The primary school that our youngest is at stages a “camping” evening each year - usually coinciding with father’s day. It takes place on the school field for any families with children at the school. We had heard it was good fun, so somehow I got signed up to do it with our kids.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon to find 90% of the tents already pitched - with many groups of families organised into exclusive villages around the field. Given that I barely know two of the other mums, and none of the Dads, I thought “this is going to be fun”.
As arranged beforehand, W helped put the tent up and then headed home for a night off. In actuality, she would buy nice food from the supermarket on the way home, a bottle off wine, and then fall asleep while waiting for the cooker to warm up - waking when I called at about 10 to report that all was fine on the western front.
As luck normally dictates, I was among three Dad’s doing the same as me - camping for the first time at this school event, and we had all ended up next to each other. I did notice that they only had one child to deal with, and were not playing with them - I on the other hand had three, and was running ragged around the field playing football, “it”, monsters, chase, handstands, cartwheels, and whatever else they wanted to do.
More quiet surprise followed from other parents when I got all of ours washing, in their pyjamas and into bed single-handed without any complaints.
Looking around the field, I couldn’t help smiling at the arms race we had been told about. Parents who were about to leave the school with their children for the local Junior school had obviously gathered more and more equipment during the years they had participated, and had turned the evening into a tent arms race. Given that we were only staying for one night, I couldn’t help laughing at the amount of stuff some families had brought… HUGE tents, gazebos, tables, chairs, blankets, trays, plates, cutlery…
We had one tent, sleeping bags, thermarests, a change of clothes, and a bag of food… as did the other Dads alongside. In our tent there was just enough room in it’s single compartment to fit myself and our three girls alongside each other. We all slept like logs (well, apart from our youngest who woke momentarily in the middle of the night - just enough to sit up, and then collapse into the side of the tent - wedging her head against the flysheet… I rearranged her without her stirring.
We woke the next morning to bright sunshine. I busied myself with packing our stuff away, and by 8 had the kids back in their clothes, and everything else packed. A call home at 8:30 (after another mad game of football, “it”, monsters, etc) called our lift home, and W arrived to excited screams of “Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum!” from our youngest.
Will I do it again next year? Of course…