Camping with the Girls
Normally, for 95% of races or events I rope myself into, I go on my own, rather than drag Becky and the girls along with me. Jura is a long way from the world though, so we decided to have a wee holiday there to coincide with the race.
The default choice for Jura is to camp in the field by the Jura Hotel. The main problem with that, for us, is that Becky has never been camping before, I'm used to camping on my own and don't have family camping gear (including a decent sized tent) and the Emily and Esme haven't experienced sleeping in a tent and they are still quite young for camping.
We had borrowed a tent from a friend but discovered just before we were to go, that it was going to be far too big for the small camping field, so we managed to procure a smaller family tent at the last minute from a neighbour. My plan is to buy a tent before the next trip, whenever that is to be. Becky managed to get hold of everything else we needed, that I didn't already have.
The trip to Jura is very long - it can't be very far as the crow flies from Cardrona but to get there by car necessitates a bit of a Cook's Tour, going to Edinburgh, then Stirling, along to Loch Lomond and up the other side before turning down to Kintyre from Arrochar. Then, a 2+ hour ferry journey, with very excitable children who had been cooped up in a car for 4 hours, to Islay. A bit of a wait and then another short hop to Jura and a single track road to Craighouse. All in all, from door to door, it took about 10 hours.
The campsite was a bit empty when we got there, so we picked a spot near the sea (hoping to avoid midges as much as possible) and set up the tent. Unfortunately, the girls were both tired and a bit hyper, so they made a bit of a racket, which was a wee bit embarrassing. They settled down the next day but I definitely felt the weight of some stares from campers whose peace we were disturbing. Getting the tent up was a pain, since I didn't know how it worked and the instructions were terrible. Luckily a fellow camper, Arthur, came to help and after a bit of trial and error, we got it up.
The first evening was a bit quiet since we were all tired and after dinner, we got the girls ready for bed, deciding to put them in the main sleeping area with us. There was no chance that Esme would sleep though, having slept late in the car, so she was bouncing off the tent walls until well after 10. Normally, she'd be in bed by 7 but since she had a captive audience in Mum and Dad, she made the most of the experience. Poor Emily would have been asleep much earlier if Esme hadn't kept her awake. This pattern repeated the next 2 nights - Emily would be in bed before 8 but Esme took another hour or two of hyper-activity in the tent before she'd drop off.
Emily had a nightmare on the first night, which I'm sure woke everyone up at 1am but she settled down after Becky took her out into the night air, which woke her up. For anyone reading this now, after being woken, I'll take the opportunity to apologise.
On Friday, the weather was fine - sunny and dry - so we took a trip north along the single track road to find a beach to play on. We found a long expanse of sand a few miles up the road from Craighouse and took a wee walk along it, and a cold paddle in the sea. Unfortunately, it was a bit parky and the girls got a bit grumpy after a while, so we gave it up as a bad job and headed back to the village.
We spent lunch at the play park, which the girls loved and the sun was shining. After the play park, Becky and I relaxed into the trip and we managed to enjoy ourselves a lot more. Saturday was, unfortunately, not the best weather, so while I was racing, the girls had to put up with the drizzle. Sunday was a bit better, weather-wise, for the trip home. It's a long way to Jura and the journey took almost 11 hours. The girls loved the ferry again but Mum and Dad were tired and had to take it in turns to entertain them.
Hopefully, we'll get our own family tent soon, and get away somewhere northwards for another camping trip during the summer.
