Camping in July with the usual gang of friends from uni.  That'll be nice - most likely warm(ish) and hopefully dry.

Or not.  After a ridiculously slow drive (thanks M5 roadworks and 'start of school holidays' traffic) I arrived at a very wet Ruehill campsite to find Jo having a major tent disaster - she'd left the flysheet at home!  I quickly popped my tent up, then retreated to the car to wait for the others to arrive while she went and bought an emergency new tent from a local halfords.
(Fun fact: 'showerproof' £10 tents very definitely can't cope with rainy Staffordshire moorlands.
Fun fact #2: when we moved her original tent the next morning, it turned out the flysheet was underneath it all along....!)

The rain was clearly not planning on stopping so we drove to a local fish and chip shop, ate in the cars then drove to the pub just down the road.

Thankfully, Saturday was much drier.  At about 11am, we got the firepit going - as we obviously hadn't been able to the night before - and toasted far too many marshmallows.

Me playing with fire. Photo by Lucy

We thought about finding a local attraction to visit, or going for a walk, or even just finding somewhere for tea and cake, but in the end it was just nice to sit around the fire catching up.  In the afternoon we wandered down the road to Yewstock music and beer festival, where I drank too much cider too quickly for that early on in the day!

We headed back to the other pub for dinner, once again taking shelter from the rain.

On Sunday morning tents were packed up, and most of us stopped off for a lovely breakfast at the Cottage Kitchen, before heading our separate ways back to families, dogs, children, etc.

tags: camping