Camping in Ireland

Just back from a very interesting holiday, camping with the kids in Achill, Co. Mayo.

I say interesting, because there is no greater test of your limits than living in very close proximity to your offspring (and husband!) for eight days, in a tent environment.

We were very lucky. We seem to have got the only week of decent sunny weather that the Irish summer had to offer. For four and a half days, the weather was glorious. Rain only hit on the last morning, and even then it feiced off so that the fly sheet of the tent was dry when we had emptied the contents for packing away.

You should have seen us putting up the tent, though, the week before. I'd say we gave other campers at the Keel Sandybanks Camping and Caravan park a real good laugh! Everyone piled out of the car and decided that they knew best how to assemble it! Tent poles, tent innards, fly sheet:  I thought the whole lot was going to go flying in the Northeasterly wind that was blowing. The problem, as my husband later pointed out, is that we have raised a little band of leaders and none of them like taking direction from each other.

Still, at least the tent went up, and we really enjoyed the holiday. In fact I think we're all better friends now as a result of all the teenage meltdowns. There are probably other less stressful ways of getting to know your family on holidays, but right now, I think that camping is up there. 'Twould have been a different story, I know, if it had rained, but we were very lucky. Someone up there was giving us a break!