[tents] fun in the rain

Tents have been the butt of jokes since time immemorial.

We had a super-duper arrangement at the beach, 18x12, with a complicated double awning arrangement over the top, 24x24, which required near scaffolding being erected and can you imagine all the lines and pegs?

My mother was never really mechanical. My father was. You can also imagine the altercations as he'd holler some instruction from a distance which my mother would completely misunderstand and as I was holding the Barnum and Bailey's centre-pole inside, I was the one with the tent collapsing all over him.

Oh, we then had carpets stretched out the front to "privatize" the space which led to the only passage to the beach, through the shrubbery for fifty metres either way and only sometimes did a foolhardy member of the public cross all the cunningly deployed guy lines and cross our hallowed carpet, to the intense glare of my mother.

Once the damned thing was up and running, once all the trenches had been dug around the tent, leading the runoff to a safer place, once my boat was parked at the front and the water, ice and everything else had been brought in, it was great for weeks, seabreeze, fresh air and so on.

Until it rained, of course.

That's why I had to laugh when reading Alice B's account of her experiences vis a vis tents. You remember Alice from the vandals who broke up her "glasshouse" teepee on her allotment.

What is it with tents? Folding poles and water resistant fabrics were invented quite a while ago now, surely it’s not that difficult to design something that basically works. It seems unlikely that people design tents who have never actually camped, but when I thought about getting a new one and saw the way some of them are made I started imagining them improvising budget versions of the product testing machines on those Ikea adverts.

“This tent is fully waterproof to 2000mm hydro static head (the recommended use for the UK is only 1500)” it said. “Abrasion, mildew and ultraviolet resistant” it said. “Fly sheet – 70 Denier Polyester (190T Threads per square inch)” . Very nice.

Cut to me lying in said tent in a muddy field, a very long way from the nearest central heating, curled around the edge with a plastic bag in the middle to catch the steady drips running straight into the tent from the ventilation mesh right in the top.

I can feel every drop, Alice.