Thou Shalt not Covet Thy Sister-in-Law (to be)'s Tent

With the wedding looming large on the horizon, I decided it was time to take action and get a wedding present for the happy couple. I asked the groom what he thought they would like. He thought about it for some time and then came back with the answer.

To this day I am unsure if he consulted sister-in-law (to be) regarding the decision, however, the answer that came back was a tent. Now, a tent is an unusual choice of wedding present, unless of course you want to explore the campsites of Donegal for your honeymoon, which is always a possibility.

I know a little bit about tents, because we have one, but having only spent one night camping in it to date hardly makes me an expert in the subject matter. However, true to style, I took to the task with gusto, did my research, tramped round the camping shops and eventually managed to find a suitable model.

We spent yesterday afternoon putting the tent up in our back garden, and I have to say, when we were done, I stood back and seriously considered swapping our 'once slept in virtually new' tent for the one we had bought them! The two tents are probably the same size but the layout is different giving the newly weds (to be) greater space to utilise inside, always a benefit when camping in rainy Ireland.

But I decided not to do the swap; honesty and integrity got the better of me. Theirs is a nice tent for sure, but at the end of the day it's not our tent, where we spent our first ever night under canvas as a family, where Michael lost his first ever tooth, where we had an early morning close encounter with sheep.

So today they get their wedding present - the coveted tent, and I am REALLY looking forward to the pantomime that will be watching them taking it down and packing it all away!

Happy Camping :-)