Airbeds and Karrimats

When Carenza held her 22^nd birthday party here both local and university friends came along. 

She had warned us that two or three might stay over.  On Sunday, we found ourselves frying up sausage sandwiches for thirteen people.  Seeing the tessellation of airbeds and karrimats on the floor in the sitting room reminded me of when we were at that stage. 

A year out of college, Nigel and I married and set up home near his parents in the North East. But we vowed that geography would not part us from our university friends.   We thought nothing of piling sleeping bags into our cantankerous mini and driving to the South East for a get-together.

The most memorable was at Annabel’s where around a dozen of us youngsters were bedding down for the night and promptly ran out of toilet paper.  People quickly became ruthless in appropriating any shred of paper that might serve and it all got a bit Lord of the Flies. This was my earliest and arguably most important lesson in hosting. Always check the paper supply.

We thought these communal weekends would go on for ever, but a little thing eventually made it too difficult.  In fact, several little things – a number of us had children. 

However, now that most of our children have moved on, we are back to slinging sleeping bags in the car and going camping and glamping together again, happily sharing a yurt or tepee.  Have to remember the loo roll though.