Camping it up

It wasn't my much-planned and anticipated weekend in the New Forest on my bike but it was camping and it did involve my Bike.

Sussex Clubs for Young People organise a camp at Lodge Hill every year. The programme is run by SCYP staff and Lodge Hill instructors so all I had to do was get a group to the centre and look after them while they were there, right? Wrong! My group were 6 girls between 12 and 16 years old who seemed to have watched far too many soaps and enjoyed replicating similar melodrama at every available opportunity.

Despite the fall-outs and arguments there were highlights both for the group and for me. For me it was a great opportunity to see if I could get everything for a weekends camping onto my bike with out either looking ridiculous or crashing! It was also great to be in a tent again after missing our on a family holiday last year. Making a filter coffee at 6am in a small cold tent is surprisingly enjoyable when it's quite and you're catching a rare moment of peace.

I left the group with another youth worker on Sunday morning and headed off to Dalesdown where the church were having our annual Church day away. I arrived shattered and unshaven but having had one of my more interesting weekends.