‘The Big Blue Tent’
It’s stupid o’clock again and I am awake. I laid there and contemplated whether sleep would claim me again, or whether it was time to get up and meander my thoughts. The stomach is aching right now and making whiny noises, much like a child does when they are not happy.
Ah this reminds me of trips out with my parents and Grandparents when I was small. I remember the feeling of annoyance at having to sit in the ‘middle’ of the back seat, just coz I was the littlest and the smallest. My Nan groaning coz there was a tiny draft on the back of her neck, and my mother feeling travel sick in the front of the car, and Nan moaning coz ‘Susie keeps banging my legs’. And my Dad bellowing at all of us to shut up ‘Coz I’m driving!’. I remember us counting blue or red cars for miles and miles, and stopping at the side of the road so we could pee. This was the days before service stations and drive thru coffee places.
Oh and the holidays we went on. No kidding when our big blue tent was pitched on the lawn being ‘aired’ for the Grand Cole Family Holiday, then everyone in our close would quickly change their holiday dates. Our family, almost always picked the week where the heavens opened, the skies fell and the water didn’t stop. Boggy, muddy fields with drenched ground, drips coming inside the big blue tent, and Mum fed up to the back teeth of my Sis and I teasing each other. Oh what fun times we all had! Squelching through the mud to the toilet block, and squelching back to the big blue tent in the pouring down rain.
I remember being huddled around the gas stove, eating ‘Mum’s Stew’ – bought from tins from the onsite camping shop. And Mum’s epic fry ups in the morning, huddled together trying to stay warm. Some holidays we would do the ‘stiff upper lip and soldier on’, one rain filled day after another. And one trip we all bailed within days as the rain fell, and fell and fell.
The ‘Close’ where we lived would ask us at Christmas when we were taking our holibobs, and quickly change their dates. So they didn’t have the Cole extravaganza of a wet filled week. And I think by the time I was 10, our family was so sick of the rainy camping delights, that the Blue Tent got relegated to the loft, never to see the light of day again. And as I write this I contemplate my father’s love of keeping things ‘just in case’ and the Blue Tent is probably still kicking around in one of this ‘storage’spaces that he has.
My Dad tells this story of me at a camping site near a place called Pooley Bridge. I think a feeling of remembered joy, not that I can really remember it in any details. He says that me, aged 5, got to go to the toilet blocks as a ‘big girl’ without her Mum. I think my big sis was in charge that day, and oh my goodness she was only 7! This was the 1970s and people were much more trusting back then. Dad says I went with my little wash bag and felt on top of the world as I, a big girl at last, got away from my Mum’s watchful gaze trotted off with my sister feeling grown up and important. He smiles as he says this, and I love him for that memory that he has gifted me. A happy memory from many camping trips that just felt flipping cold and wet.
So when the Blue Tent got packed away for the last time, the camping trips also got packed away. Holidays became much more civilized, swapping the water for the dry land! What I remember most about those camping trips, is the family bonding over stew and cups of tea. Over family moans and my big girl trips to the bathroom block. Ah and peeing into a bucket late at night or first thing in the morning. These holidays were unique, not always enjoyed, probably endured by us all. And if we came out the other side, slightly smiling, then that holiday was taken as a success.
There have been many holidays since I was 10 and yet the camping ones remind me of where I have come from and how loving my family was. We had ‘experiences’ together, whether they were happy or sad, and that, I will be forever thankful for.