Camping

This weekend I booked to go camping with two of my friends and their sons.

I’m not quite sure how this happened.

I wouldn’t describe myself as high maintenance. I travelled for fourteen weeks while pregnant with just 10kg of luggage – that’s got to be low maintenance, right? I pluck my eyebrows once every two years when we have Christmas with my in-laws…

But I have never been a camping sort of a person.

I love going for long walks and all that jazz, but at the end of the day I’d prefer to be in my house or a hotel or at the very least a hostel. Somewhere with a proper bed and, essentially, a proper loo. In fact, the reason I didn’t do the Duke of Edinburgh award was that I had absolutely no intention of camping. Ever.

The problem is, in Vancouver everyone is very much pro-camping. People go camping all the time. For fun. So, last summer we went camping for the first time. And the second time.

The first time was born of necessity. We were going to Jasper National Park and there were no hotels or hostels available (because I left it too late…) except for the very expensive Fairmont. So we ended up camping for two nights at a very nice campsite called Wapiti. The campsite really was lovely. Everything was new and clean. Even the showers were warm!

But, it was still camping. So no proper bed. And I was five months pregnant. If you have ever been five months pregnant, or have ever spoken to a woman who is five months pregnant, you will know that finding a comfortable position to sleep in is very difficult, even in a real bed. On an inflatable mattress, it is impossible. Also, it’s a palaver to go to the loo in the middle of the night. If you want my advice, don’t go camping when you’re pregnant.

This is very good advice.

Unfortunately, possibly due to baby brain, possibly just because I’m a bit thick, I did not heed it and less than two months later we went camping again with a friend from antenatal class.

Because I thought my daughter would enjoy it. I mean, there’s selflessness and then there’s stupidity.

She did enjoy it, she had a whale of a time. I did not. It was nice to be with friends, etc, etc. But seriously, I was huge by this point. Trying to get me and my body support pillow into the sleeping bag was no mean feat. And the facilities were not as nice at this campsite. And my daughter barely slept. So she was overtired as well as being almost two and overexcited.

We went home a day early.

So, to return to my opening sentence: we’re going camping again in about 6 weeks, with my friends from antenatal class (including the one I went with last time).

“Why?” You may ask. “You spend most of your time on social media moaning about how little sleep you get. Why would you want to put yourself in a situation where you almost certainly won’t get any sleep?”

I think the honest answer is because I am an optimist, if your definition of optimism is the triumph of hope over experience. My daughter will be in her element, BC really is beautiful, and because this time I’m not pregnant, so it’ll be tonnes better. Right?

And yes, I am aware that the baby that made sleeping impossible last time is now eight months old and has just learnt to crawl. It’ll be fine. Fine.

I’ll let you know how it goes.