1st camping trip....

.......and it threw it down pretty much all of the time!! I also forgot to take the camera so no pictures of the wet mud, Anya being filthy or the tent I'm afraid. We stayed at Low Wray campsite on the shore of Lake Windermere in the Lake District. My sister is an assistant warden there and she had Friday and Saturday off which turned out quite nicely. She and her boyfriend Graeme (who is also a warden there) helped me to put the tent up in the pouring rain on Friday afternoon - thank goodness they were there as I wouldn't have managed by myself - I picked Matt up at the train station on Friday evening as he had been working in London. Even though it was wet, it was quite warm, which allayed my worries that the girls would be too cold - they were toasty and snug all night. The tent we have bought has a canopy at the front so we were able to put that up to cook under and so we were protected mostly from the rain while cooking.

On Saturday we walked up to Wray castle which is above the campsite and we caught a ferry from the jetty there across to Waterhead, which is just outside Ambleside. We had a wander round there and had lunch at (to Matt's disgust as he likes his meat!) a vegetarian, organic cafe called the Rattle Gill. It has gorgeous homemade food so if you are ever in Ambleside then check it out - it's in Bridge Street. Being where it is Ambleside has a lot of camping, walking and climbing shops so we had a look round for wellies/walking boots for me as I had forgotten to pack anything waterproof for my feet!! How daft? We spotted some but they didn't have any in my size so we decided not to bother as I have walking boots and wellies at home - not very useful though when you are in the Lake District and it's pouring with rain!! Anya was shattered when we got back (having caught the ferry again) but was very good to have walked so far - about 3 miles in total, not far really, but when you have little legs it is quite a way!

I'm quite glad that we went away as we were in a gorgeous spot up above one of the two bays that the campsite is on. Anya got to see lots of boats so she was quite pleased. I'm also quite glad that it rained while we were there as we now know that we can camp in the rain with two young children and not be pulling our hair out! We will be going again soon - but we might wait for nicer weather!!

I know I said there were no photo's but here are some of the tent drying and the stuff waiting to be put away. Tara has obviously decided that the pile of stuff to be put away doesn't look nice as she has brightened it up with shoes and Tinky Winky!