A Wild Night Out

Over the month of June we were trying hard to do something outdoors everyday around the school days as part of 30 days wild and this ended last weekend with us planning a wild night out.  Millets are encouraging people to spend more time outside and to help with our garden camping plans they sent us one of their Eurohike air tents, and some camping essentials so we could spend a night under the stars.

We usually try and pitch our tent with four wild children running around but I managed to put up the Eurohike Air 600 in around 20 minutes alone.  There are no poles, you just use a manual pump to inflate the three big beams and then peg it into the ground as usual! The tent has two bedrooms which we popped our air beds into and Millets had sent us some sleeping bags too and a tent carpet for our living area. The children were so excited and got into the spirit pretty quickly.

Camping means eating outdoors and we still had the BBQ out from Cora's party so we cooked up the leftovers and afterwards skewered some giant marshmallows to roast. The children struggled to eat their dinner knowing marshmallows were coming and were far too impatient to let them melt properly before wolfing them down!

Getting settled in a tent is never easy with four excitable children but the wonders of the weekend are that it doesn't matter if they stay up late and run around outdoors until they are totally exhausted.  When we visit campsites we try and stay near a playground for this reason and when they are tired enough, they come in for a snuggle and a book by the light of the lantern.  Once we get them in bed Ed and I can chill out with a drink and watch the stars.

Last summer we pitched the tent in the garden for a few days and the boys had their friends round to sleepover in it and we will definitely be doing the same things during the summer holidays as they absolutely love sleeping outdoors and when they wake up in the morning they stay out there playing.  The Eurohike air tent is so much easier to put up and take down, it took less than 10 minutes to get it from upright to back in the bag and only about one minute to deflate it completely which is what we need with lots of little children running around! 

The additional 'footprint' made pitching even easier.