Happy campers

I appear to have ignored you all for a while. Sorry about that. It's sunny, ok? And we don't get much of that up here in the frozen north, so it's enough to turn any girl's head.

In fact, driven delirious by two whole days of sunshine I actually agreed to go camping on Saturday. I am not the world's greatest camper, and agree to endure nights under canvas only if we take (a) a blow up airbed/mattress (b) my coffee pot, so I can brew horribly strong coffee in a morning to balance out the fact I will get about three hours of sleep.

And, to be honest, it was rather fun. It didn't rain. The campsite was pleasingly low-tech and low key (two fields; a shower block in some old outbuildings), we managed to get the tent up without hitting the small child on the head with the mallet, and the 40-year-old camping stove created pasta and chorizo for tea with a minimum of fuss.

So far, so cool camping. We did look a little bit out of our league compared to the massive cars/tents/gazebos/deckchair-and-table-combos favoured by our neighbours, but hey, you've got to start somewhere. We had a bottle of wine. What more did we need?

Actually, a heater would have done nicely for a start. It was bloody freezing in the evening. With the child deliriously happy in bed in the tent, we sat in the car, read the paper, and tried not to think about the three nice pubs that we'd seen in the village.

It was still on the parky side at 4.30am, as I tried to sleep. And not much better at 7am, when everywhere outside the tent was covered in a thick carpet of condensation and dew. Still, sausages, beans and coffee for breakfast went down well (bizarrely, stirring beans on a stove was the toddler highlight of the whole experience), and it got pretty sunny fairly quickly.

Still suffering from the effects of little sleep and a massive caffeine hit, I may have agreed to repeat the whole experience.

Oops.

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic!

Wah-hey! Big project pretty much finished, holiday just round the corner. Just time to pop back and tell you all about my exciting plans to finish painting the wardrobe doors (it's like the Forth Bridge all over again) and make a lemon drizzle cake. Hey, suburbia's where it's at, don't you know? What with the lawn mowing and washing cars, we really know how to party.

Actually, my car could really do with a clean at the moment, given that the last time it was done was when it went in for a service several months ago. Since then it's been liberally smeared in toddler goop on the inside, and Northumberland mud/sand on the outside, to the extent that even said toddler keeps remarking on how dirty it is. So far I've decided to buck the Sunday carwashing trend, but I might have to succumb.

Our carwashing avoidance tactic last Sunday was to spend the weekend camping in the wilderness of Northumberland, up past Rothbury. That's right - the bit that's practically Scotland, with no mobile phone coverage. It might have been a beautiful back-to-nature experience - the website of the place we were staying promised: "No busy roads or traffic nearby, just the gentle bleating of sheep in the surrounding fields, penetrates the tranquillity of this ideal retreat." Ah, but they hadn't bargained on the Coquet Creek Country and Western Weekend just up the valley or the Beerpigs Scooter Club taking over the nearby hotel with about 200 scooters had they?

Still, outbreaks of grumpiness aside, I've now discovered (a) it's pretty light at 4.30am (b) birds sing REALLY loudly at dawn when you're in a tent trying to sleep and (c) I can function reasonably well on three hours' sleep as long as I drink obscene amounts of strong coffee.