Mysterious Behaviour

Only a few days ago I had one of those moments that, perhaps, most people go through at some time or other during a marriage. I wondered to my myself whether Mrs The Millbrooker had been kidnapped and replaced by a remarkably life-like, very accurately modelled avatar.

"Millets has got a tent sale on next week," she said, blithely, as if mention of camping equipment was an everyday normality in her universe.

I checked her temperature quickly with the back of my hand on her forehead.

"They've got some really good sounding bargains, and they've got a tent on display that's big enough for you to stand up in," she continued, ignoring my enquiries about her state of mental well being.

"Are you suggesting we get one?" I finally asked.

"Hmm - possibly," came the reply.

Allow me to explain why this is so unutterably uncharacteristic: Mrs The MIllbrooker's only experience of camping was umpteen years ago, long before she even knew that I existed. To put it kindly, the expedition was ill-planned, unhealthy, uncomfortable and disastrous enough to prevent my lovely wife from ever wanting to sleep under canvas (or any other non-permanent roofing material) again.

I, on the other hand, was brought up holidaying in an old Concraft trailer tent (not unlike the one in the shot below) and love camping. Not roughing it too much, you understand - one has standards after all. Not to mention that, being 1/16th of the Romany blood, I feel that the great outdoors and the travelling life (during holiday season only - the other 15/16ths like a nice warm house) is simply a natural state of affairs.

All of which leads me to the moment this afternoon when I parted company with my credit card for the brief seconds it takes for a young shop assistant to whip a few score notes from its (my) account into his employer's.

As a consequence of this voluntary donation to the MIllets' coffers, Mrs The MIllbrooker and I will soon be in possession of something remarkably similar to one of these:

I say "similar" because the photo above, shamelessly nicked from www.priceinspector.co.uk, shows a Eurohike Eden 4. We've gone one better: a Eurohike Eden 5.

I think the idea is that we can now join in on outings to folk festivals when those Wrecker people do dancing away from home. We might have to have a couple of practice runs first, though.

I wonder if I'll still like camping now my age is somewhat more advanced than the last time I tried it (in thick fog and intermittent rain by Durdle Door in 1997 on my own using a small dome tent and touring on a Kawasaki GT550,  since you ask).........

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photo of trailer tent from coventrygumtree.com where it is, I believe, for sale at £350 ONO...follow this link if you're interested: http://coventry.gumtree.com/coventry/28/63674528.html