a relaxing camping holiday in Dumfries & Galloway

view from the tent

We returned home from our camping trip yesterday evening, after leaving our campsite at 5 pm. I prefer packing up in the afternoon, rather than rushing to get away for 11 am in the morning. We were lucky to pack up the tent dry, always a bonus. I think this may be one it's last camping trips with us, it is on the old side and too large for our now much smaller family. It has a few repaired patches and is all faded from the sun but on the whole still good so hopefully we can find a new family to take it on trips for a few more years. 

Before I forget, if you ever fancy a camping trip in Dumfries and Galloway, which is in Southern Scotland, you should look up Solway View, our favourite campsite, run by Patricia and Neil Picken. It is set by a working farm in beautiful countryside, small with large pitches, relaxed and eco-friendly, too. There is a good mix of grassy pitches and some hard pitches for camper vans, some with electric hookup. The facilities are clean with Covid guidelines in place for safe shared use. We have been regular visitors since 2009.

I love sleeping in our tent. Getting tucked up inside my down sleeping bag is just really nice. In July of course my down sleeping bag is far too warm, particularly for this menopausal woman but it is comforting to be all wrapped up and warm at the beginning of the night. I keep the zip open at the bottom to stick hot feet out. 

The boys made friends quickly and spent a lot of their time running around playing manhunt and hidey tig and games of football in the evenings. There is a lot of wilderness in the middle of the campsite to hide in and it must feel just amazing to race through the tall grassy meadow. I didn't feel tempted myself, too many nettles and horse flies. There were two related families with six children and a full set of grand parents that overlapped with us for all but our final day. This is quite unusual, often there is more coming and going on campsites. It was really good for James and Alistair to experience a full week of non-adversarsial wild play. Back home, there is often tension between different groups of children that share the limited city play spaces. I also enjoy those casual campsite friendships, just what we all needed after such a long time of not socialising much at all. 

Much of the time we did very little. A walk down to the beach one day, a trip to a nearby town another day. Nothing too strenuous, reading books, sewing a few small quilt blocks, just staring at the view. I always marvel at the busyness of other holidaymakers, cramming in activities as if there was no tomorrow. We are just too lazy. This corner of Dumfries & Galloway is a very sedate part of Scotland and for us, this is good. I want to mention the Gatehouse of Fleet Mill Cafe, such a lovely and friendly place to have a simple lunch on the sunny terrace by the side of the Fleet. The secondhand bookshop on the upper floors of the former mill is astounding, well worth a visit if you like reading or just browsing for books. 

We celebrated James' 14th Birthday while camping, Tesco birthday cake and all. James loved his special day. We went for a walk, then to Cream of Galloway for an ice cream and crazy golf and finally for dinner at the Borgue hotel, the local pub. 

Jack as always went crazy at the beach. He gets so excited that he starts shaking and there is no chance of us sitting down to read a book. He insists on swimming and fetching sticks without a break, except maybe to bury said stick in the sand. He gets itchy when swimming in the sea and needs rinsed with fresh water. We found a nice river for him to swim and fetch sticks but unfortunately, wooded river banks are infested with horseflies, nasty little biters, so less fun for us people. The horseflies were wild this year but not a single Scottish midge was spotted, a definite bonus for a camping holiday in Scotland. 

While we were having fun camping, Annie held fort at home, looking after the cats. She is so much more responsible than Sam was at this age. You may remember that a few years ago, he more or less wrecked the house and alienated the neighbourhood with a party that got a bit out of hand... Annie even remembered the bins, which now are collected only every three weeks early on a Sunday morning.

It is good to be home and have a few more days of rest before work starts again next week. More marking awaits but at least for this assignment each student chose a different case study and marking won't bore my pants off. 

Have you planned any holidays? I'd love to read about it! Thanks for visiting xx