I've been bitten by a bug..

..the camping bug! We decided to escape the hustle & bustle of London for 3 days & headed 35min down the road to a lovely peaceful campsite in Loughton. It was great to think that we don't have to drive for hours & hours to feel cut off from our every day lives & hopefully this'll mean we'll have a weekend away more often

After about an hour we got the tent up which wasn't so bad seeing as we'd never done it on our own before. Once we'd been to the little cafe for a jacket potato we came back & tweaked it slightly seeing as the ground sheet was a bit wonky then we were ready to start furnishing our little home away from home.

Since our first camping trip we've been stocking up on things we've seen on sale (as well as a few additions from mum&dad) so now we've got lots of things to make us feel more comfortable.

We decided to take a wander into Epping Forest where the campsite backed onto & found a scrummy blackberry bush so we had a bit of a nibble before carrying on.

All we could hear were the birds & no cars, it was bliss! There wasn't really a path either so we just went on a wander & tried to remember which tree to turn left at to get back to our tent.

To the side of the forest there was a Deer Sanctuary that was fenced off so we perched on a log & watched them for a bit.

I thought this picture below brought a new meaning to tree hugging!

Once out of the forest we were on a hill that had lovely light just as the sun was about to set so we played around for ages with the light & various woody props. Adam channelled the forest by first becoming a tree & then a stag about to charge, scary stuff!

We then got rather carried away with silhouette shots. I'm so chuffed with the way these came out & couldn't have asked for better, well it's always good when you have a willing model too!

Of course I had to have a little go too. I can't believe how high Adam manages to jump, these were the only 2 pics where my feet were above the tree line. I think he must have had hidden springs in his shoes for sure!

When we got back we lit the BBQ for hot dogs, beans & hot rice pudding before shuffling into the tent for a game of Scrabble Scramble & a hot drink. Thankfully we had our trusty hot water bottles ready cos there was a sudden drop in the temperature so we tucked down into bed about 9:30pm.
After a chilly night we emerged about 7am & I went to fill up the kettle. It was lovely to be greeted by a misty morning & the sun just peeking through the trees.

We felt a bit more human after a warm shower & headed off to a nearby carboot sale. We didn't find much but I did come a across a Polaroid Camera in it's original case & with a flash bar that still had a few shots left. It seems I got a pretty good bargain & although the original film (SX-70) doesn't exist anymore it seems that a website called 'the impossible project' do a new version & it's not that expensive, though still enough money for it to be a special occasion camera!

Seeing as we weren't that very far our of London Adam's parents came to visit for lunch at the cafe & say hi. We went for another wander to see the deer after another cuppa (I've drunk so much tea this trip!). Once we'd said bye we checked out the other 6 fields that were part of the campsite & found a play park. Of course we couldn't miss a chance to play on the swings even if my hips were kinda wedged into them!

Tea this time was curry but because the wind was quite strong we had to cook inside the tent which proved to be quite handy cos it kept the tent warm for later on! The rice was a bit crunchy hence the thumbs down but the rest was good.

After washing up the Scrabble came out again, obsessed?! Us?! With a bottle of cider the game went a bit better than the previous night but Adam still won. Grr!

As you can see from my face I didn't get the best choice of letter sometimes!

Then again neither did Adam, but he still beat me twice! I then introduced him to the card game Sevens & after that Top Trumps, but by this point we were really struggling to read the cards so we took that as a hint to get to bed.

We had a bit of a lie in Monday morning after an early venture to the loo. As we woke up at 9am it just started to spit so we took our time over breakfast before packing up. Just before we left we saw a perfect outline of our tent on the ground so Adam decided to lie in the bedroom bit as if I'd just whipped away the tent from under him like a magician. Love it!

We had a great mini-break & I was really sad to leave it all behind. I don't think we'll get to camp again this year cos most campsites close at the end of September & also it's getting a bit chilly for the ones that stay open! So here's to lots of camping come 2012!
Ttfn x