Cuckoo, Cookies and Camping Wild

4am and the cuckoo has started again. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. I count twenty eight consecutive calls. What’s it doing? What’s it calling for? At 4am? I’ve never heard a cuckoo before. Not in real life. But right now I’ve heard enough. I want to sleep.

Suddenly it’s quiet. Apart from the wind whipping the guy ropes on the tent. Beside me the boys are in a deep sleep, dreaming of cuckoos perhaps, although more likely cookies after that midnight snack. Was it a mistake to let them do the shopping for this outing? I gave them £10 for supplies for an evening meal, midnight snack and breakfast. They got 25 giant cookies, two sachets of hot chocolate, a variety pack of cereal and six croissants.

Wild camping on a school night. The rucksack’s for cookies.

Close to home yet in the wild

We’re close to home here, maybe two miles or less, yet in another world, amidst the limestone pavement and thorny broom, stunted hazel, harebells, slugs and butterflies that make themselves at home in its’ clints and grykes. It’s a special place; their home but not mine.

Camping wild is another world. So many things you don’t notice when you’re tucked up in bed at home with the windows shut, curtains closed, duvet pulled tight, eyes shut tight, fast asleep.

Time to get dressed for school boys…

Cuckoo madness

So many things to notice up here; how nice cookies, chocolate and croissant are; how windy it is; how cold it’s got; how loud rain is; that mysterious scratching sound outside the tent. How your imagination can run away with itself; how vulnerable you can feel in the middle of the night, up on a fell with two boys in your care.

Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. How annoying cuckoos are.