CAMrPA Tour 89
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Gifts for all occasions at
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2007's tour was Friday 6th July to Sunday 8th July, situated at Far Peak Camping near Northleach in the Cotswolds and we had a great turnout in pretty good weather. Although it was seriously chilly overnight, at least the temperature helped to keep the beer from getting too warm. The campsite is simple and comfortable, unisex facilities which were clean and tidy enough, just be careful if someone turns on a tap whilst you're in the shower, there were some quite loud screams one morning...
Quotes were a bit thin on the ground, 'I don't do sheep anymore' (JPL) was my personal favourite, although GSS might well be a winner if anyone can ever remember what 'Hide the sick' was all about.
William invented a new sport of 'tent surfing', it might not be in the London Olympics by 2012 but it looked like pretty good fun for those small enough to be able to fit into the tent.
For larger children, the challenge of just finding all of the bits was fun enough. I'm not sure whether that look on Lynne's face comes from Pete and Graham's advice or from Emily's reading of the instructions... Some of the kids gave up on tents and started building a wigwam with tree branches, most of which had fallen from the tree before the kids got stuck in.
Once the tents where up, people tended to do lots of sitting around and drinking tea and eating digestive biscuits. Apparently, there are better ways to spend warm summer morning but no-one could think of any.
Occasionally, a pub would open somewhere and we decamped en masse for a little light refreshment. This one is the Three Tuns, a couple of miles away at Chedford and easily located by Dave E's sat nav. Getting us back to the camp seemed somewhat more complicated. Lunch was good, in spite of the bonfire and the mixed up service, the Wells Bombardier was particularly excellent. Emily and Pippa turned up whilst on their month long UK tour and where immediately forced to start drinking. I have no excuse for the Lobster, other than 'He was there'. Apparently he was getting married, and his cricket team 'friends' decided to make him dress up and look silly, terrible behaviour really.
Most of the rest of our time was spent sitting around, eating and drinking. Even the kids had a rest between bouts of chasing each other around the field.
John
arrived on Saturday, just in time to adjourn to the pub in Northleach.
Some people ate in one of the pubs, most of us just went to the beer garden
of the ever so slightly spooky Red Lion and drank until it got too cold
to stay outside. We then warmed up by walking back to the tents and then
sat around drinking until there was a serious danger of becoming so cold
that we were unable to move again.
Sunday
was one of those weird mornings, Pete and Andy decided to play with the
sinks, some excuse about Pippa loosing a contact lens. Pippa meanwhile
was casually checking that constructing a big heap of cotton and nylon
and leaving it next to someone's car is still the CAMrPA approved method
for packing up a borrowed tent.
In
typical CAMrPA Sunday morning style, we milled about trying to come up
with a plan. Rather atypically, the sun shone and it was really hot, some
compensation for the floods which hit this area a couple of weeks later.
Having decided on the Royal Oak at Burford for lunch, we got to Burford
to discover that it was heaving, hot and there was no room at the inn.
Whilst the rest of us stood around in the sun and made inane jokes about
the statues, Dave and Anna switched on the sat nav and went to find a
pub. Oh, we probably had one of those conversations about mobile phones
and who has the best signal, it's a bloke sort of thing.
Eventually,
Dave and Anna found The Maytime at Asthall, where the Timothy Taylor's
Landlord was excellent, the Maytime Bitter was a bit average and the ploughman's
lunch was great, albeit there was a bit of difficulty actually getting
them to serve us at times, and they lost Pete's ploughmans for a while.
A great weekend, anyone with ideas for 2008, please step forward.
Lots more pics by Dave Eastwood and Pete McGettigan to be found at the following links:
The campsite website is http://farpeakcamping.co.uk/index.htm. It's located just off the A429, there's a map on the campsite website.
A couple of pubs with food in Northleach: The Wheatsheaf and The Sherborne Arms, there are others.
Things to do in the Cotswolds (apart from drinking of course) http://www.cotswolds.com/
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