Author: Alison

The owner of the glamping site didn’t sugar coat it: if we don’t take your porch off, your tent will blow away. With that, she handed us a bottle of champagne and apologised for the shower not working. So we’re battening down the hatches for the imminent arrival of Storm Katie. The Boden brigade in the tent next door have already booked themselves into a hotel for the night. Lightweights. Our answer to the promised storm was to load up our wheelbarrow – cars aren’t allowed on site – with as much gin, wine, crisps, marshmallows and cake mix, as a teenager can wheel across a field. We already have masses of pasta, hot chocolate and the champagne freebie stashed away: bring it on, Katie, bring it on!

The porch being take down, ready for Storm Katie’s arrival 

So far this glamping lark has been a huge success. The tent is so posh, it resembles a house. So much so that I thought it was a house the first night, until it started flapping and then a huge shadow of partner appeared on our bedroom wall at 4am. He was trying to relight the stove, as the owner had mentioned that it is possible to keep it going all night and his competitive instinct kicked in. I woke up to what looked like the Incredible Hulk wielding a canoe, but it was just partner and his gas lamp and a log.

Captain Caveman

Dog 1 and dog 2 are having a ball. Last night they needed a wee. It was dark. Partner asked me to put dog 1’s lead on (on the dog, not on me – thin walls). I felt around and struggled for a bit. It won’t go on, I said to partner. He shined his phone in my direction. That’s because you are trying to get it around his bum, he retorted.

I now realise why I had four kids: one to cook, one to wash up, one to dry and one to put away.

Daughter 1 being mum, while her mother is getting pissed on the sofa

Meanwhile, partner and I can languish on the sofa in front of the stove, drinking free champagne and waiting for the storm to hit.

A few years ago we almost stopped giving the girls chocolate for Easter. I was so sick of the stuff. Mountains of chocolate would be left in our cupboard for weeks afterwards. I would give a huge bag of it to anyone who came round to our house looking hungry in May. Even the girls were beaten into chocolate submission. Easter eggs are like Christmas decorations: fine at the time, but by January you are sick of the sight of them. 

Maybe I am just an Easter Scrooge. We had one Easter bonnet that we made when daughter 1 was 4, that did 12 years of Easter hat parades. One year we had a problem, as two daughters were in the same parade. Just share it, I managed to convince them. You wear it up until: Chick, Chick Chicken, lay a little egg for me and then shove it on your sister’s head. That Easter bonnet never won a prize once in all those 12 years. Some of the hats I see now, proudly displayed on Facebook, with captions such as: look at what I made..erm…she made…, look amazing, but they won’t last a day, let alone 12 years. They won’t have the staying power of our…erm I mean their bonnet. 

For the past couple of years, we have offered the kids a fiver or an egg. At first, the two younger ones opted for the egg, not wanting to break with tradition. However, last year they worked out that shops pop out pretty decent eggs at a pound a go, so they took the fiver and bought themselves several eggs, thus causing our plan to spectacularly backfire. 

This Easter we are in a tent. Everyone who asks if we are going on holiday, as they wave their ski poles in our faces, says: oh no! when I mention the tent. It’s a posh tent, I add, we’re glamping. But I can see it in their eyes, they are thinking: no amount of posh can stop it pissing down. 

So, this Easter I think we will break with tradition and we shall take chocolate to the tent. I feel that we need to feed our addictions this weekend, rather than shun them. We will pack our knackered old bus full of chocolate and wine and peanut butter. Peanut butter is partner’s addiction. He drove via Waitrose last night after work, because he had none for the morning. They only had organic, he tells me. He opens it and sniffs it, like one might a fine wine. Does it taste any different? I ask him. Oh yes, he tells me, as if I have asked whether Blossom Hill tastes different to claret. It tastes like a real monkey nut. I’m not convinced, but he shall have his peanut butter and the girls shall have their chocolate. I shall sit in our tent, clutching a glass of wine, watching the rain pissing on the fire pit, feeling like a real Easter Scrooge.