.
keep it up though innocent
still tasty.
campings for hardy folk not wimps like me

[Sarah L]

Used to love camping when I was small, not so sure now. My children and husband are going on dads and kids camping weekend on friday with two other sets of dads and kids, so three dads and seven kids aged between 6 and 11 and one tent. Me I think they are mad and i am going to sunny spain for the weekend with the mums.

[Lee R]

The only time I've been camping was during a brief stint in the Guides when I was 12. One afternoon I went back to my tent and couldn't find my glasses. Cue mild panic.

I retraced my steps into the woods, back to the tent, to the woods and back again. Still no sign of them. The panic was rising. Until someone pointed out that I had a pair of glasses on my head. I'd pushed them back off my face and forgotten they were there. More than a little embarrassing.

The campfire was great though, sat round singing songs, watching the mesmirising fire.

[SPopples]

One summer, back in our student days, a friend and I decided to go camping in Guernsey, so we borrowed her family's tent and set off in her mother's elderly Mini Metro. Since it was a tight fit, we decided, in our wisdom, to place a flask of milk under the driver's seat. And, yes, it smashed at some point in our journey and the milk seeped into carpetting unnoticed by us until we drove off the ferry at some ungodly hour of the morning and the smell began to permeate as the heater took effect!

We spent the rest of the week driving around the island, trying to avoid the stench of rancid milk, with the windows wound down and our noses stuck out like a pair of loopy dogs.

During the same holiday, we were woken one night by an INCREDIBLE noise coming from inside the tent! It was a horrifying combination of very loud snuffling and slurping.

We sat in our 'bedrooms' quaking - too scared to unzip the 'doors' and face up to our inevitably impending doom - fearing to find some rabid dog, at the very least, or the Beast of Guernsey that someone had forgotten to mention to us!

Finally, I knew SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE, so I inched the zip open and peered out to discover . . . an itty-bitty-teeny-weeny hedgehog scoffing the last of our chocolate mousse out of the pots in our bin bag!

[Claire]

It was my first Glastonbury festival at the age of 16. I had bought a new and snazzy tent which one of my friend's told me was almost certain to get nicked, but it was okay as she had an older tent we could share that would be fine...

Arriving at the festival and finding a pretty good camping spot everyone started pitching their tents. My anticipation for the weekend ahead began to turn to slight dismay however, as the tent my friend pulled from her bag was one even the most desperate theif would hesitate to steal, being little more than an old skool garden 'wendy tent' of the variety your dad puts up in the summer when you're about 6. 4 corner pegs, no fly sheet and definately not waterproof.

Everyone else in the group found this highly amusing as did many random strangers passing by. My friend being one of those eternally optimistic people told me it would be absolutely fine as she'd been 'camping' with this tent before (in her back garden age 6 I gather..)

The first day was overcast but dry and the first night in the tent despite being a little chilly seemed fine... the second day it turned into the usual Glastonbury mud fest. We got back in the afternoon, soaking wet, to find about an inch of water lining the bottom of the tent (this part was ironically waterproof) That night I spent a restless but dry night in the back of a friends van, while my friend slept in the sorry excuse for a tent. Late at night people walking past could be heard to mutter 'I'm glad I'm not sleeping in that.'

Needless to say since then I have always refused to share an unseen tent...

[sb134]

My classic camping memory is lying in the sun counting mosquito bites.
My 152 absolutely destroyed the second highest score of 16!

Thank God they don't have malaria in Wales.....

[Marianne Jones]

Despite a Glastonbury where my tent sank on the first night (I had to sleep in the car for the weekend)and two other festivals where my trusty canvas has had the unenviable task of protecting me (successfully) through gale force winds, I'm still as much of a happy camper as ever! That said, this Glastonbury weekend we are planning to pitch our tent in a friend's dining room and limit al fresco activities to barbecues in the garden and frisbee in the park :-)

[Barbara Ward]

We're very much into motorocycle Enduros races, son in law and hubby both ride.We always camp overnight, so we are there bright and early next day for the racing.As is the norm at these events there are always a lovely line of Portaloos at the edge of a field.Son in law was up and out of the tent rushing to the loo before a queue formed, he disappeared into one and me and the grandkids followed him.We banged on the door, on the sides and on the back and then shook it a little, hoping he would find this amusing, shouting 'come on hurry up David'....then a little voice shouted out from inside " I think you have the wrong one"...David then emerged from the one next to the one we were banging on...I've never run so fast in my life, with the grandchildren trailing after me shouting " grandma, you're really are so naughty"

[Anna King]

We have spent the last couple of summer holidays trying to show our small children that camping really is fun. Undeterred by the rain in Britain, we camped in France where it poured and poured for the full 10 days both years we went!! The field around us got so wet we had to dig a 'moat' around the tent to prevent floating. The worst day was when we woke in the morning to discover that the very plentiful and enormous french slugs had all climbed up the insides of our tent to prevent drowning in the lake (formerly field) outside! However slugs aside, the kids now do love camping, even with wellies and all in one waterproofs!

[sarah Bloxsom]

Two camping stories spring to mind...as a child we always camped in Charmouth, Dorest with my god parents. at the age of about 9 my godfather went upmarket and bought a trailer tent! He was so proud at the speed with which he set it up and spent the whole day boasting about his luxury. At about 7pm my godmother put her 1 year old to bed in the trailer tent. all was going well until my brother noticed the trailer had started moving. He quickly alerted my parents and being parked on a slight slope my dad and uncle pete had to run very fast to catch it up!!! kate(the small sleeping child) had not woken at all!!

Also during the same trip an American couple were camped behind us and he had bought a new bar-b-que to use. On about the 3rd day he came to speak to my dad about his amazing self cleaning bar-b-que. Eager for an easier life dad asked how it worked. he was told that it was like magic, you left it dirty in the evening and by morning it was clean! Dad was not convinced but over the next couple of days was amazed with what was happening to this chaps barbie overnight. Then late one night he spotted Gemma our border collie wriggling out under the tent. wondering where she was off to dad followed her only to find her frantically licking the amazing self-cleaning barbie!!! He never told the poor man the truth and he must have been very annoyed when it stopped working after he had got home!!

[frank]

In the summer when I was 11, I remember having a belated birthday party in the summer as my birthday was in the winter. I invited 15 friends round for a camping party, we all set up our tents in a field near where I lived in the afternoon,we were all greatly excited of having a so called night away from home. We had a jolly camp fire and cooked sausages on sticks,(this took rather a long time and they ended up rather black and tasting rather sooty),luckily marshmallow's filled us up. After this ghost stories were told and we finally got to sleep in the early morning. About 10 after settling down the heavens opened, not just a little but majorly. Within a couple of minutes the so called 'waterproof tents' started to leak and everything got soaked. My parents must have been waiting for the knock on the door when 15 children stook like drwoned rats at the front of the house. This event has always made me think hard before daring another night under the stars; with the temperamental English weather camping is always a dangerous option! Maybe as the forecasters have predicted for the last 3 years this year we WILL have a sizzler (not likely)! If we do then I may dare camping again!

[Angela M]

Last time I went camping was a very long time ago when I did the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. We were in the Lake District and the campsite was swarming with midges. I was bitten head to foot (one of my "friends" said I was getting acne!!) and midges got into all our meals. Afterwards, someone jokingly said that midges might be a good source of protein. Anyway, I haven't been camping since ...

[Nele]

So I was camping with my 2 younger brothers and my Dad in a lovely little campsite near Beddgellert in North Wales. We did this every year and had a blast. One year stands out more than others. I must have been about 12/13 at the time. The tent was very smelly for a few days and no one could figure out why. Then one evening it dawns on my Dad that it was younger brother's feet that was causing the smell! And this was a bad smell. We had been walking and hiking all week in climbing boots, so you can imagine how bad his feet smell. Well, because it was late in the evening and it was dark and raining, my younger brother did not want to walk all the way to the shower block to clean his feet, and it meant he would have to put on those smelly climbing boots again. So my Dad did the next best thing: washed his feet in the frying pan. My younger brother sat in the tent with his feet sticking out while my Dad filled the frying pan with drinking water and used a bottle of Fairy to clean with. Needless to say the smell was gone and we enjoying a clean smelling tent, but our eggs and bacon the next morning did not taste so good!

[Jenni]

To me, camping = having to have my waist-length hair cut off because I "couldn't look after it" myself at Brownie Camp. Also, sleeping on the ground while my parents slept on air beds. And leeches. Blech. So no stories, just bad memories. VERY bad memories. But nothing a bit of Spicy Chermoula Tagine wouldn't eradicate.