JustPickOneUK

As readers of this blog may know I like to go camping. This is a relatively recent phenomenon (the last few years or so) and I have been really embracing "going shopping" while on camp. Its nice to go around each others pitches to see what different pieces of equipment there are, how many ways are there to sit down, how many surfaces are there to put how many different drinking receptacles down and so on. "Ooh I love that chair", "How does that table work?", "That solar panel is cool, where did you get that?"  While on the 3 Peaks in 3 Weeks trip (Link here if you'd like to read my first post on the subject), I saw a new style of tent being put up in full for the first time.  Rather traditionally, we have always had tents with poles and I'd seen these new tents before but not one being pitched from the outset. The tent that caught my eye was a massive family tent (suitable for about 8 people I think) and it was being erected by one perso...

 We've made it to Cambridge. The Camping and Caravan Club Cambridge site just to the south of the city. It is a nice site, a bit dull as it is just an open field with a toilet block on one side and a few taps dotted around. It did have a small play area and Wi-Fi so my son was happy. He actually managed to make a group of friends to run around, make silly games and pick berries with. Once set up under a cluster of trees we set our sites on looking for something to do around Cambridge. We knew we wanted to visit the Computing Museum but we didn't know much else about the city other than the famous University.   We decided to go to the museum on one day, then a hop on hop off bus would give us a good overview of the city without having to walk too much.  The museum was amazing. They have computers from all of the decades that had them. PCs, laptops, gaming consoles, phones, tablets, TVs and even robots. It is a feast but not just for the eyes. Most of the items you can actu...

 We decided to have a well deserved break. Its been a couple of weeks of travel, thinking about travel, setting up camps, explore the area, packing down camps, moving on and rinse repeat. It is a wonderful thing to do and I am loving it but we need a breather from it. So today is the day, reading books, making tea and doing not a lot. Well the weather has certainly decided that this is our only choice. It is raining. Raining HARD! The British weather has decided that we hadn't seen enough rain for the last 2 weeks (and to be fair we'd had glorious weather) and so it decided that it would give us all the rain we had missed in one day!  Any Friends fans out there will remember Joey feeling sad about living on his own and feeling home sick and looking through the glass with water in. Well that was our view for a full day. We actually loved it. We made up a new system for blocking more rain from getting into the porch area on our tent using a tarpaulin, a poncho and some bungee co...

 We made it to Scotland! Loch Lomond is famous but I am not entirely sure why. Perhaps its because it is soooo big! It is huge and takes an age to drive around it. Perhaps it is famous for its most famous residents. The midgies! Who knows? I do know it is gorgeous and well worth camping at and using as a base for other places to go.  We had two plans for this leg of the trip. Visit Ben Nevis to get our third and final peak and to go to Edinburgh. None of us had been there before and we all wanted to go, so this seemed like a no brainer. We also decided that we needed a breather from constantly being on the go. So for that reason we decided to stay here for 5 nights instead of the usual 3 nights we had been used to.  Setting up camp at Milarrochy Bay Campsite was simple enough. We booked the site the night before and decided to join the Camping and Caravanning Club to take advantage of a discount and future cheaper prices. I'll go into that in more detail in a future blog ...

 Well the first week is up and one peak down. Not too bad. Unfortunately we have a time frame to be home by and so we needed to prioritise where we were going to head next. Going north was always the idea but do we have long enough to camp for a few days in the Lake District? Get a good look at Scafell Pike and tick another peak off our list?  Well the short answer is no. Our tent is actually far too big for what we need. It is a 6 man tent for only 3 people and one of them is small. Tent manufacturers make tents and give them a guide on how big they are by saying how many people fit. 2 man, 3 man, 4 man etc. To my experience this is literal. How many adults can fit laying down shoulder to shoulder, not including any sleeping mat, bags or equipment That's the "man" description. As such my rule of thumb, and piece of advice to anyone who wants to buy a new tent, is to always buy a tent with 2 more "men" than you need. So if three people are travelling, especially...

We used the campsite WiFi to find our next location. Where we wanted to be next was Snowdonia but where? It's a huge location and did we want to be near a town or in the middle of no-where? I had found a campsite a few days before with availability right on a lake and close to a small town. Perfect! Now I am ready to "Just Pick One", I go to do it and the availability is gone! AARRGGHH! Now the indecisive one has to start all over again......did I mention AARRGGHH? Here comes my Gollum / Smeagol moment where I have an all out argument / therapy session within myself to get through the next 5 minutes. "Right calm down, it isn't that important...just breathe. It's just a campsite." "But it is the next step and I need a plan of where we are going!" "Yes but that is hours away and we can get something else. It's a national park and there are other sites." "Yeah I know that .. but which one??? I looked at loads and I liked this on...

This summer holidays we decided to go on a road trip. Not just any road trip but a camp around the UK. 3 nights here, 4 nights there, maybe a hotel overnight as a pit stop and tour the sights. This is a long tale and so I will need to break it up into bits. During this holiday we realized that it might be possible to see all three of the highest peaks in the UK. Mount Snowden in Wales, Scafell Pike in England and Ben Nevis in Scotland. Would we manage it by the end? Do you have to climb the 3 peaks to still enjoy them? Let's find out in this diary series I am calling 3 Peaks in 3 Weeks.  We began our journey on the south coast of England where we live. Car all packed with our tent, provisions, child in tow and more electrical items than we should have really and then the car wouldn't start! Why.....just why?? Thankfully we were able to get a jump start from our other car and we were off......until I had a small panic about 20 yards off the driveway when I thought I didn't l...

When going tenting like we do, one of our favourite pastimes is Campsite TV. This doesn't mean getting out an aerial and looking for some signal while shouting "left, a bit right a bit!". I mean the comings and goings of other people on the campsite. The caravans, campervans, the tents, the site staff all going about their business without a care in the world. In my view, the best campsite TV occurs when you've been pitched for a couple of days and know the lay of the land so you can sit and judge others, (only in a kindly fashion), on where they believe the best spot is for them. It is particularly funny if the wind is blowing a bit hard or if this is a new or borrowed tent and they have no idea how to pitch it. Then you get to watch them pitching their tent / place the caravan and see how it was all jammed into their cars, wonder at the amount or lack of things other people have. Lust over their tables, chairs, awnings and flags or tell them under your breath that t...

I set up Just Pick One to try and do something different, to express myself and be free if the usual daily constraints. Following on from this, I decided I needed some time alone. I have never lived alone in my life and I wanted a taste of it. So I bought myself a smaller tent to take with me and set up a solo camp.  I took myself to The New Forest. Camping in the new forest is easy as there are lots of campsites and places to visit. I decided to use campinginthenewforest.co.uk again as I was happy with their sites before. I chose Roundhill Campsite for this trip. Partially because it was last minute and they had availability and it felt like a get away.  I bought a CfLity tent from Amazon. Nope I've never heard of that brand either. It is a 3 man tent (and as with all tents if you want room decide how many people will use it and then add 2 and you will be comfortable), and it goes up like an upside-down umbrella. And the best part, it only took 20 minutes, from unpacking it f...

 The Easter holidays are an opportunity for adventure. With a young family foreign holidays are very expensive during the school holidays so many are choosing to stay home. We did the same during the last 3 days this year. It has been so wet recently but the forecast for the weekend was due to be lovely and so we packed up the car and took a punt. I'm so glad we did.  We chose to stay in Ashurst in the New Forest at the Ashurst campsite. Here is a link to the booking page if you are interested yourself.  https://www.campinginthenewforest.com/campsites/ashurst/  I like the idea of wild camping but I am not ready yet. So I do require sites with showers and toilets as a minimum. There is no WiFi, no electric hookups and no charging points at this site. But as our stay was a short one our power packs were just fine for our phones etc. The site has pitches for tents and hard standing ones for caravans and campervans alike and they also offer seasonal pitches too.  I ...