B and I are going camping! Well, we ARE doing a 365 Day Nature Play Challenge! We’d be missing something if we left it out. We’re off to Newport, Pembrokeshire. This is a regular haunt for us but only our second year camping. Last year we managed a week. This year we’re booked for ten days and hoping we’ll make it all the way through. Weather looks good. Fingers crossed!

149 – Going camping…

Tuesday 5 August. Cloudy 21°C

B and I are FINALLY going camping. We’ve dug out most of the things we took last year – with a few changes – and managed to get them all in our small car. Setting up it turns out 10 year old B is greatly improved on the 9 year old version. She wasn’t bad at all last year but now she’s fab. She sorts out half the tent, gives advice and generally helps me get it all set up a lot quicker than I’m used to. We’re on familiar ground with our 4 person tent but we have a new awning that completely bewilders us for about half an hour. Then, with a lot of giggles we work out how to get it over the top of the tent and we’re done. B does a great job blowing up all our furniture while I unload the rest of the car. We leave the tidying till the morning and collapse into bed.

The next day we test out our storage systems and find we’re definitely better off than last year. We’ve got a new food storage and cooking unit which is very helpful and we organise all the toys and books into one box and all the kitchen stuff into another. We use the tops as tables. As we do it we’re gradually absorbing being outside all the time. The birds are amazingly loud and we can hear the sea from the tent. It’s a whole new world.

For anyone new to camping who wants to give it a go (this was us two years ago) I’d say it’s great if you can go first with a friend. I’d have never got there if a lovely other single mum hadn’t suggested we go together. A bit of moral support is really helpful, particularly with setting up and packing down but also just working out what works for you to take. Two years on we’re now used to going on our own and have found a lovely friendly campsite which is child friendly and has great loos and showers. We’ve upgraded our tent from a little pop up (easy to get up but a nightmare to get down) to a more substantial 4 bed with a living area and invested in a portable camp stove (and gas supply) for cooking. We opted for a blow up mattress and make sure we get new batteries for the pump each time so we’re not caught out. I hate sleeping bags because my feet get hot so we open our two up to make a sort of sandwich more like a duvet. My biggest issue last year was just finding stuff all over the place and not knowing where anything was, but this year we’re doing much better with the new kitchen system and cooking area. The hardest bit for me is the part of putting the tent up where you have to get the tent poles hooked in. B can’t help and it’s a test of strength but so far I’ve always managed to do it in the end. I’m pretty sure the generally lovely people we have found ourselves camping next to would help if I asked but my pride REALLY wants me to do it myself. YouTube is amazing at working out the logistics of tents. The campsite we’re going to has no internet, wifi or phone reception (which I’m EXCEEDINGLY happy about) so I’ve learnt to make sure I work out the logistics before we go.

The next ten days are the easiest challenges we’ve ever done. Life is pretty much made up of constant ones and I start to wonder why we’re making such a thing about getting outside. A selection below (we went well over ten days worth so did a few more than one per day, compensating challenge wise by skipping a few the week after we got home (which were mainly related to harvesting the neighbours apple tree again and picking blackberries and tomatoes!).

148 – Catching fairies and sending them home…

Wednesday 6 August. Cloudy 21°C

Day one and a fairy blows into the tent during breakfast and becomes our first ‘challenge’. This is an old favourite pastime of ours. I don’t know what ‘fairies’ are… but B is an expert at spotting them. I think she named them fairies after watching a Tinkerbell film. If she sees one she catches it, talks to it and then sets it free to head home to fairy land.

This one landed by her foot. They don’t always have good direction but normally will fly off very satisfyingly if lifted into the wind.

147 – Skimming stones

Thursday 7 August. Cloudy 20°C

We’re camping near the best beach we know for skimming stones. It’s slate country and there are lots of flat ones, perfect size. My mum taught B to skim stones years ago. I’ve never been very good so she’s going to teach me. We bend down to the water’s edge and try and throw them sideways, like a frisbee, so they bounce on the surface of the water.

B swears she manages to bounce one three times. I don’t notice. We both get good at doing two bounces though and reckon it’s a good enough start. We just need to keep practising.

146 – Listening to the rain

Friday 8 August. Rainy. 19°C

We’ve had two nights in the tent without it but finally the rain has come. This is very regular in West Wales but it’s been a dry summer. We’ve slightly forgotten about it. The wind comes too and it’s cosy lying inside the tent listening to them both while idly wondering how secure our putting up skills are. It’s hard to tell which noise is rain and which wind sometimes. We listen for patterns in the sound. By morning the worst is over and the tent is still standing. Sigh of relief!

Check out challenge 145 – Flying a kite here…

…and challenge 144 – Race you to the buoy and back here…

143 – Tent and torch shadow theatre

Sunday 10 August. Clear skies. 20°C

It’s getting dark earlier these days. We’re getting ready for bed and then realise that the torch is giving us a great opportunity for shadow puppets. B is off… she’s going to do a whole show.

I give her a hand to do a rabbit but then she takes over, telling the story of a rabbit who meets a bird… I forget the details but she has a lot of fun. A few days later we found a book of hand puppet animals to make and we pick it all up again… it’s harder to do in August daylight!

142 – Playing pooh sticks

Monday 11 August. Cloudy. 21°C

It’s taken us an awful long time to get pooh sticks on the blog… which is weird because it’s one of our most long standing outdoor games. This is the best bridge we’ve found for it though. It’s a big bridge with some cars going across so not the safest but the river flows strongly and whatever we drops comes out quickly on the other side.

We used to do sticks but there’s not many to find near this bridge from the direction we’ve come, so we’re doing grass, dried grass tops and a weird spiky flower thing instead. One plant for each of us so we know who has what. We line up to throw them in at the same time and hit a snag. It’s windy! The grass blows backwards onto us and the dried grass heads fly away. Only the plant makes it in. B wins smugly with no competition as it’s the only one coming through on the other side.

Maybe we should do sticks next time!

141 – Crab fishing

Tuesday 12 August. Sunny. 23°C

An annual favourite this. Only our second year doing it. A bit like kite flying, I suspect the place is the most important element for success. I’ve been coming to this area all my life for holidays but I’d never found the crab fishing spot till a fellow camping mum took us last summer. Hidden behind the yacht club, in a corner, is a jetty for boats to launch from which is taken over, every high tide, by families with crab nets. Wooden boards that dip under the water in places at high tide, it provides a dark shady bit underneath the crabs clearly think is marvellous shelter and haven’t twigged that residing there also means daily trips up to the surface to be admired, deposited into a bucket with other crabs and then released again!

Bacon seems to be the most preferred bait to go in the crab net (we put a stone in too to weight it). B being a vegetarian this isn’t an option for us so she agrees to a tin of sardines which seems to appeal as much. We prepare the crab net at the tent (I say we – this seems to be a mum task – B won’t touch it!) and then wander over with net and a bucket to put the crabs in when caught. Once there we fill the bucket with sea water, find a good spot to lower the net and wait.

The first few pull ups bring nothing. We’re feeling ignored and neglected till a helpful girl informs us the other end of the quay has better pickings. We head round and opt for a point where the water has risen a couple of inches over the decking. We lower the basket again into the 2 metre deep water, trying to get it under the decking as much as possible and B times a minute before pulling it up again.

Success! We have a crab. I manage to pick it up (in the middle of it’s shell between it’s back legs as the crab net instructions dictate) but worry it’s going to pinch me so don’t do that again. It’s not impressed at being put in a bucket. Soon it’s joined by several ‘friends’. I’m worried they’re going to fight but they don’t seem too. They just jostle to be on top. A little fish ends up in there too which we leave to see if it will distract them. They show no interest in it at all. We gain a few more crabs of different sizes and soon the bucket feels quite full enough.

Advised by another child, we decide to release them in the inch deep water at the end of the jetty and ‘race them’. There’s quite an audience but they’re so quick we miss most of them disappearing off the edge. A few days later we are back and follow friends to release them onto the beach instead. This proves more satisfying as it takes longer for them to get back into the sea… though with the added peril of seagulls hovering hopefully. They are interested in the crabs but get distracted by the bait which has been released into the buckets with the crabs as a ‘reward’ and which they wear all the way back to the water.

For challenge 140 see Mucking about on a paddleboard…

139 – Visiting an agricultural show

Wednesday 13 August. Sunny. 25°C

B and I are going to the Nevern Show…It’s local, the signs are everywhere, and we reckon it definitely counts as a nature play challenge because there’ll be lots of animals and we’ll learn stuff about farming. We’ve been to an agricultural show once before a few years ago but it was a very hot day and we weren’t prepared for heat and we hadn’t stayed long as a result. Weather forecast for today is cloudy with a bit of rain and we’re hoping we’ll last a bit longer.

Alas, the weather forecast is WRONG. By the time we arrive I have a bad feeling. It’s very hot and we’ve not brought our hats. We dig an umbrella out of the car to take with us but I’m aware (from B’s recent riding lesson) that horses don’t like umbrellas so we’re careful about when we put it up. B is moaning before we get two feet from the car about walking through long dry grass.

That said, we have a pretty good time until it gets too hot and we run away too early again. B loves looking at all the animals (particularly the horse dressage and the ponies) and there’s lots of stalls and entertainment on hand. B wont’ try the ‘milk a cow’ stall with a big plastic cow and milk filled fake udders. I’m a bit disappointed but as the average age of participants is about 5 reckon I definitely can’t do it myself. We marvel at the size of the real cows (they’re massive) and laugh at a sheep cheerfully eating it’s proudly won blue rosette. B has a go at the archery with a lovely man showing her how to hit the target and we gain too much new stuff thanks to a ‘hammer game’ and ‘hook-a-duck’ as well as the lovely craft stalls in the too hot tent area. One to return to… when we’re SURE the weather is going to be helpful.

For 138 check out the Mucking about on a paddleboard blog…

137 – Painting stones

Wednesday 13 August. Sunny. 25°C

This has been a whole holiday camping challenge. We went to the beach and got a bucket full of stones on the first day and they’ve been out on the camping table all week off and on, assisted by the other kids staying about. Ironically it’s the hottest day where most are done. Our awning is providing a nice amount of shade. I suggest when we’ve got a few that we make a ‘stall’ on a rock by the sea where other kids can help themselves to them… I remember coming across one of those when B was very little and loving the idea… it doesn’t wash this time. They all want to keep them.

136 – Wildlife spotting

Thursday 14 August. Cloudy. 22°C

Another all week challenge this. In some ways we can’t help spotting things, sitting in a tent all day by the sea… but it kicks off chatting to a friend who lives locally on the second night.

“Oh look”, she said, looking out at the incoming tide and the river, “there’s a seal”.

B and I can’t see it at first. I think it’s a log. Then she points out that it’s moving against the tide and we get REALLY excited. There’s a paddleboarder near it, completely oblivious. We watch fascinated as it comes a bit further in, then changes it’s mind, heading back out to sea.

From that point on, B and I are obsessed by what we can see. We spot swallows (a complete rarity for us – there don’t seem to be many in our parts of South Wales); rabbits; bats and several different birds of prey. At some point I remember that we have binoculars with us and we sit starring through them hoping to catch something. B swears she sees a dolphin but I’m not sure (they are about though – we’ve heard they were in Fishguard the day before). It becomes an ongoing part of every day, just keeping our eyes open and seeing who spots something next.

135 – Walking the cliff path

Thursday 14 August. Sunny. 22°C

The final challenge of the camping week… B and I walked a bit of the coast path. As a child this was what we did on holidays in West Wales but it’s taken us a while. We’d both rather be messing about in the water when it’s hot and I get really scared with B on the steep path with vertical drops. I was fine as a child and B’s fine now. I suspect it’s a parent thing.

Last year we walked a bit of the path and pretended to be fairies (one of B’s favourite pastimes). This year she seems to have grown out of this and instead we play a ‘name the animal and I’ll tell you what job it would have’ game. I’m not optimistic but it keeps her going for well over two hours down to the next cove and back.

I suspect B enjoys the cliff path – though she’d fervently deny liking anything described as a ‘walk’. The path is so uneven it’s a challenge getting up and down and I think she enjoys the feeling of walking into the horizon, not knowing what you’ll find. We almost get to the next beach, about an hour each way, but settle for looking down on it, determining the one we left is probably more interesting, and heading back again. We’ll walk it more each year as she gets older I suspect, though for now it feels like a satisfying end to a fantastic camping holiday.