Success

We arrived at our campsite at 7.00pm, the sun was still spitting the trees. Following the telephone conversation, I was deeply concerned at the prospect of having to pitch in the farmer's front garden, so it was a great relief that we were pointed in the general area of the campsite and told to choose our pitch.

At this stage I took the precaution of enquiring about roosters. The farmer dropped his eyes and made a strangling motion with his hands. I could tell we were going to get along just fine.

We chose a pitch right opposite the playground because we love the early morning sound of children squabbling in the outdoors, especially when they're our kids. So much better than hearing them close up in the confined space of the tent.

We experienced, for the first time, the novelty of pitching the tent in the dry. Even in the heat! The site was very clean and well-kept and had every facility imaginable, even delivery menus for the local takeaway restaurants. We started to understand how people could actually enjoy camping.

There was the minor downside of the voyeurs who came to watch me in a state of early-evening-good-food-and-heat-induced-slumber through the wide open doors of the tent. What really annoyed me about the whole incident was that my other half, who sat and watched them watching me, didn't charge them for the privilege!

As we were packing up to leave today (another novelty - packing up a dry tent), a Dutch couple arrived with their touring caravan. We hung around just long enough to see if he carried a sack of onions into the van before we scarpered.