Camping is a new phenomenon for me. I prefer to sleep in a bed with a duvet and preferably have easy access to very, very clean toilets. However, last year my husband eased me into the world of camping gently. We stayed in a yurt with a proper bed and a password-coded toilet block that had Molton Brown toiletries. It was rather nice. ‘I can do this camping lark’, I thought.
The next time we went, he packed a bucket. A regular looking metal bucket with a grille that looked suspiciously like the one from our old cooker. Into this he added some charcoal, lit it and in half an hour we had a lovely fire cooling off ready to cook. He’d bought some mackerel fillets, red peppers, halloumi and prawns in the cool box along with some crusty bread and seasoning. We ate as the sun was going down and it was a glorious meal – made even more delicious by the wonderful smells.
The best bit was that everything was eaten from the grill and all the packaging thrown in the bin so we had nothing except the bucket to store that evening in the tent. No hassle and little mess.
Nowadays we go camping a lot. My daughters love it and although not as glamorous as the actual bed in the yurt, we have a blow up mattress and I still get my duvet! I still also get awesome barbecue food enjoyed in the beautiful, quiet countryside.