Sooo I am back in the New Forest, after updating some of my kit and also just wanting to celebrate the start of summer. Cut down on all of the equipment to make it as light as possible and it was still heavy as hell. but on the bright side, I still made it to the train station just in time for it to start raining. And I do mean pissing it down.
My pack, although very much whittled down, still weighed about the same as one of the ponies that keep wandering past my tent door, but I managed to get it here, so I will look forward to the immense back pain kicking in tomorrow. As I have always packed the tent with a rainy repitching in mind, it was actually quite a quick and simple job to get the tent up. Downside was that keeping the door open to get rid of all the steam coming off my damp clothing meant that the rain just filled up the doorway. I MacGuyvered a kinda awning by borrowing a spare guy rope from the fantastic people as Ashurst Campsite
Once I was in the tent, makeshift awning applied and all comfy, it was quite nice listening to the rain come down while I sat in the warm and dry. Admittedly, it did make me wanna pee, but rain stopped play as far as that was concerned.
I will mention this as an aside to the main text, but I purchased last year a… well I don’t know how to describe it other than a pisspot. It came with a shewee attachment that I have been at a loss to know what to do with. The bottom line is that it extends so, I assume, it can take a voluminous quantity of pee. I have taken it on a few camping trips but have never had the courage to use it yet. I will refer to it in future as ‘the shameful item’.
I has also taken with me a litre of my home brew cider, assuming that this would last me the evening, but by 1900 I was in the local pub as I had finished the home brew and decided more was in order. This decision was reached after two minibuses of kids rocked up and started pitching tents and gazebos opposite my pitch. I felt that and extra drop of cider would assist in ignoring them for the remainder of the night.