High Camp, Low Camp

6am in the tent

Elliot: Mum, wake up...Mum...Mum...I'm hungry...Mum,wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up....Mum, I'm hungry.
Mollie: mmmpf flurbl mmlashing rainmmpf...
Elliot: Mum, I don't think you realise just how hungry I am.
Mollie: ughanmpf, leavemmf alonenzzzzleeping...
Elliot: Mum, I'm serious. I really need some food or I'm going to starve to death. And I also have to go to the toilet to do a poo...
Mollie: ELLIOT, STOP WHINGING & GIVE ME A CHANCE TO WAKE UP. CAN'T YOU HEAR THE RAIN THUMPING ON THE TENT? THE FOOD IS IN THE CAR AND I WILL GET IT FOR YOU WHEN THE RAIN LETS UP, OKAY? AND WE WILL GO TO THE TOILET TOGETHER. NOW KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS TRYING TO SLEEP. IT IS 6AM YOU KNOW!!!
Unknown occupant of another tent: Will you keep it down? It is 6am, you know!
Unknown occupant of another tent no. 2: Just get your boy some food so we can all get some sleep.
Mollie: Shut up, you! When I want your advice I'll ask for it.
Elliot (gasping): Ooh, Mum...you said a bold word...

Great beginnings for our little community project. It had all been going so well until the rain came back. It was even sunny for a few minutes Saturday afternoon. After The Village AGM, we all headed up to the top field to set up for our first summer campout. Joe's crew built the campfire, Eileen's crew built the toilets (with no doors and could be seen from the tents), Davie's crew built the yurt, Peter's crew dug the barbeque pits, and I tried to look busy so no one would ask me to do anything.

I did vow never to be caught on camera, but I found myself agreeing to be interviewed by the documentary film crew following the project for the next 5 years. Elizabeth and I did our best Laurel and Hardy for the camera and for posterity. We got them to agree to come to the shop opening gala later in the summer, so I'll update the blog another time with that.

Elliot had a great time, despite being forbidden to hide inside the toilets with the other kids. Someone had thought to bring a garden slide for the children, but as children are wont to do they made their own fun climbing on stuff they weren't supposed to and getting in the grown-ups' way.

After dark, Majella led us in a circle dance (and not the kind mentioned in the last post below) around the campfire. It started off well enough, with around a hundred people holding hands and getting half the steps right. Gradually, about 2/3 of the dancers dropped off, and the other 1/3 had decided it would be more fun to yodel like an indian war party and leap over the flames. By the time we got to the land-blessing ceremony, the local teenagers present were getting very worried indeed. This was one exchange:

Eco-villager: What time are we starting the ritual?
Local teenager: Ritual? What are you sacrificing?

Cloughjordan's a tiny town. That one had made the rounds before the ritual even started, and if the locals didn't already think we were a bunch of tree-hugging hippie pagans, there can certainly have no doubt now.

It was around then that the rain started. It's Monday afternoon now, and it's still raining. Most of us went to bed, though a few drunk...err..diehards stayed up far into the night playing music and singing us to sleep from the shelter of the yurt. There was a full ceili band: several flutes, a bodhrán, a fiddle, and for an international flavour a jembe drum, a mandolin, and a full-size piano. It was around 3am that strains of Billy Joel's Piano Man wafted across the field and out into the ether. Which accounts for my foul mood a few hours later.

By 9 o'clock, I was struggling to get the tent down and into the car. I really didn't care about saying goodbye to those people sensible enough to still be tucked up in their own tents. I just wanted to go home. Elliot kept having to go to the toilet, or asking to get into the car (wellies off), or asking to get out of the car (wellies back on), or asking where his friends were (asleep), or looking for more food (there wasn't any), or taking his time flicking slugs off the tent (there were thousands). All this and it was bucketing down.

I think camping will definitely be reserved for weekends with dad in future.