Follow your whims
My back garden camping adventure and the benefits of changing up the every day
Hello you,
I hope you’ve had some moments of joy this week?
I’m reflecting on the benefits of changing things up. I don’t mean in HUGE ways. I mean little tweaks to our everyday. Perhaps eating lunch outside instead of inside or taking your notepad somewhere different to write.
When my partner went away for the whole weekend, an idea plopped into my head.
“I’m going to put the tent up in the garden.”
Yes, my inner child was craving a little back garden adventure, and who was I to tell her no?
For me, there has always been something quite magical about the pitter patter of raindrops on tent canvas. That secure feeling of being cocooned inside your cosy sleeping bag, protected against the elements.
We went camping quite a lot when I was little, always to attend various northern folk festivals (Redcar, Saltburn, Cleethorpes…)
Four of us would be lined up like sausages at night-time. And Mum always brought along the famous white bucket for when we needed a pee in the middle of the night and didn’t want to make the shivery walk to the toilet block.
I loved camping. I even loved the rubbery smell of the air bed. The whoosh and suck sound of Mum’s foot pushing down onto the pump. The way the tarpaulin crackled. The way our sandwiches and squash would taste different when eaten outside on the plastic table and fold up chairs.
I loved that there were no proper walls. That you could hear the hubbub of people chitter-chattering. Zips unzipping. Noses being blown. Someone playing a fiddle or a tin whistle in the distance whilst the sea gulls squawked and spiralled.
Camping to me is bound up with lots of nostalgic memories. All of the worries of home seemed to remain behind our front door when we travelled somewhere with the tent. Even my sister and I would become best play-pals for the weekend, whereas at home we’d screech hate at each other.
Sadly, it’s not a frequent part of my life anymore. But I did experience it again a few weeks ago when my sister and I went ‘home home’ to visit our family and help out with some full-on life admin. (By the way we are now super close. We grew out of the hate phase.)
The thought of staying in the family home in the middle of it all was too much but booking a hotel in our home town just seemed silly.
Then I had my brainwave. “Why don’t we go camping?”
My sister loved the idea too. I found a campsite 10 minutes down the road and thankfully the weather was 100% on our side.
I felt that magic again. I got the camping bug.
At the weekend, I re-found the tent and wrangled it into position in the garden. It’s supposed to be one of those pop-up ones but I’ve never managed to do it like the adverts.
I made myself a little bed (nest), sleeping bag and all so I could hang out in there, maybe even sleep in there if the whim arose.
I couldn’t help but smile. A solo adventure! No one to please but myself. Close to the birds, the breeze and the rustle of the cows next door harumphing through the field. This was another way to enjoy our new countryside location. We moved away from the suburbs of Manchester about a year ago.
After feeling a bit low the last few weeks, this was restorative. This was proper rest. Very much needed rest.
And do you know what? I did sleep in it.
The first night was quite dramatic! It really did hammer it down. I wondered whether the piece of Gorilla tape over a hole in the top would remain watertight. (Mice had nibbled at the tent in all the years it was folded away.)
I woke up at 2am feeling sort of ridiculous that I had a perfectly protective house just metres away and I was choosing to spend the night like this.
I was almost going to call it a night and run inside. But then, I thought of it as part of the adventure. I smiled, laid back and remembered how exciting it had been to huddle together during a downpour and listen to the cascade.
I awoke again a couple of hours later to the cacophonous dawn chorus. I smiled again in my half slumber and shimmied down into the sleeping bag.
It was one of those almost perfect moments of contentment.
To very badly paraphrase the research, apparently when we have more ‘novel’ things in our days and we create more varied memories, it helps us to perceive time as moving more slowly. I think this was the case during my ‘please myself’ weekend.
When T arrived home from his stag do, I was very pleased to see him. But there was a nudge of sadness.
My solo back garden adventure was over…for now.
It’s definitely made me think about how I can change things up in small ways.
-
What could you do to see things from a slightly new perspective? Or to create a little bit of an adventure in the day to day?
Janelle x
Oh Janelle I have been thinking about this exact thing so much at the moment. I have been in the UK for two weeks, and it feels like MONTHS - all the activities and opportunities that have been grabbed with both hands, the long days that feel so elastic. At home weeks swing around so fast and I was wondering what one can do to introduce the wonder that being here seems to crowd into my days.
I will definitely try the novel approach you have suggested!
I love this. You've captured that magic of camping so well. I used to camp in our back garden often with one of my school friends and it was so exciting to be outside. We cooked our food on the fire about three metres from the actual kitchen window, and put potatoes in foil in the embers so we could wake up for a midnight feast later on! My husband camps at the end of our garden for a night or two each summer and brews himself a dawn-ish coffee on his little stove. Perhaps it's time I joined him. I've been too welded to my comfy bed next door to the bathroom!
That's so interesting about a novel thing in our day helping time to slow, thank you for that I'll ponder some more how to introduce things which are out of normal routine.