A Search for Inspiration

Now that college work is out of the way (well, mostly) I thought it was time to clear my mind and search for some inspiration, something to fire up a creative mind. A camping trip! Now I like to think I’m quite impulsive, but that only goes as far as the basic idea. From there, it took me about two hours to sort out all the stuff and pack the car, by which time the kids had been sitting there, all belted up, for best part of forty minutes.

Finally, we got there and half pitched the tent. Work stopped at the increasingly ripe smell of summer dog shit. Rather than move the pitch, I decided to do something about it. I located the offending splat and, after careful considerations of the options available, decided to destroy it with boiling water. The result of this lunatic approach was well cooked, steaming dog shit, and smelling much, much worse than before.

I moved pitch.

The kids were starving by time I’d got the tent up, so no time to start the barbeque - besides, that was for later anyway. For now, we had soup. What could be simpler. I had a camping stove, pans... but no tin opener. Not to worry - I had the camper’s best friend: a penknife! And what comes on every camping penknife..?

Well you tell me, because the device that appeared to be a can opener had clearly been designed by some sadist who despises all campers and had has made it his - successful - mission in life to make our lives a misery by designing a blade almost perfectly inept at opening cans. Ten minutes later, with soup splatters over my t-shirt and jeans and a cut across the back of my thumb, I’d managed to wrench open a gap large enough to shake the contents through. Then I had to go through the whole operation with the second can. In future, if I forget a proper can opener, ie one designed to open cans and not get itself wedged in them, I think I’ll just drive over the thing in my car and scrape up what I can from the road.

And after all of that, and burning my thumb from trying to pick up the pan without the special “gripper” handle (that doesn’t work either), the kids didn’t even like the soup, so it was time to stoke up the barbeque anyway. So as I set it up I took the time to have a beer and soak up some sun. The summer was finally here! Clear blue sky, not a hint of a breeze and a blistering hot sun. Down at the park, the kids were enjoying the weather with their tops off, skin frying in the heat... Oh, hell. I’d forgotten sun-cream. Back in the car, off to ASDA, back to the site, sun-cream everywhere, kids happy, dad happy. Sit, drink beer, get out a sketch pad and do a bit of drawing. I even had a mini watercolour set to paint. The results aren’t wonderful, so I won’t put them up here, but it was good fun to relax and do a spot of painting. I didn’t do any reading, and although I had some writing notes with me, I didn’t do a lot of planning either, but I did manage something creative.

Later on, as the sun began to go down and I realised I’d forgotten anything warm to wear, I went to the clubhouse. This comfortable little watering hole has a pool table, a few bandits and a jukebox, and the sounds of The Beatles’ Ticket To Ride welcomed me inside. This was followed by Europe’s Final Countdown - a nineties beat-mix version, and then back to Ticket to Ride. At first I figured there was probably a Beatles fan in the room. Nothing wrong with that. Except it was once again followed by Europe, and it soon became clear that there were only two working songs on the dukebox. By ten o’clock I thought I was going insane, just as the Bingo started. I could see the kids behind me, still playing in the park with a whole load of other kids, so my choices were to go back to the tent and be cold, listen to other people play bingo, or have a go and see what all the fuss was about.

It was great! I won the first line. Five quid. Ding Dang Doo!

Spend the rest of the night taking long-exposure photos. Here's one.