I hate just about everything about camping.

It starts when you’re still at home. You pluck your house apart. You dismantle the very fibre of that cosy nest which works so well. Don’t forget the kettle. And a whisk for making cappuccino. And a salad-centrifuge. By the time the vehicle is actually loaded the whole concept of leaving early has become a petty insult to any form of time management. When you back out of the parking lot there is just NO WAY you will be able to use your rear view mirror. Truck driver mode begins.

In the car will be the only time you will relax that first day, because upon arrival you will immediately commence with off-loading and “setting up”, all of which before any real R and R. The entire contents of the vehicle are scattered all over a piece of green. Where will the kitchen go? Mind that you don’t store toilet paper together with cornflakes, because it is CHAOS!!!to do that.

Kids never help. They pretend for a short while, and before you know it, they’re off, playing with some rope, and arguing. With one ear you are just checking that it doesn’t escalate between them, while you wrestle with tent poles, one eye on the advancing cloud, hoping it will not come down before the duvets are in. This activity proves that men too, can multitask.

When I set up that tent 2 weeks ago (I’ve been back for a week) I was determined to do it alone, (being the only parent present) with the help of my nine year old son. This almost worked. I understand what chains of glucose molecules do when exposed to moisture and pressure, but tents!? Each tent is like a whole new chapter in a book about many different people. While fumbling with the arched poles I am in personal dialogue with the designer of this thing. Why don’t they just add a photo of themselves to make things easier, and a name, like “Bob”.

When all is done I am grateful that I have lost a few pounds. Worried about your weight? Go camping. Now I must find the shower block.

My relationship to the shower block didn’t seem to change much over the days. The mistake on day one – enter shower block with bag, but forget soap/toilet paper/fresh undies/and/or/towel – became a slapstick comedy. Every time I sauntered over there I had that dismal feeling that something was going to be missing again, and it was. Swearing becomes an art while looking for the one dry spot on the ledge under the mirror – a ledge the size of a piece of A4 paper folded lengthwise, that has already been used by some 15 odd people that morning. Yes, you have to hold one pant leg in your mouth while standing on your shoe, leaning your shoulder against the door (which is fortunately very close by), while inching your other leg out of the other pant leg… the water is beginning to get cold.

How to avoid luke warm water? Just shower cold!

Upon leaving the cubicle I realised that avoiding muddy feet is pure hilarity, and I chucked my shoes off for the following 5 days. It does mean that you will stand in your bedding with muddy feet. They are muddy, but dry (hopefully), or will be by morning.

It is a sort of capitulation to trying to marry fully functioning home life with a spot under some tree in a semi-natural environment far from home.  I stare at my co-campers in disbelief. They have been doing this for years, yea, for generations. They do not look like they are having a hard time. At 6 pm, like clockwork, families of four sit happily at rickety little camping tables, knees almost at their ears, on fold-out chairs eating a lovely meal of papperdelle con sugo di pommodori. The Dutch even do a bottle of wine with that. The kids have some concoction in colourful HEMA-beakers. Afterward, a team of self-appointed washer-uppers goes happily sauntering down to the shower block with an enormous plastic bowl full of dirty dishes and half-eaten food. They spend an hour chatting and laughing over the dishes under the crooning of doves in the trees.  It’s idyllic.

I, on the other hand, have been balancing pots on flimsy gas flames, hoping to cook pasta in water that just doesn’t want to boil, and have turned over an old cardboard box to do the cutting on, having left any form of cutting board at home. Doing dishes at the shower block will take another hour after dinner. It is obviously something to look forward to, but the idea challenges me.

When the great rain came, I was rather proud that the tent held its mettle. The position was good; you could feel the rain passing underneath the kitchen, turning it into a warm water bed. The sleeping compartment on the other hand became an all-encompassing enormous bed of towels, blankets and sheepskins. You come across the strangest things popping up in the bedding. I found myself sleeping amongst clean clothes strewn under my body, pulling gowns and jackets over my legs, like a real bum.

As the rain poured down outside, I took the trouble to dry the floor of the kitchen area to a ‘t’, sacrificing one thick towel for the process. Then my heel hit a large plastic bowl full of pasta water I had forgotten to empty after dinner. Hah, the pasta water. Enter, a full 5 litres of starchy pasta water, all over the floor of the kitchen, at 11 pm, in a dark rainstorm. It was poetry. A sweet, warm, slimy little swimming pool of our own. I laid myself down and mopped it up without a scowl, because of the beauty of it.

In the morning we ventured forth from what now was quite a bear’s nest on dried muddy (and starchy) feet to inspect the damage. The world was transformed. The path, on which we had all skipped along so merrily to the loo for days, was now a gigantic lake, swamping tents left and right. I waded thru there up to the knees in the silence of morning. Behind the zippers of those dwellings nothing stirred. Any movement may cause seepage. But, amazingly, within hours the place was dried up. I stared in disbelief at the families, who had re-emerged, sitting happily at their tables with magazines, card games and some quiet conversation. All I wanted was coffee with loads of sugar and to drink it from an old rusty pot, and a cigarette.

Finally, the day arrives when you can finally LEAVE. Ah, that final packing up. The musty, mouldy swimming trunks, undies and t-shirts dripping off the line; the squashed pears in a net; the bag of cornflakes like little yellow petals; spiders; canned beans waiting for a pan, like cowboy food.  Let’s fling it all, clean and dirty, into the car. The morning wears on. Children have mysteriously disappeared. I manage to sweep off the tent in all sections of flaking it down. By 12.15 it’s a fact: we are out of here, leaving behind a sparkling patch of light yellow grass, blinded by daylight.

Now, if you think the job is done here, then you have never camped. Oh no. You see, that’s just the thing with camping: the job is never done. Get yee home, yee will unpack. It will take all day, and the next one, too. My loving husband, there to greet us on the doorstep, immediately puts the washing machine into full swing. The shaking out of rugs and sheepskins sends up billows of dust and sand that won’t settle for days to come.

Ah, what would we do without our civilised home of convenience? My smiling husband offering me a fresh espresso? I wonder if I fully appreciate my underwear drawer, the hats up high, even my bedside lamp? Once, long ago, I remember sitting on a beach in northern Mozambique, viewing the remains of an abandoned tented camp. I looked at what were the remains of a cd-player eaten by months of sandstorms, pictures of Londoners at Tottenham Court yellowing on the walls of a tipi in this surreal setting. As I sat there the realisation hit me that I had found the wilderness, but didn’t want it. This feeling was confirmed on many a journey I had before and after that wistful day in “paradise”. Indeed, we inadvertently know our place: In the library of the daily ritual, reminding us of our humanity.

And next year, we will go camping again.

ACN August 2011