And The Rain Came Tumbling Down

Linn Marie's going camping with a friend in August so yesterday we got the tent out to check that nothing was missing. Just as well we did! The thing was full of mildew and very smelly!

Why? Well let me explain.

When we first decided to move to England, we came over with the tents and camped here and there while we looked for places we liked and houses to let. For the first week, everything went fine.

Then we arrived at Eastbourne. We found a camping site just outside of town and pitched out tents; two of them, one for Bjørn, Paul and me and one for Lise and Linn Marie. That's the way we always camped. The girls liked to have a tent of their own.

Our first night there was mostly spent in A&E with Paul. He had a dreadful tummy ache but the wait was so long it had passed before we even saw a doctor so off went trotted back to our tents. Well, we drove, actually.

The second night we settled down to what we hoped would be uninterupted sleep. We were all tired after the previous night, after all. I don't think we realised just how tired we were, though.

The heavens opened that night. Rain lashed down!

But did we notice? No! Not until we were woken by the girls in the morning, complaining that everything in their tent was wet.

We sat up, rubbed the sleep from our eyes, stretched and looked around. Sure enough, rain was seeping in through the tent and it was anything but dry.

We crawled out, grabbed our stuff and hung it over the car, our camping chairs, trees, and whatever else we could find that might be used as a drying implement. Then we had a look in the girls' tent.

Things were even worse.

Their clothes were floating! Their air-beds were floating! Their sleeping bags were floating! The rain had come through in torrents, and they'd slept right through it.

There was no way we could spend another night in the soaked tents so we just packed them up quickly and went down to town to find alternative accommodation. The tents were left in the back of the car and forgotten.

Judging by the state of the tent we put up yesterday, it's obvious we'd also forgotten to dry them off and/or clean them when we got home. The tent had been in its bag for about 10 years! No wonder it wasn't a pretty sight!

Still, the girls are getting a new one. A floral one! I just hope Richard doesn't decide to take his son camping because I've a feeling they're going to look pretty silly sitting outside a floral tent!

~~+~~