General Chat

As teenagers 2 friends and I stayed in the grounds of the family friend of one of them.

Her dad transported us and our bicycles to West Sussex from Hampshire. We had a small hut / shed, and a bell tent and a crazy gypsy caravan. We slept in the caravan, ate in the hut and stored bikes etc. in the Kent. We thought it was great, although the outdoor toilet facilities were very primitive. I remember it as a summer of freedom, cycle rides and great scenery.
When our children were young, we had a trailer tent and they enjoyed our holidays in it. I, on the other hand remember some of the difficulties, like OH being up half the night in a storm in Yorkshire, banging in tent pegs and driving the car round into a new position hoping to gain more shelter for the tent.
When staying at camp sites with communal bathrooms, I'd take a bottle of Dettol and thoroughly wash the bath before washing each child.

In later life we had a fixed caravan on a site about one hour from home. To be able to get away any weekend after work with minimal packing was great. It was like a mini bungalow really, so not much hardship involved..... and we had our own plumbed in toilet and mini shower in a small bathroom. Not palatial by any means, but hot water on demand was a must.
If other people stayed, I would vacuum the bed, put on clean mattress protector, make the bed with freshly laundered sheets and usually clean pillows, or at least clean pillow protectors and pillow cases ready for their arrival. Everyone who stayed was a friend or relative, so these arrangements seemed to work OK.

About 58 years ago sis had covered a friend's weekend work on a few occasions and in return was given a week at the family's caravan. Setting off on a Saturday morning, it took the two of us (both too young to drive) three bus journeys to get to it. It was sited under a tree, looking OK from the outside. Inside there were earwigs having parties. Too late to get home that night so we shook out all the bedding and settled down. I slept better than sis. The van was on a rural site - no bright lights and bus service practically non-existent on Sundays. We went home Monday.

As older teenagers, four of us slept one night in a car - uncomfortable to say the least. We'd gone away for the weekend, on an impulse - as you do when you're young.

The only night OH and I slept in a tent was in a farmer's field near Shepton Mallet - we were young and on our way to Cornwall. The night was cold and by 5 am we were having breakfast at a greasy spoon and went B and B the rest of the hols.

When the kids were young in the UK and Oz we had various caravans and a dormobile (pop-up top, remember) and travelled thousands of miles.

They seemed to enjoy it all but it speaks volumes, I think, that, apart from one renting a caravan for a week to keep his children happy and the other having one night under canvas in the garden with the youngest, neither has got the camping bug.

As we got older, OH and I prefer our creature comforts, padding around in a plush hotel room suits us much better now. :-D

Before I was born, my parents rented an old cottage in Suffolk. The ceilings were the floors above ie. slats of wood.
The first night they were there, mum & dad were in bed, when they heard a strange, faint rumbling sound, and the next minute, bed bugs were falling through the ceiling onto their bed! :-0

The first croft house we got in Shetland (after the tent), I was there for the first week, on my own (with a dog I didn't know, who belonged to a 'lodger' who wasn't there).
I went to bed, leaving Ben the dog in the kitchen, musing on the fact that this (downstairs) bedroom was the only room with wallpaper - it was probably the 'front parlour' in times gone by, but the lower 6" or so or wallpaper had disappeared.

There were gas lights in the kitchen of this house, but elsewhere, candles were needed. I also took a torch.

I blew the candle out and settled down to sleep.
I thought I felt something passing by my face - but ignored it.
Then something went past my hand, and my face again.

I reached for the torch - something definitely went past my hand.

Turned the torch on, shone it on the bed - it was covered in mice!

That would explain the missing wallpaper.......

I got out of bed - very carefully, went to the kitchen, and encouraged Ben to
(a) kill the mice and
(b) sleep on my bed.

He was more than happy to do (b), and kept the mice away!

At least, in the tent, we only had the occasional attempt by a sheep to come into the tent - and they were a lot easier to 'get rid of' than mice!

well .............. don't go anywhere to stay then!!!

New York's very expensive hotels ............. bed bugs

Florida ............ bed bugs

and on and on and on

We have a friend who found one in the Sheraton in a major Canadian city


They are found all over the world now, and not just in cheap little hotels or motels ........... all a result of the great expansion of travellers who now cross the world.

Examine your own suitcases if you've been abroad or even within the UK recently.

Friend who lives in Blackpool a couple of years ago told me not to go as there was an influx of bedbugs in Blackpool hotells/ B and B's.
never been since before she warned me.

:-D :-D :-D.

Blackpool is a cesspit cheap and nasty. So is Rhyl I do like to people watch there :-D

Yes Madge that's camping but with a tin roof …….caravan holidays seem like hard work.....but for kids they love the freedom and somewhere different to sleep.


Sylvia,Friends of ours always take own pillows and bed stuff when sleeping out,,,,,but mainly they do a rent so don't have anyone doing their room.

No camping isn't for me...mind saying that in a busy place like Blackpool (which I dislike) camping is a better choice than a B&B with all them bodies hoping in and out each week... :-D :-D :-D.

For those of you worried about sheets etc in other places .................

you can buy a silk sleeping bag and pillow cover from travel companies. You sleep inside the sleeping bag with the pillow cover over the pillow.

The company I know is Magellans

I have had static caravans when the children were younger and we had some great times ....this is camping yes?


I am with Florence and Kay I do not go on holiday to cook wash or anything else. I want to be waited on hand and foot and yes I enjoy it and enjoy my little luxuries :D

Florence
How often do they wash or change the actual duvet though, I bet never and anything could be lurking in it,,,,,,,,,,,,,and probally do a top to bottom sheet,

;-) :-D :-D :-D.

Not trying to put you off like,,,,,,,
:-D

Omg kay, think id better stay at home! never given the B & B's bed etc much thought....

But I always pull the duvet back and check the bed before I sleep in it and also check the bathroom and toilet. If it wasn't spotless, I would complain.

Florence in the hebrides

Same here Florence,,,,,,,and a commune shower block,,,,,,,yuk,,,,,,,,,but with camping you do know whos slept in your sleeping bag I suppose...…

and that's what puts me off B&B and caravans and stop over places,,,,,

whos been sleeping in my bed,,,,,,,,someone with scaby skin,or a leaky internal valve,,,

shudders...…..

I just never felt really clean.But washing dishes in a small bowl of warm water...yeeuk

My idea of a holiday is where I don't have to cook, clean or do any chores for a week. Anything else is just a change of sink as my mum would say!

Florence in the hebrides

I have a friend who goes camping every holiday and most weekends their tent looks very roomy and comfy. She is forever posting pics when they have set up camp, looks proper home from home and then she and her OH sit eat and drink and I am still confused as to why?


why not do in the comfort of their own home :-S

Von...... :-D :-D.


Ive camped in a mad group...…..Brighton.,Holland, Belgium ,Peaks,but I hated it,,,,,,,as for a caravan as an adult,,,,,,once and never again.


Upstairs to bed is my motto. :-D.

I camped on Snowdon in February 1963, one of the worst winters ever. We had to find rocks to tie the guy ropes to as the ground was frozen solid. Why?, you may ask. Army Outward Bound Course, Towyn.

Camped ouround the UK and a few times in Europe when we were in our 20s & 30s then got a folding caravan, now upgraded to a "normal" one.

Also sailed a dinghy so we slung the tent and gear in the dinghy, went wherever, put up the tent and sailed.

Best bits were to Sanguinet just below Bodeaux three years running, where there was a great Municipal camp site in the forest and an enormous lake.

Kay
We have carpet in our tent :-D :-D :-D

We camped all over the US, Canada, and Australia between 1968 and the mid-1990s ........ no way we could have afforded doing that much travelling without the cheap accommodation. We often found sites where we didn't have to pay ........... Forest Service sites in the US and Canada, or municipal sites, or even in a gravel pit by the side of the road on the way to Alaska.

We first bought a big tent that could sleep 6 easily. It was suspended from the outside poles and had a sewn-in floor.That one saw us camping all over the US and Canada, and finally up to Alaska, where we had to have a tarpaulin to stretch over it because it was leaking. We then bought a smaller 4 man tent, that also hung from outside poles.

Around 1980-ish, we borrowed a very small 2-3 man canvas bell tent from a friend, packed it into a suitcase and went to Newfoundland, where we camped for about 10 nights out of 12. We were often the only people on the whole camp site ............. campgrounds closed the first week of August and we were there the 2nd and 3rd weeks. It got a wee bit cold at nights there, byut we got all the way up to L'Anse aux Meadows and into Gros Morne.

We took our daughter camping for the first time when she was 4 months old ............. niece came over from England, said she loved camping, so we took her down into northern Washington state to lovely forest camp sites. Turned niece had only ever been camping in Europe and couldn't get over pit toilets and no shower block :-D

I was making up bottles for our daughter using the camp stove, and making enough for 2 days at a time because that was all we could fit into the cooler.

WE had a good time .............. don't think niece ever camped again though she married a friend of ours that she met on that trip and ended up living here until she died 6 years ago.

We had wonderful holidays, hated having to give it up when my arthritis got worse.

Daughter and husband took our tent with them after they married as they were driving across Canada and camped on several of the nights. They bought another larger tent some years ago, but have upgraded to a high-sided tent trailer, which is over 6' high in the centre when opened up. Her OH has a bad back, and getting up from the floor of the tent was too painful. Now he can stand up straight in the tent trailer after crawling out of the queen bed.