Deluge

Today

Terrible rain everywhere. According to whom you pay attention, a month's rain in one day or 6 months' rain in one day. Who cares who's right; it probably depends on where you live. Those poor folk in Sheffield. It's all very well to blame the Environment Agency, but if you planned for all of these things the costs would cause an outcry instead.

Closer to home, Lizzie, not for the first time, decided that Glasto is really not much fun when everything is covered in mud and wetness. Her mobile phone's ruined and her hippie spirit is certainly tempered with a fondness for hot showers and decent beds. So she decamped (literally) on Sunday.

In My Day

Camping! At some point someone (maybe a boy scout) tried to tell us that sleeping in a makeshift home, with a wet, dark walk to the nearest loos is fun!

Early in our marriage, we decided to buy a tent. It was a frame tent with zipped inner sleeping compartments. It took ages to get up and I still marvel that our marriage survived those discussions.

We took it to Devon (the sun mostly shone, so I coped) Cornwall (when we shared it with 2 other people, so cosy) and a number of short breaks.

In 1977 I had a whole week off - jubilee week, to be exact. I was very pregnant with Becky and we took the tent to Presteigne in Wales. Got the tent erected close to a nice little stream and settled down to a nice break.

Does anyone remember queen's silver jubilee week? how it rained and rained and rained? (Rather like the coronation itself). Lizzie insisted that we have a jubilee supper with as much RW&B as we could muster. We had to try to cook and eat it tucked in under the flaps, hiding from the pouring rain.

Eventually couldn't stand it any longer. Dismantled the soaking wet tent, drove to my brother's in the Midlands and begged a bath and overnight stay. Home where we had to leave the tent spread on the lounge floor for about 4 days before it dried.

And I've never camped (except on the Inca Trail) since.

The tent died after its very own Glasto experience when it wasn't dried by the borrowers at all and simply dissolved into mildewy fragments. I was rather glad of this excuse not to have to use it again.