Day 211: Very Campetent

I am camping.  Which for me normally means the minimum (coffee pot, packet of fig rolls - all nutritional bases covered). 

Not nylon

Believe

Not this weekend.  I am a new addition to a group of people who are SERIOUS ABOUT CAMPING.  Their enclave looks like those sepia photos of tinkers travelling round the lanes of Kent in the early 1900s.  Canvas bell tents*.  Massive stone-encircled fires.  Soot-blackened kettle suspended from metal tripod.  Fire trivets made from horse-shoes welded together. 

And they FORAGE.  So in addition to five spit-roast chickens (perfectly cooked - not raw, not dry), we have samphire.  Elderflower fritters (yup - tempura batter made on the campsite).  Goblin Beard seaweed is drying by the fire, ready for frying tomorrow.  There's a birthday, so Duncan* makes a chocolate cake from scratch and bakes it on the fire.  (Yes.  This really happens.) 

(The fig rolls of shame stay in my tent.  Nobody need know about them.)       

* Duncan (Gandalf crossed with Eric Clapton) doesn't have a canvas bell tent.  He has an ironic orange and brown 1970s 'house' tent.  The sort that Barbara Windsor uses in Carry On Camping.  You can do that when you're clearly the Camping Top Trump.