27 August 2016 (Saturday) - At Camp

Being unable to power my CPAP machine I knew I would have a restless night. It didn’t help that the airbed I’d bought for a fiver had been money down the drain. I saw every hour of the night. I gave up trying to sleep shortly after 6am, and had a fit of the giggles when I saw "Furry Face TM". We’d set up his basket in our tent, and he definitely had a “what the hell is going on” expression as he looked around.

Early morning fishing is traditional at Bat-Camp, and so I went to get my tackle. Jimbo and his pup had just got up too, and we made our way to the pond. We quickly set up (well, I did) and were soon catching fish (well, I was). However the fishing was slower than it had been in previous years. Where in previous years I might have had thirty fish before brekkie today I had six.

At nine o’clock we made our way back to camp and joined in the ongoing concerted tidy-up. Last night’s tea had been rather late. We had all agreed that clearing up the mess in the dark would have been silly, so we all tidied and washed up. I say “we all”; I did a load of washing up, then sat down, and woke to find the kitchen had moven outside to the open air, and that brekkie was ready.

Brekkie was rather good, and as it was a rather warm day once we’d tidied it all away we had a little look around the pond closest to camp. We’d fished in a pond further away because it wasn’t quite so overgrown, but the pond closest to where we camp has always been dear to my heart; possibly because on Sunday November the second 2008 I think I actually had cardiac arrhythmias in that pond. You can read all about it by looking up that date here.
As we looked around the pond and got ripped to pieces by the brambles my dog found a fox’s tail and started trying to eat it. As I prised the brush from his powerful jaws I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the rest of the fox.

We then set up the event shelter, sat in the sunshine and had a pint or two. Hic!
Jose and Maria arrived, and we went back to the pond. Some fished, some swam, and Jose played with his new toy – he’s got one of those remote-controlled drones. He was using it to take aerial videos of what was going on. I was impressed; but surprised at how short the battery life is on those things. Just under half an hour. 

As the Hoseys left so Chris and Matt arrived. They set up their tents, and I watched from afar; offering sage advice as I drank more beer.
Jimbo was on cookhouse duty; fajitas are always a camp favourite. I had too much to eat. And again time raced away from us. We’d made a point of deciding to have an early meal so we could tidy up in daylight, but again failing light meant we left it all until the next morning.

Port was passed around, but not too much. Perhaps I’m getting old; in previous camps we would have emptied two bottled of port; this evening we shifted maybe a quarter of one bottle.
I made my apologies and staggered off to bed shortly after 11.30pm…


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