Easter: Camping, Piglet’s birthday and sunshine – Part 1

So much to write about… The last few weeks have been BUSY! There is still so much to cover. I’ve taken a smattering of days of annual leave over the last two weeks. I covered our trip to Whipsnade Zoo (and River Cottage) in my last post (here). For the Easter weekend itself we went down to East Sussex for a four-day camping holiday, travelling back on Piglet’s birthday.

Piglet, it turns out, adores camping! I have never seen him so excited for so long. Even going to sleep tucked up in his sleeping bag was a moment of glee. I think it helped that we picked the beginning of the gorgeous heat-wave to travel. We’d meant to camp the previous week but postponed when we saw the radically different weather forecasts between the two weeks. I think the main reason Piglet liked the camping though is that he got to spend most of the time on his balance bike.

The trip didn’t get off to the greatest start. The (4-person) tent we’d chosen is alarmingly big even in its carry bag. (The carry bag has wheels, and doesn’t really get ‘carried’ to give it some context!). So we’d got a roof box to put the rest of the camping stuff in considering that the tent was pretty much exclusively going to fill the boot. Working out how much can actually fit in the roof box was a trial-and-error exercise and quite a challenge considering our car is already quite tall. Unfortunately my wife and I decided to be considerate neighbours in very different ways (delicately put) while loading the car. With me stood up on the door sills trying desperately to close the lid of the box, we both noticed a car coming down the street that wouldn’t be able to get past the wide open car door: my solution was to get down and close the door behind me; my wife’s was to close the door in on me (partially, I can only assume). The beautiful synchronised action of the two solutions in perfect harmony meant me jumping down into a closing door; cracking my knee HARD on the way down. I don’t really remember what happened next – the pain was pretty bad and I just remember Piglet asking ‘daddy, are you OK?’, and ‘daddy, are you crying?’.

In the half-hour that followed I assumed that the holiday was off and we’d probably be spending the afternoon in A&E. But the pain, with painkillers, subsided and, while swollen, it seemed that no serious damage had been done. I still don’t know what I actually did – the pain was far worse than either the time I partially ripped four of my adductor muscles and connecting tendon or the time I fractured a bone in my hand. There’s also some colourful bruising that’s come out in a slightly different place to where I hit my knee. To be fair, the knee was pretty knackered in the first place; maybe I just don’t notice the difference.

Anyway, a 30 min emergency nap later and considerably later than planned, we headed off in our very heavily laden car.

Lunch, for the need of something straightforward and simple was a Pizza Express with a minimal detour from the sat-nav guided route. I get bored of singing their praises but it was another positive experience. The only slight hiccup was that they cooked Piglet’s pizza without his topping (i.e. just vegan mozzarella rather than anything extra) but they happily, and quickly, cooked another. That meant he just ate my slices while he waited. Sharing, it would appear, is not a two-way street.

Our campsite was a place called ‘Secret Campsite – Beech Estate’. (There are two other sites under the same Secret Campsite branding). An off-grid forest campsite near Battle in East Sussex. Not somewhere we’d ever been before but the website looked good. One of the appeals was that cars aren’t allowed on site; there’s a car park at the entrance and they provide giant wheelbarrows to help you get your kit to your plot.

The other attraction was that they actively encourage fires. Wood, kindling and grills are available to buy/rent and each plot contained a dedicated area for a fire pit. Naturally we were a little nervous about safety for Piglet but he treated it with utter respect and cooking over a hot fire was fantastic! It’s been a little while since I’ve lit a fire from scratch and the first few attempts weren’t hugely successful. One of my highlights of the trip was Piglet casually suggesting that I should ‘do one like theirs’ when comparing our barely smoking failure to the roaring blaze our neighbours had ignited. Passive aggressive much?

By the end of the first day we were all suitably exhausted from the drive, setting up camp, cooking dinner and packing up/washing up for the night. Actually none of those was a stress for Piglet, he was mostly knackered from having ridden his balance bike around the site endlessly and was more than happy to have himself tucked up in his sleeping bag for the night. The beaming smile on his face as we zipped him in alongside Saladin the rabbit (his ‘best friend’ cuddly toy) will linger with me for a long time. In general, he slept pretty well for the three nights we were there. Even if he did end up in mummy’s sleeping bag for the early hours of the morning on that first night. We all slept well actually – the lack of artificial light enforcing a far earlier bedtime than we would otherwise stick to; much more in-sync with Piglet’s early-down, early-rise sleeping patterns.

Prompted by the need for some fresh cooking ingredients that wouldn’t have kept well overnight, but perhaps more pressingly by the realisation that we’d forgotten to bring any towels, we headed off-site on our first full day. After a hearty porridge (consisting on my side of 33% oats, 33% peanut butter and 33% chocolate spread!) we heading down to Hastings. Not entirely unexpectedly, the weather turned out to be gorgeous and we lucked out on a boiling hot, and therefore busy, day on the seaside.

A quick Google search on the way there turned up a fish and chip shop that did gluten-free, dairy-free, soya-free battered fish. By pure chance the only parking space I could find (with a roofbox taking us dangerously close to 2.2m, apparently the limit for many car parks) was directly opposite. The Master Fish Bar treated us wonderfully; even advising that the fish is fried in a completely separate fryer to avoid contamination. It’s more precaution than we really need but great news for anyone with more severe allergies and just generally reassuring to know that they’re taking you seriously. They even had special gluten-free vinegar for anyone ordering that fish: Attention to detail! Just looking around at the number of gluten-free vinegars being handed out, it’s clear that they get a decent amount of business on that selling point alone in a competitive market. The fish and chips when it arrived was phenomenal. I hadn’t originally intended to have the gluten-free option but that was the only one without milk. I needn’t have worried: the batter was delicious, light and crisp. I can’t help thinking if they’d have just served that as their default no one would have complained.

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Lunch was followed by an (inevitable once Piglet had seen it) adventure on the miniature railway. Complete with actual miniature steam engines, Piglet was beside himself once the train started moving. The 0.3 mile route down to Rock-A-Nore beach was surprisingly quick and gave a great snapshot view of the active fishing quarters of Hastings beach. We took a 5 minute walk down to paddle in the sea before heading back on the next train 15 minutes later. A quick camping shop stop for towels and whistle-stop-tour of Sainsbury’s and we were back at the campsite.

The arrival of towels meant the commencement of showers. There was a single plumbed in shower but the prospect of a outside shower on a hot-day was too tempting to resist. Across the site there are bucket showers where you fill a bucket with warm water, pour it into another lowered bucket, hoist that bucket up on a pulley system and open a tap on the underside to start the flow of water. While naturally apprehensive at first, Piglet adored his shower underneath the trees and in the warm sunshine once he got used to it. On a hot day, incredible; on a cold rainy day, I can imagine it gets old pretty quickly!

Dinner consisted of some, fairly delicious – if I do say so myself, salmon parcels with new potatoes, garlic and green beans cooked over the open fire. I’m sure it was more luck than judgement but it all cooked perfectly with the part-boiled potatoes just starting to caramelise in the foil. Piglet, on the other hand, was too distracted by the hot, fresh corn-on-the-cob to be overly bothered by the fish.

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The fresh air, fresh food, fresh open air shower and far too much excitement for a midday nap meant that Piglet slept well on the second night. Very well in fact. 10.5 hours uninterrupted well… I was almost tempted to wake him up to check on him in the morning. Although with half the holiday to go and a birthday to boot, he was going to need all the sleep he could get. But I’ll leave the rest for part 2…

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