Camping Out.

One of the things on our "to-do" list is camping. However, it is not really conducive to wheelchairs so up to now it hasn't happened yet, except for last night when Niave and I got to "camp" at school for the Grade R Parent/Child Sleepover - a right of passage for any Barkly House kid!

The options were to camp outside in the playground or to sleep inside, seeing as we don't camp we don't have a tent but we do know a few seasoned campers and were able to borrow an wonderful tent and blow-up mattress from Grant's dad.

I was not really looking forward to it at first, and by the time I got my head around the idea we were on day 4 of howling gale-force South Easter winds that had caused havoc and quite a bit of damage around Cape Town so by Friday morning I was a little anxious to say the least.

Anyway, it went ahead and so we set off to brave the elements!

The tent dwellers

The children were so excited, Niave was beside herself!! We had our tent set up in about 15 minutes, but the mattress took a little longer, the pump I had didn't want to work, but there were a few campers with the same mattress and so we could borrow a pump - and some legs to do the pumping!

One happy camper!

First off we had a braai, I left our tongs behind but some helpful dads came to our rescue and got our boerewors cooked!

The kids had so much fun roasting marshmallows and playing torch games. 

By this time the wind had already subsided quite a bit with longer and longer gaps between the gusts.

After supper it was ice-lolly time before the children were gathered together for Story Time.

Then after brushing teeth and putting on their PJ's it was one last story before lights out.

 It was funny brushing teeth at school!

I had expected Niave to take a while to wind down after all the excitement but once we were settled and zipped into our tent she was out for the count!

She slept soundly the whole night. I on the other hand did not!
After dozing off around 11:15pm, I awoke with a shock at 12:50am to the sound of sprinklers, it sounded like they were right outside our tent but after some quick investigation I discovered they were the sprinklers next door at Greenfield!!
My next wake-up call was from a little boy crying and then puking 1 tent away: +- 2:45am!
Whoever suggested that roosters crow at dawn was sadly mistaken because at 3:30am the rooster crowed for the first time and every 5 minutes after that!
At 4:45am what sounded like a rubbish truck was doing the rounds and around 5:15 some very loud students either came or went from the Res next to the school.
By 6:00am we were awake to a beautiful windless day.

So after all the anxiety about the wind, it was hardly a factor, the tent didn't even sway as I thought it would.
All in all not the best nights sleep I've ever had but definitely better than I expected it to be. And from the reports of the snoring that went on inside I was very glad to be in my self-contained, cockroach-free environment!

The school provided cereal for breakfast, Niave had her's on the swing!!

 After breakfast we packed up and were home by just after 8:00am for a much needed shower and change of clothes! I'm looking forward to a good nights sleep tonight!