We're all packing for a summer holiday...

We're back from a great camping holiday in Devon.

The T5 did us proud...packing in and transporting all our camping gear, cooking gear, sleeping gear, wearing gear, playing gear, 11 month old, 2.5 year old, 12 year old, 16 year old, 31 year old and 36 year old.

We had plenty of space to boot. Unlike some poor sardines travelling down a very busy M5 very early on an August Saturday morning.

We saw all sorts of packing techniques...

...kids squashed in the back amongst pillows and duvets, sweaty little heads popping out the top for air while the family terrier is spread out on it's back on mum's lap in the passenger seat upon its own personal doggy pillow.

...Ikea storage boxes rammed full of clothes strapped to roof boxes. (Really don't want to see your undies pal..even less all your dirty washing on the way back).

...Windbreaks (uh, optimistic!) getting shredded to pieces as they are tightly packed and strapped underneath bursting to the seams roof boxes.

...Brightly coloured towels and inflatable rings squashed up against the back window of boots. Buckets and spades too, inevitably cracked as harrassed parents slam and force and bounce the boots shut "You will shut. You will shut. You will shut.if.it's.the.last.thing.i.do" then "What do you mean you need to get the sun cream out for the journey down?! No. Just no!"

We had oodles of space. I comfortably sat in the back between the babies in their car seats, feet up on the cool box munching a holiday pain au chocolat. The boys sat in the front controlling the sound system.

It was a good job the toddler spotted an epic error half way down the main road on the way to the motorway. *Someone* had left one of the back doors of the van open.

Some poor souls would have been treated to our pillows and duvets, clothes and undies, wind break, towels, inflatables, buckets and spades littered all the way down the M5.

And we would have arrived at our holiday destination with more space in the van then we left with.

And before you ask. It wasn't me!

Stuff memories are made of

My parents used to take me and my sisters camping as kids.

Our camping adventures began in a trailer tent. Bright orange with brown and orange flowers on the curtains. Total retro hippy cool.

After a few fun filled years under canvas we upgraded to a caravan.

We loved the caravan so much we used to beg our parents to let us sit in there and play board games on rainy days so we could pretend we were camping with the rain hammering down on the roof...ding, ding, ding, ding. It's a sound that often used to send us to sleep on holiday (well you know what the great British weather is like!)

The best holiday I remember having as a child was when we took the caravan to a field in the Gower overlooking the vast blue sea.

There were no toilet blocks, no playgrounds. Just heaps and heaps of sun and freedom.

Me and my little sister spent hours flying kites and collecting shells on deserted beaches, then at the end of the day we would have a cold alfresco shower and collapse sunburnt and exhausted in our cosy sleeping bags.

I can remember the cool, fresh dampness of early morning dew between my toes, the whistles of camp kettles getting louder and louder. The smell of bacon bubbling on camp stoves early in the morning and the tang of early evening smokey bbqs.

This is the stuff great memories are made of, and I want to create those same cracking memories for my kids.

We made a start on that this weekend, taking advantage of the stonking weather we are enjoying joining friends with kids the same age as ours at a nearby camp site.

The kids loved it and we have got some wonderful new memories to cherish as parents. Watching our baby girl crawl around in the grass just wearing her nappy covered from head to toe in chocolate biscuit, then dunking her in the washing up bowl to clean her up and cool her off.

Seeing our toddler tearing happily along the road on his little red scooter, stooping down in concentration to collect pretty duck feathers around the lake, kicking a football as hard as he could and whooping with delight as he rolled around in the grass wrestling with his friends.

The view from our breakfast table, and the van, was pretty spectacular too.

It was a weekend I will never forget, and hopefully one the kids will remember and cherish too.

My boy is already asking when is the van taking us all camping again!

Soon, son. Soon.