There

There
is a strong argument in favour of the entire world going
on a collective camping trip, in my mind, at least. I’m aware that
the suggestion of this will make some people shudder to their core
(insects, rain, kids? together? at the same time?), but stick with
it; there is method in the madness.

Let’s start with an irrefutable point: right now, we are
grounded. It is tricky to go anywhere else. So if you don’t want to
spend precious time staring at four walls and your own increasingly
haggard reflection, it’s a good idea to venture outside.

More importantly, let’s consider for a moment that there’s
poetry woven into the very fabric of camping. It involves sleeping
beneath a velvety blanket of scintillescent stars, cooking meals al
fresco like the hairy ancestors that came before you, and waking up
at the break of dawn to put on boots in which spiders have made
their home overnight, before legging it to the nearest bush,
preferably a toilet. There is no one on Earth who can claim to have
had an unmemorable camping trip. Even when the experience is
terrible and absolutely everything that can go wrong does, you
remember it fondly with hindsight. You think of it in similar terms
to the first time you had sex.

I started making my own camping memories at a young age. My mum
would wake us all from a deep slumber, bundle us into a jam-packed
car with our faces still attached to our pillows, and we’d drive –
I kid you not – no more than two minutes down the road, to the
local campsite.

Having questioned her about this in recent years, she claims it
was because we had cats to feed, but I maintain that for a woman
who on more than one occasion forgot to pick me up from school, it
helped to be close to home. Just in case one happens to mislay the
tent poles, for instance, or the cooker, or a family member.

It was at this very same campsite that my sister decided to test
my non-existent swimming abilities by confiscating the rubber ring
I was using to keep myself afloat. Predictably, I sank, and my
brother was forced to dive in and save me from imminent drowning.
You see? Happy times for us all to laugh about through gritted
teeth at every Christmas dinner.

There are hundreds more camping trips etched into my memory.
There was the time on a cliffside in Newquay when gale-force winds
bundled up our tent like crêpe paper; the time at Reading Festival
when, as a teenager, I smoked too many spliffs and my legs twitched
all night; the time doing my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award when I woke
up with eyes so swollen from hayfever that I looked like I’d been
punched in the face. And when I look back on this year’s camping
trips, which are already unique thanks to their timing in the midst
of a (whisper it) global pandemic, I can already sense the edges of
lifelong memories forming.

When you’re camping, all the pomp and nonsense of everyday life
is stripped away. Nothing remains but the bare essentials for
living and the intoxicating promise of what adventures lie beyond.
You wake, sometimes to the sound of birdsong, other times to
searing heat, but it’s only with the distinctive sound of tents
unzipping that you know the day has really begun. In some ways, a
Herculean amount of organisation is required for camping but once
you’re actually there, you slip into a slower pace of life that
unfolds gently, with no rush.

And so you make a several-staged breakfast that’s far too
ambitious for the limited utensils you’ve brought with you, and
begin planning the rest of the day. The hours pass in the
exhilarating lushness of the great outdoors – scaling a mountain,
splashing in the sea and before long you’re back at the tent,
cooking tuna pasta on the hob that, god damn, is the greatest thing
you’ve ever tasted.

Darkness falls and, with it, the midges descend. But soon enough
the campfire’s roaring and that does a decent job of keeping them
at bay. So you share stories, beers and marshmallows, mesmerised by
the dance of the smoky, tangerine embers. You return to the tent,
totally spent. In the distance some kid is playing Wonderwall on
his acoustic guitar and you wish with every fibre of your being
that it would stop but it’s not long before you’ve slipped into a
profound, limitless sleep – the kind that only comes from
contented, physical exhaustion.

The next day always brings something different. Probably rain,
if you’re in the UK, or the horror of cleaning last night’s dishes
without washing up liquid. But you deal with it as it comes, one
day at a time. There is an immediacy to camping that demands
presence and it’s in those moments that a curious peacefulness
descends. It’s the perfect antidote to strange times, offering
stillness amid the constant whirl of chaos. So yes, let’s all pack
a tent and head for the hazy horizon, where life-affirming
simplicity awaits, and barely warm, sweet tea drunk from a tin cup
is the cure you never knew you needed.