Camping

Another successful nights camping – that's two and two more than many people I spoke to before going on holiday would give me credit for. Some aspects of camping have changed in the 15 years since we last did it – the shower cubicles (based on an exhaustive survey of one campground) are much bigger and have wet and dry areas, so you can have a shower, get dried and dressed without having to hop around so you don't get your clothes wet while you're dressing.

Another thing that's changed is me – I'm 15 years older and getting in and out of a pup tent has not got easier in that time. Getting in involves bending at the waist until your upper body is parallel with the ground, bending your knees and ankles as far as they will go (not very far) so you are as low as possible, then stepping forward in this ridiculous position, until you have started to enter the tent, at which point you drop to your knees and scramble in over the air bed which takes up 95% of the available space on the tent floor. You then do your best houdini impersonation to get yourself out of whatever clothes your wearing (gym shorts and polar fleece) that you don't want to sleep in. One night, I forgot to take my shorts off, so had to perform that de-robing exercise from inside a zipped up sleeping bag – how dignified. Getting out of the tent involves reversing the de-robing exercise, then crawling to the end of the tent, Straining to get one foot out and then doing a lunging uncoiling step to thrust yourself forward past to verandah (grandiose term for the small overhand the protects the door of the tent from some weather) to come to a wobbling stand in front of the tent. You then hobble around trying to get the stones off your feet while slipping in to your jandals which have been specifically bought for trapsing round a campground. How good do you think that $EUR90 6 foot high tent looks when you've completed that. Never mind – maybe on the next trip.