This Easter weekend me the OH and two friends decided to go to the Doone Valley campsite in Malmsmead.
The weather had been amazing on the run up to the trip and our fingers were well and truly crossed it would continue.
This was the Mr Mens first outing since New Years Eve, only this time I didn't have my mum there with all the equipment anyone could possibly ever need, nor did I have an electric hook up for the heater, lights, etc. Although we had been to Go Outdoors, the Range, Dunelm Mill and Tesco's a few times to get some more camping goodies we were still missing things.
On top of this I hadn't actually got around to sewing together a carpet to fit the bell so I was feeling a little underprepared. Luckily my nice mumsy planned to meet us there to drop off a heater some gas and the carpet - for the small price of a cup of tea and cake, bargain :-)
So Thursday morning we set off to Exmoor and had a giggle at the woman in Plymouth petrol station who had travelled from Cardiff and was looking for Blackpool - oooooooopppppssss!
Luckily we made it with no major diversions (just one change of route when a bath was being craned out of a house on a small country road). When we arrived we were greeted by a small ford right by the campsite entrance.
Pic just to show all the room we had in the car.
After getting the kettle going and the cake out we pitched the tents.
We were quite hidden out of the way but I could still hear little children pointing out the Mr Men as they walked past. Its a shame my friends weren't quite up to speed on the names also.
Here is Mr Foot Car, Mr Agoraphobic and Mr Weaver.
After putting up the tents and laughing at their knowledge or Mr Men it was time for lunch. As the nearest Tesco is about 20 miles away we stocked up the night before letting us enjoy the sun and the river over cheese sandwiches.
Then we went for a roam around Oare.
After dicing with death we went back to the site, lit a fire and sat around drinking, playing games and making spag bol.
Two hours and two gas canisters later we decided the cooker was out of the question and we collected some more twigs and finished it off in the fire.
After dinner some marshmallows and a few bottles of wine we were truly happy campers.
The next morning not to be defeated by the cooker we tried again with a fry up...
and by 1.30pm we had finished breakfast and headed into Lynton and Lynmouth.
There was an exhibition on about the great flood they had there in 1952, but we were convinced the photos on display told another story, one of suicide bombers...
After rewriting the history we had a stroll around the the pretty shops...
...which were stocked high with loads of random crap like this vile chaise lounge jewellery box...
and an insane amount of 'Jolly Golly's'.
After all the shopping we stopped for a cream tea.
We went for the option of driving and although the car really struggled in 1st we would have struggled much much more, particularly after all that jam and clotted cream.
After buying food for dinner and we headed back and went for a walk along the river to collect some logs.
After we ate we turned to drink.........very big mistake!!!!!!
After copious amounts of alcohol, came lots of singing the first line of 'The red car and the blue car had a race', a humongous fire, dancing around the pole in the tent, getting 'sunburnt' by the fire, a very drunken game of articulate, some sparklers, the OH falling in the river and getting completely soaked, more wood gathering in the dark up a cliff and chatting absolute rubbish all night.
Very bad drunken photos....
We finally made it to bed at 4am - good job we took the pitch the furthest away from anybody else!
Feeling quite fragile the next morning we cooked breakfast of bacon, tomatoes and rolls that had been left out in the rain all night...yummy!
and messed around a bit more....
Despite knowing we needed to pack away and head home to avoid the rain we knew was coming on Monday we couldn't quite get the energy together. So instead we planned to stay another night and went into Barnstaple to get more supplies, the winding roads making us all feel a bit queasy.
But we still managed to have some chips and look around the shops where I bought some lovely bargain rugs for the tent :-)
and despite not really thinking we would drink it we bought some more wine. Some of us were up for drinking again, but sadly some were too fragile.
Having been nice weather all weekend it was sods law the it would hammer down on the last night, all through the night and into the morning. We took the tent down, got completely drenched rammed it in the car (there was no room anymore) and headed off.
When we came to take it out of the car, about a litre of water came out of the bag. So Mr Tentbag got a bit of a battering and the tent is currently taking over the bathroom.
The tent was not drying in the bathroom, so its currently pitched in the living room.
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