How to put up a tent - or two
September 16th 2007 19:05
Since we’ve started our three weeks or so of tenting, we’ve had to learn how to put up two different tents. The one we began with, which we borrowed from our nephew, is a small tent that you can’t stand up in. Being two people who can get discounts because of their age at the camping sites, we didn’t find crawling around on our hands and knees that exciting, nor trying to fight our way out of the tent in the middle of the night, nor trying to get dressed sitting down.
So we bought another tent (which means our poor little Peugeot is carrying all the gear associated with two tents around on its back seats now). This one is stand-uppable-in, and that makes a huge amount of difference. It’s also larger all round, so there’s more room for the endless amount of gear we seem to have to bring when camping. (Or when going anywhere, for that matter.)
Putting up the first tent wasn’t too drastic, and apart from a few sharp words between me and the good lady, we managed it without disaster. The second tent is more complicated, although the principles involved are the same. It just requires living with a few moments of suspense when you try to hold up two diagonal poles simultaneously, while trying to plug the fourth hook into the end of one of them. Beyond that it’s full of little hooks and eyes (or the tent equivalent of them) and in general is pretty easy to erect. Our first attempt at erecting it took what felt like two hours. Today, in spite of a blustery wind that threatened to carry the tent and the two near pensioners away with it, we got it up in about half an hour. (One good thing about having lots of stuff is that hopefully it’ll all hold the tent in place if the wind gets any worse.) By the time we’re finished camping we should be able to throw the thing out of the bag, toss it on the ground, give a few flicks of the wrist, and it’ll be standing.
There are mod cons, of course, to modern camping. We have lighting inside the tent, which means you don’t have to go to bed at 7.30. We have a little blower thingee that runs off the car battery which means you can blow up the air beds in a matter of minutes. We have electric power, which means I can type on the computer without the battery running down. Okay, the grass is still dewy in the morning (or the middle of the night) and you get the bottoms of your pyjamas wet; moisture gets inside the tent no matter what you do; you still trip over things you thought you’d put out of the way; and once it’s dark
- it’s dark.
So we bought another tent (which means our poor little Peugeot is carrying all the gear associated with two tents around on its back seats now). This one is stand-uppable-in, and that makes a huge amount of difference. It’s also larger all round, so there’s more room for the endless amount of gear we seem to have to bring when camping. (Or when going anywhere, for that matter.)
Putting up the first tent wasn’t too drastic, and apart from a few sharp words between me and the good lady, we managed it without disaster. The second tent is more complicated, although the principles involved are the same. It just requires living with a few moments of suspense when you try to hold up two diagonal poles simultaneously, while trying to plug the fourth hook into the end of one of them. Beyond that it’s full of little hooks and eyes (or the tent equivalent of them) and in general is pretty easy to erect. Our first attempt at erecting it took what felt like two hours. Today, in spite of a blustery wind that threatened to carry the tent and the two near pensioners away with it, we got it up in about half an hour. (One good thing about having lots of stuff is that hopefully it’ll all hold the tent in place if the wind gets any worse.) By the time we’re finished camping we should be able to throw the thing out of the bag, toss it on the ground, give a few flicks of the wrist, and it’ll be standing.
There are mod cons, of course, to modern camping. We have lighting inside the tent, which means you don’t have to go to bed at 7.30. We have a little blower thingee that runs off the car battery which means you can blow up the air beds in a matter of minutes. We have electric power, which means I can type on the computer without the battery running down. Okay, the grass is still dewy in the morning (or the middle of the night) and you get the bottoms of your pyjamas wet; moisture gets inside the tent no matter what you do; you still trip over things you thought you’d put out of the way; and once it’s dark
- it’s dark.
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