A couple of months ago I went on holiday and whilst there I kept a bit of a diary, but unfortunately events overtook me and I didn’t manage to get it published here (somewhat the story of my life).

Day 1

In the manner of a 1970s dad, Louisa insisted on a 04:30 set off to ‘avoid the traffic’. It didn’t​ work. The car was packed up the night before, truly redefining the rules on how much stuff can fit in a small car, and after an insufficient amount of caffeine we hit the road. It was all rather smooth sailing until we hit the M5 and then everything went pear shaped.

What should have been a 6 and a bit hour journey took more like 12 hours. I couldn’t even really see any reason for it other than a combination of the amount of traffic on the roads and people’s lack of common-sense and forethought whilst driving. Some miles away from any junction all traffic would come to a complete stand-still, only to become free moving again a couple of miles after.

Still, we managed to maintain good spirits and were happy once we pulled into the campsite. I gave Lou a well earned rest after all of her driving whilst I gently put the tent up. I am a super-fan of the bell tent. Now that I am used to my Soulpad I can erect it myself in 20-30 minutes of pottering. Much easier than fiddling with threading poles through nylon tents.

I’d been to Treloan Coastal Holidays in Porthscatho a couple of years ago (in the old life), but this was my first time on the Summer Field, which I think may have been a football pitch last time I was here. Lou was impressed with the sea views and especially when we walked the dogs along the cliff top path and into the village. I had forgotten how close to the campsite the village actually is.

Fortunately for us in our slightly bedraggled state, the campsite had a pizza van on-site, which meant we didn’t have to cook, so we had a couple of beers and a very delicious pizza - monkfish & chorizo in my case. Roger was happy because the girls in the pizza van were trying to make him catch bits of pepperoni. Bellies full, we kind of just flopped and went straight to sleep without even picking our books up.

Day 2

We both woke after possibly the best sleep I have ever had in a tent. This was due in no small part to this years major camping purchase - a couple of crazy comfortable mattresses. Way better than any of the other things I’ve tried, including proper camp beds.

I left Lou with the dogs and took the short stroll back into the village to grab some breakfast supplies from Ralph’s Stores - a well stocked little general store/deli.

As it was threatening to rain, Lou decided to build a little porch area out of our tarp sets. I expressed a little bit of a reservation about her design, being that it was open on one side.

We took another walk, exploring the little cove that is just down through the field at the end of the campsite. It’s quite a scramble over the rocks to reach it and I was a teensy bit concerned that Basil was going to chuck himself off the rocks. We couldn’t stay for too long as Roger took umbrage at another doggo, so we climbed back up and continued into Porthscatho.

We’d supped a pint in the Plume of Feathers and just set off back to the campsite when the heavens opened. When we got back I was fairly unsurprised to see that the kitchen area was wet through. We made an emergency reconfiguration of the tarps to better shelter things and mopped up.

Fortunately we had assumed that we’d have cold evenings and so booked a pitch with electric hookup and brought a small electric oil-filled radiator with us. This made drying things out a much simpler task.

Emma & Gareth appeared, happily camped on a pitch close to us. We decided to eat out so went to the other nearby pub, the Royal Standard. Because we were all a bit knackered we turned in pretty early.

Day 3

It was bank holiday Monday and a fairly nice day so we decided to take a walk up through the village and to Porthcurnick beach. After a cuppa and cake at the excellent Hidden Hut, we attempted to play with the dogs on the beach. Unfortunately Roger would not calm down at a border terrier that was racing around crazily, so I gave up on beach sitting and continued up the coastal path, leaving Lou and Basil on the beach.

Roger was pretty much fine with every other doggo that we passed on our walk. At some point I decided that we’d gone far enough and turned round and headed back to Porthcurnick. I found Lou sitting on the grass behind the, by now, packed Hidden Hut and we wandered back into the village and parked ourselves at the Plume of Feathers for a couple of beers.

Back at the campsite Emma & Gareth returned from their day out and decided to make a veggie barbeque. We lit up the firepit and sat around with beers and fire until we suddenly realised that the rest of the campsite had gone completely silent and no-one else was about. We stealthily finished off our beers and crept to bed.

Day 4

Lou and I took a morning drive into St. Mawes, a pretty little fishing town on the end of the peninsular and looking over the Fal estuary across to Falmouth. After a stroll through the town and up to the castle we stopped at a little deli (Mr Scorse) for lunch. I had the most amazing locally caught crab sandwich. My mouth is watering thinking back about it.

After gathering some supplies from the Co-op, the fishmongers van and the bakery on the harbour we headed back to the camp. Lou announced she was going to read her book and promptly fell asleep with the dogs snuggled up to her. I managed to read a couple of the comics that we’d brought with us.

It was then time for our, by now, daily walk for a pint in the Plume of Feathers. This is a tradition I fully support.

On our return Lou busied herself making a fire whilst I got on with chopping veggies for a chilli cooked in the dutch oven.

The family of an ex-pat South African couple arrived at the pitch next to us and expelled tired, cold, bewildered looking kids from the car. Lou invited the kids to come warm themselves by the fire whilst the parents put up their tent. From that point on we had a gaggle of kids randomly running into our camp to fuss the dogs and tell me that I have small eyes(!?).

Emma & Gareth returned from their day out quite late and I think were glad of not having to cook. The chilli was quite delicious, even if I do say so myself. We ended the night with more beers round the fire.

Day 5

It was a somewhat lazy morning, so it was getting on for lunchtime by the time the 6 of us got into gear and got out of the campsite. Emma & Gareth hadn’t yet walked into the village so we showed them the way, pointing out the little cove. We all continued on to Porthcurnick and Lou and I ate lunch at the Hidden Hut. My bacon, smoked haddock and crab chowder was delicious and I think Lou was very jealous that she’d only had a sausage roll.

Because the beach was quite busy I suggested that we continue up the coastal path (the South West Coast Path in fact) to a much more secluded beach, Porthbean. This was a good idea as there were hardly any people or dogs there. Lou semi-successfully managed to get Roger in the water, but then he decided that rolling in the sand and eating seaweed stalks was a better idea. It wasn’t, given that he subsequently vomited at about 4AM the next morning.

Basil was feeling the heat a bit and we’d run out of water, so Lou and I left Emma drying out from swimming and snorkelling and headed back to the tent - via, of course, a pint in the Plume of Feathers. We reheated the leftover chilli from the previous evening and took a stroll into the campsite allotment/entertainment field as there was a music/poetry/barbeque thing going on. It was all a bit stimulating for Roger with kids going bananas and people clapping the poet (quite good, quite funny) who was on when we got there. When he finished and they brought up a small girl to do some singing we decided that we’d had enough and headed back to the tent.

It amazes me how miserable some people can be - a couple of po-faced women a couple of tents away from us were shouting, “Shut Up!” repeatedly at a three year old in the next tent crying. A 3 year old. Crying. Before 9PM. In a family campsite. When the next field along has a music thing happening.

Day 6

Lou decided she wanted to drive out to St. Austell, so we got an early start, eschewing the normal ritual of several coffees sat in front of the tent. This may have been a pointless exercise. St. Austell town centre, like many others, is populated by boring chain retail stores punctuated with charity shops. We struggled for a while to find an interesting cafe we could stop at with the dogs and resorted to buying a sausage sandwich from a butchers and a coffee from Costa.

Following our disappointment with the main town we headed down the road to Charlestown, a pretty little harbour town with very well preserved remnants of the original harbour. As is often the case, Roger got upset at something, this time it was kids jumping into the harbour rather than other doggos. I’d love to know the poor boy’s history because he definitely does not like conflict/danger, so he may have seen some terrible thing in his past.

We walked South down the coastal path until we found a beach. Louisa managed to con Roger into running into the sea after a massive log. Until he eventually had enough and dragged it right up the beach out of her way as if to say, “Screw you, I don’t want this thing in the sea!”

Next stop was St. Austell brewery, where I had a couple of pints from the brewery tap, Hicks Bar, sitting baking in the sun outside. I picked up some beers from the shop. A case of a small batch Saison, Sayzon, and a Bath/Moor/St. Austell dunkel weisse collaboration. It’s nice to see a traditional regional brewer doing more interesting stuff away from the core and seasonal ranges.

On the way back to the campsite we stopped in at a little farm shop and grabbed some stuff for a bit of a picky tea, then spent the rest of the day lolling about the camp drinking the beers and nibbling, before Emma and Gareth arrived back from a trip to the Eden project and joined us round the campfire.

Day 7

We had a bit of showery weather in the morning so we didn’t move awfully fast. By the time we had both showered and Lou had done some tent tidying it was about lunchtime. So, of course, we headed out in the opposite direction to where we knew we could get lunch. We walked along the road and then bridleway to Towan beach. We were most happy when we saw a sign for a tea/snacks van, but our hopes were dashed when we found it closed up.

We joined the coastal path and walked back up into Porthscatho. Once the rain stopped Basil speeded up a bit which was good. Back to the Plume of Feathers for some much needed fish and chips. We decided to have a second pint in the Royal Standard but found it closed when we arrived so just went back to the tent. Lou promptly fell asleep.

About three hours later I managed to rouse Lou from her slumber. After a bit of pottering around for the purpose of Lou coming to, we popped off to the pub with Gareth & Emma for a couple of goodbye pints.

Day 8

I slept straight through until about 06:30 - weirdly I’ve mostly just been spark out every night in the tent, despite usually being a very light sleeper. Lou had been kept awake by the witches a couple of tents away cackling on until the early hours. This was the same pair that had been shouting “Shut up” at the 3 year old. A tiny bit hypocritical.

I started gently getting stuff straight for packing up whilst the kettle was boiling and when Lou emerged we started the pack up in earnest. It was made slightly more difficult by one of the kids in the next tent nicking various bits of stuff nd running away with them in his pockets.

After we were all packed up, we said goodbye to our friendly family of South African descent on the next pitch. I think the kids were quite sad to see us go. We’d had them in and out of our camp randomly for days, saying some bonkers things:

• You have small eyes.
• When I was zero years old, my mum fed me whole chickens, that’s why I got to five and a half so quickly.
• My grannie had a pet dog that was 99 years old and a pet seagull that was 1 year old.

We set off towards our next stop, pausing for a McDonalds at the Cornwall Services. I suspect at some point the designers of this services said, “Hey, there aren’t enough roundabouts here, let’s chuck another 10 in.”

It was quite rainy for most of the way so we were delighted when the sky cleared as we crossed Exmoor towards our destination, Pool Bridge campsite near Porlock. This is a very different campsite to the one we’d just stayed at. Nestled next to a stream with woodland on either side. We managed to find a spot between two tents and pitched up again.

After getting the camp striaght we drove into Porlock which was a test of the brakes since it’s a tiny winding hill road. As the dogs had been in the car all morning we decided to give them a leg stretcher and walked out through the viillage down to what looks like a salt marsh flood defence scheme.

We bought some supplies and headed back to our pitch. At this site, campfires are allowed directly on the ground along the riverbank, so we got one built. This was a good thing since my trusty firepit had finally died at the last campsite, developing a hole in the bottom. We chucked a cast iron griddle on the fire and cooked up sausage, bacon and eggs, with a pan of beans for good measure. There is something supremely satisfying about cooking on a campfire.

After tea we sat around the fire for a while after liberally coating ourselves in jungle formula - being next to a stream means there are midges aplenty. People at the next tent had gone as far as hats with nets attached.

Day 9

We had a quite lazy morning, lolling round the tent, breakfasting on bacon sarnies and coffee whilst watching most of the other campers pack up, it being the Sunday of the school break.

We walked the dogs about a mile down a bridleway opposite the campsite entrance which follows the stream through very lovely woodland and afterwards got in the car and headed to Minehead. First stop was big Tesco for some supplies and then we parked up by the quaint little station with a steam train puffing away. The was also some kind of classic car rally in the car park. Lunch was a tray of chips in a shelter on the promenade, following which we walked down to the harbour for a pint outside the Ship Aground. This was the worst pint I’d had all holiday. Not sure they know the concept of line cleaning. Other people didn’t seem to mind though because inside the pub was heaving with some kind of music event on.

We drove back to the campsite and realised that other than one other tent in the other section of the site that we were the only ones there. I immediately busied myself constructing a campfire and settling in for the important job of reading the newspaper and drinking IPA. Lou prepared our evening meal this time - potatoes (sliced, parboiled then put in foil parcels with oil and seasoning), with salmon topped with pesto and some veg on the side, again all done on the campfire.

After tea we cranked up both the music and the fire, given that we had no neighbours we couldn’t disturb anyone. We did notice a campervan arrive then a young couple in a car who immediately got to work putting their tent up. After about an hour Lou noticed that they were still struggling to get the tent up so we went to lend a hand. Turns out they were attempting to put the poles in the anchor points.

Day 10

I groggily awoke after a restless night to rain lashing down on the tent. Lou stayed snoozing whilst I got a pot of coffee on huddled under our tarp shelter reading the newspaper that I’d bought the previous day. After I’d fed her on some fried up potatoes and pesto she announced that she’d found a tick on Basil. Sure enough, when I checked Roger, he also had a couple of the little buggers. Speaking later to the campsite owner, Lou found out that the area is under a tick warning in June. They most likely picked them up on the walk down the bridleway.

So that was another trip into Minehead. As it was fair chucking it down we didn’t mind too much, since we weren’t going to be doing much sitting out. We managed to find a vets surgery and booked the dogs in for an afternoon appointment. With several hours to kill until that we decided to head up to Dunster, a medieval village a couple of miles from Minehead.

There was a bit of a break in the weather so we had a pleasant stroll around the village looking at all of the pretty old buildings before stopping into a pub for lunch. Using our heads for once we decided that eating a big pub meal at lunchtime would be better than messing around trying to cook something elaborate at the campsite in inclement weather.

After lunch we drove back into Minehead and with an hour to kill and the rain having started up again, sat in Tesco car park listening to the Breakdown (featuring Dan Popomatic). Then we took the doggos for their vet appointment. Three ticks duly removed and tick/flea tablets issued we headed back to the campsite.

Both the wind and the rain kicked up a notch so we ensconced ourselves in the tent. I think Lou was happy of an excuse to nap, while I read the newspaper magazine and napped. Our evening meal was half a pork pie and a pot noodle each and we turned in very early with the wind and the rain lashing about the tent.

Day 11

Somehow I managed to stay asleep until the early hours when Lou woke me because we really did have gale force winds battering us. Because I could hear a loud slapping I suspected that the tarp shelter over our kitchen stuff had failed, so I stuck my head outside to check and found that it had come free from one side. Given that it was so windy that the peg had ripped a clod of earth out, I decided the best thing to do would be to bring the tarp down lest it end up in the stream. It was already not doing the job of keeping stuff dry, so I brought it down and chucked a bag of logs on top of it, packing everything else either inside the tent or tight against the wind break to prevent it blowing around.

It was difficult to get back to sleep because of the noise of the wind and rain, especially through the trees across the stream, but I eventually managed it. We awoke to brightness in the tent, no rain, but still pretty windy. Lou immediately turned on radio 4 for the weather and we listened with dismay as the word atrocious was used several times. For the first part of the morning at least, the rain stayed off and we only had wind to deal with as we lazily supped coffees. Even the permanent bell tent that the site have up and available to rent had it’s tarp/awning flattened by the wind overnight.

We headed off in the car to explore Porlock and Porlock Weir. Because of the wind a power line had been knocked out and all of Porlock Weir had no power, meaning we couldn’t get lunch there. After a walk down to the point and back along the sea defence shingle ridge, negotiating a geography field trip along the way, we stopped at the bottom Ship Inn for a pint. Back up in Porlock proper we went straight to the top Ship Inn for lunch (and another beer obviously). We took a walk down through the marsh but the wind battered us and we couldn’t work out a circular route that wouldn’t be miles long so we turned back on ourselves. Normally we wouldn’t be fazed by a long walk, but Basil is getting pretty slow now.

Back at the campsite, with no sign of rain, but quite a lot of wind, I sparked up a campfire. Lou sat at it for approximately 10 minutes before announcing it nap time and buggered off into the tent with the doggos. I remained at the fire happily feeding it logs and feeding myself cans of beer. Oh so many beers. Lou appeared after about 3 hours, sat by the fire for the time it took to drink a can of Hobgoblin and then went back to bed. I may nominate her for the napper of the year award.

Day 12

A lazy morning start, but rain and wind free for a change. By the time we got going it was getting on for mid-day. We walked on what might be charitably described as a path out of the other end of the campsite. It was a bit of a scramble over fallen trees and rough bits of ground until we eventually hooked up with a proper bridleway. We decided not to try and walk into Porlock, but to follow a bridleway along the top of a ridge leading to the road above the campsite entrance.

Back at the camp we discovered a few more ticks had made their way onto the dogs - they should be killed by the treatment we’d gotten at the vet, but we tracked the suckers down and squished them in any case, because we didn’t want them dropping off the dogs in the tent and ending up on us.

At some point Louisa had befriended Gordon, one of the very few other campers on the site and he popped over for a chat. To say he had a lot of stories would be somewhat an understatement.

We reassembled the tarp over the kitchen - Lou not being conducive to my crazy modification ideas. Lou toddled off into Porlock to get something for tea whilst Roger and I stayed at the tent reading comics. By now it had started with a constant drizzle. I bought some logs from the campsite owner when she turned up, but we abandoned the idea of a fire fairly early on when the rain showed no signs of letting up.

The evening’s tea was a magnificent meal of pork steaks with tinned potatoes, tinned carrots and tinned marrowfat peas eaten in the tent. As it happens it was delicious.

I continued reading my book until my eyes started closing - even though it was still kind of light, I was spark out.

Day 14

I came to in the morning to the sound of rain pattering away at the tent. On poking my head out I was presented with more grey skies and drizzle. After the obligatory coffee we got ourselves packed into the car and headed down the coast to Watchet, which may be my new favourite place. It’s an historic harbour town with loads of old buildings and serviced by the West Somerset railway.

After some chips on the harbour wall we popped into Pebbles Tavern. This place was awesome, a tiny little haven of ale and (especially) cider. I would consider having a long weekend in Watchet purely to go to Pebbles when they have some music on.

After the pub we went to the next bay up the coast, which is great for fossils. Lou also managed to add a bunch of new stock to her sea glass collection, which she was very happy about.

Back on the campsite I took advantage of a blue skies to light a campfire. Of course, it then started pissing it down. Still, I managed to keep the fire going until another break in which I was able to cook our dinner on it.

We ended up in Gordon’s yurt and were joined by a brewery owner down for a festival who kindly let us sample a couple of his ales.

Day 15

Although we were supposed to be leaving the following day, we decided to shove off early when we saw the quite dreadful forecast for the following day, figuring that at least this way we could be relaxed breaking camp and get the tent away dry. Because of hangovers from the previous night as well as letting the tent dry out a bit, we were moving pretty slowly in any case.

We were also trying to avoid getting snarled in any rush hour traffic on the way home, so with the everything packed up we drove into Minehead to let the dogs have a bit of a run on the beach before the journey home.

Fortunately it was an uneventful and mostly traffic free journey on the way back, with a couple of stops to give the dogs a leg stretcher and put coffee in Louisa we managed to make pretty good time. The dogs were super happy to arrive back home and we all just crashed upstairs and flaked out in the bed.