Last weekend I decided to take my girls camping. I’m always rather reticent about sleeping under canvas, as it tends to involve a huge amount of effort and a good deal of discomfort, but then I like to think that Rosie and Alice are gaining life skills from sleeping rough, so I invariably give in to their pestering and agree to join the sandal brigade – but for one night and one night only.

I have to confess that I’m an equipment junkie; I don’t have any room for Jimmy Choo sling backs in my closet, because most of the space is taken up by scuba equipment. I don’t get out much and so prancing around in a wetsuit and BCD in the privacy of my bedroom is about a big a thrill as I get. When I go to a camping shop I have to fight the urge to buy stuff that I know I’ll never use – but that doesn’t stop me wanting it. I try to fight it, but I’m weak - which accounts for the fact that I now own two tents, a fold-up chair, three stoves, lamps, sleeping bags, an electric air bed inflator and a whole heap of paraphernalia that only sees the light of day a couple of times a year.

There is a particular thrill about packing up the car and setting off in search of perfect pitch. I know it’s uncomfortable, and not terribly glamorous, but camping is a really good way to use up an empty weekend. When you’re widowed, weekends are about as much fun as amateur dentistry. Nobody wants to be around you, and you don’t want to be around anybody else. You are marooned for two endless days, drifting around in a world filled with couples; it’s painful at first, but it does become easier over time - which is more than can be said for sleeping on an airbed next to two arm-flailing, teeth-grinding children…

The camping went really well, with trips to the beach, fish and chips for supper and bacon and eggs for breakfast. The girls had a great time, but after I’d finished the papers and washed up our plates, I was left with the tricky task of trying not to stick out like a pork chop in a kosher deli. I always feel a bit of loser when the girls are off playing, because I'm left sitting on my own, trying desperately not to look like I'm sitting on my own. I know I should have plucked up the courage to talk to some of the other campers, but just the sight of women with limp, white legs, baggy shorts and drippy husbands is enough to send me scurrying for the safety of my nylon pleasure dome. I can’t do it. I’m antisocial - I know it, but there is something faintly odd about people who actually enjoy using a chemical toilet.

I wee on the grass. There, I’ve said it. When it’s dark I really can’t be bothered to walk all the way across the campsite to a drafty toilet block. I like to be close to nature. I’m sure that makes me socially unacceptable, but I figure that I couldn’t be any more of a social pariah, so go ahead and sue me for grass abuse.

It was a wonderful couple of days, but do you know what? It all went horribly wrong when we got home. I don’t mind doing all the work by myself: loading the car, putting up the tent, packing all the stuff away for the journey home, but when I’ve finished I feel empty and alone. I know I am lucky, and have two lovely girls, but I wish, just once, that I had somebody to say,’ Kate, sit down and have a rest and I’ll finish unloading the car. Then I’ll put the girls to bed and make us a lovely supper.’ I get tired of having to do everything, and all the happiness of the previous two days evaporates in a flood of tears. But it never lasts long. I can’t let it. I have to be strong, but sometimes I want to be weak; sometimes I want to be the girl with the pasty complexion and unfortunate choice in sandals, who has a man to bang in the tent pegs and empty the chemical toilet at the end of a blissful weekend. Sometimes, the thought of sitting beside a monosyllabic caravanner is faintly appealing, but then I slap myself and get reality again. I don’t need that in my life. Anyway, men with big motorhomes are usually lacking in the trouser department, or so my good friend Sharon tells me, and she should know, she lives in California and they have pretty big motorhomes out there - in fact, I believe in the Sioux language ‘Winnebago’ means ‘stumpy thruster’.

The other important event that happened this week was my attendance at a first aid class. I definitely lost points for trying to French kiss the resuscitation dummy, but I managed to score highly on the ‘Response’ section, by suggesting that prodding the victim with a stick would be a good way of checking for signs of life. I could have happily prodded my first aid partner with a stick – he had cold, clammy hands and I really didn’t appreciate them being run all over my face. Still, I’m all set to go out and do good, so if you should happen across a man lying on his back, with a gleeful woman sitting astride him, giving him completely unnecessary mouth to mouth, you’ll know it’s me.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.