Ingrid’s top wish for this summer was to go camping. She had already slept in a tent that we put up in the garden and obviously really liked something about that experience, so now we did it for real.
Well… sort of. Since it’s Adrian’s first time and Ingrid’s second (and the first was so long ago that she doesn’t even remember it), we went for a very civilised camping experience rather than anything resembling real wilderness. We camped at a nature park in Ängsjö, just outside Stockholm. One of its major benefits is that there’s stuff for the kids to do: the nature park has a beach, a wooden fort and an adventure trail, etc.
It actually turned out even more civilised than I’d planned for, almost park-like in places. We’d been there with Ingrid’s scout group once, last autumn, but now in summer there was a nice café, the grass had been mown, etc. It wasn’t exactly what I normally picture when I think of camping, but nobody complained about the opportunity to eat cake at the café.
Ingrid got her wish: we did sleep in a tent. We also cooked dinner in foil packets over coals in a fire pit, and breakfast on an alcohol stove, and washed up in the lake. During the day went swimming in the lake several times, and rented a boat.
I hadn’t been out in a rowboat for many years. I was surprised at what an incredibly efficient means of transport this is: Ingrid rowed us all for a good bit without any major effort. It really made me understand how important shipping and good waterways must have been in earlier times.
I realised yet again that my body really isn’t made for sleeping on hard ground: I was so stiff and sore in the morning. Cramming four people in a tent made for three adults didn’t help. I like having lots of space when I sleep.
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