waiting for spring...in summer..

so as you will by now know, my lovely hometown is on the front page of all the papers, flooded beyond belief and its proud inhabitants learning to wear wellies with dignity..
this week and next should be the annual camp of st peter's parish of gloucester, out in the woods and hills of the beautiful forest of dean...
i'm not sure i've ever waxed lyrical about this tradition of ours, so i thought that just to maybe aid its coming, i'd do so now..

when i was six we first attended. nick was seven, fiona one...
it had emerged from being a five-year old tradition of the august bank holiday weekend, several families from the church just getting away together for a few days, barbequeing and letting the kids roam free, to becoming a more long-term stay..it went from those few days to a week, and for some, went on to claim their whole summer holidays...
for us, it became a two-week camp at the end of our six weeks off school..the first two were always ireland, the second two were always cornwall, and the last....blaisdon...

at that age, there is nothing more splendid than being bundled into the car, sleeping bags, top trumps and plastic crockery at the ready, about to face whatever the elements threw at you, and to be with those friends who otherwise, we'd see at school or mass and say hi to, but they quickly became these sacred friendships, that were pure camping ties only..
we and the other kids would spend our days roaming around blaisdon forest, getting legs scraped and the occasional limb broken..we loved it. every morning, we'd have our cereal and juice, and then we'd be off! they wouldn't see us til sandwiches and hula hoops for lunch..there was an outdoor pool, bikes and skateboards, a treacherous rope swing right in the heart of the forest (no, you're right, i never, ever went on it...)

what we later learned was that during those long, sunny mornings, the parents would do their morning chores (sweep out the tent, sort the frozen blocks in the cool boxes, and generally potter about...
but then, they would then convene, not long before we'd come hurtling back for lunch, for their morning coffee....now, most of these people are pillars of the community, back home twelve miles away: teachers, nurses, housewives, accountants..but on camp, they're different...they're irish, in the main, and so it was the daily routine that the jamesons would get liberally snuck into these morning coffees, and if we got back a bit too late, we'd be getting our own lunch, if you know what i mean..

then more play, until dinner..the dads would always have their barbeques in a huddle, and would talk as men do over cooking, while the mothers (and usually daughters) would peel the spuds, wash the salad and dig the ketchup out of the cool box...and we'd eat together, sharing food, and rola cola, and wine...

but come the evening..!
now that was when the real fun would start....around seven, or as soon as the dinner was done and the tedious washing-up-over-a-makeshift-washing-up-stand over with, the fire would be lit, and the games begin..those usual campfire games of 'my granny likes...' and 'in my bag i packed..' and in the early nineties, always one of the boys (or more) would be too cool for skool, and sit with their gameboys until they realised everyone else as having more fun than they were!
and then my dad would arrive, usually after a small nap, guitar in hand, beard full and funny, and he'd sing..we'd all sing..there can't be too many groups of kids like us who know the words to so many irish songs and english folk songs and beatles and old american rock and roll and a bit of the blues and the hollies and simon and garfunkel songs...i think we may be a rare breed...and so it would go....
depending on your age, you would be sent off to bed in stages, torch in hand, the song 'goodnight fiona [or insert other name], goodnight fiona..' ringing in your ears, minding for guy ropes and hoping no bugs were in your bed waiting for you...usually some high jinks or other would follow, a stolen sleeping bag here, someone falling down the hill there....and we'd go to sleep with the sound of our parents singing and laughing and hunting for more wine in that famed cool box later in the night...
and in the morning, we'd wake with that horrible 'oh god i'm so hot get me out of here' feeling and have to get out of the tent asap, hungry for breakfast and for another day of fun.
even the rain didn't stop us. if it came, it invariably poured, and we'd have to stay inside...rummy and crazy eights and shithead were our card games of choice, monopoly would last all day..top trumps never failed to keep us out of trouble, at least for a couple of hours, and we were never, ever bored....

truth is, last year was pretty much the same...

i want my summer camping fun!! let the shire dry out please lord, if only for tradition not to be broken...and also, its not that much fun in the flood....

i say that, knowing that my parents are on their way out to the field RIGHT NOW to put the tent up..mum reckons its a balmy evening, so they're putting out their branch and seeing what happens..

hurrah!