Update

Well it's been a while! No camping has taken place for far too long as a result of not working too far away from home (that's subjective, it's still over 50 miles). I'm still sharing a lift in; all the driving is done in my car and my passenger pays for half of the fuel, it's better than driving two cars to the office.

I really enjoyed the time I spent under Polyester last year, I think I'll do it again this coming season. I won't be camping near my normal work place, but the main office is still some way away and it's worth staying the night.

I'm looking at changing my gear a little. After my successful night sleeping in the back of the Honda I think I might make that the permanent sleeping area and get myself one of those Pop Up tents to take care of my gear. I'll give it a try and report back!

All change

Well, I'm back from my holiday... very nice it was too.

The other big news is that I've moved projects and I'm now working closer to home; the new office is around 50 miles away and takes an hour to get there by car.

The camping I have been doing this year has had two main aims:

1. Save cash by doing less miles
2. Stop wasting my life by spending many hours each day in traffic.

With the new location camping will have less of an effect on these aims because the money I could save on fuel would be about the same as I would spend on pitch fees and I no longer encounter any traffic jams. It's easy to decide to stay over near work if the other option is to get home very late and leave very early, it's not like that any more.

Having said all that, I think it's fair to say that I have become more environmentally aware as a result of this experiment. My aim was purely to save myself cash and, although I did see some real savings doing it, I also began to feel really good about all the pollution I hadn't been sending into the atmosphere.

It's had a lasting effect on me and I think I'm going to try much harder to reduce the amount of pollution I create when going about my daily activities, I'll log my progress here.

The first step: I've found someone who works in the new office and lives in the same town as me, we are about to start car sharing, bingo: 50% reduction in fuel usage!

Emmissions

I've just worked out that I have saved 575Kg of CO2 emmissions so far, that's quite a lot!

Cheshire Life

Image033
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

I stayed at another new site last night, again in Cheshire, this time in the village of Wrenbury which was really quite pretty.

The site was behind a pub, it was quite a large site and was surprisingly busy. I think there must have been some sort of Caravan Club rally on there, there were probably around 30 caravans on site and 3 tents (including mine). One of the tents was massive but as far as I can tell there was nobody in it, I didn't see any signs of life from it the whole time I was there.

I pitched my tent and unpacked the car a little bit, this time I took a folding camping table that we had at home and I did the cooking on there while sitting under the tailgate of the car. It was much more comfortable than being on the grass or in the tent, this is the way I want things to be when I get some sort of "rear annexe" to go behind the car.

So, after cooking some sausages and pasta with tinned tomato (can you tell I just grabbed stuff out of the freezer and cupboards as I left the house?) I packed all the stuff away and stored it in the porch of the tent. I grabbed a pillow and watched the end of Raging Bull on the in DVD player in the car (flash, I know), after that I decided I'd have a crack at sleeping in the car... it must have been OK because the next thing I knew it was 6.30am and time to get up. I pitched the tent but didn't use it, I wouldn't feel right being on a campsite and not pitching one though!

The site cost £6 which is pretty good, although the shower isn't available until 9.30am (and costs £1) and the toilets are pretty grim. It's not far from the office in Crewe (about 10 miles) so I think there is a good chance I'll be back at some point.

So far, miles saved stand at 2324.

There will probably be a break to this camping lark for a few weeks now as I'm off on holiday at the end of next week (not in a tent!).

Flaming Hot

The temperature outside is somewhere around 33 centigrade, I think I might put off pitching the tent until it gets a bit cooler in the evening.

I'm in Lichfield right now and I need to be in Crewe in the morning so I think I'll try to find somewhere new in Cheshire somewhere. I have yet to find my "Camping Nirvana" which would be a very quiet site with minimal pitch fees, I thought I had found it this week with a pub which charges £2.50 per night but they are under new management and have converted the campsite into a helipad for visitors to their new posh restaurant!

I've got my new car now so I may try it for size tonight, I'm almost certain I can get a double airbed in there! If not, it's not a waste because it might well be useful to have an air-conditioned environment where I can sit and watch a film (Ronin is in the glovebox!).

Changes

Now that the hostilities in the Middle-East have stepped up a gear we can look forward to even more expensive fuel in the coming weeks, I'll be paying even closer attention to my travels than normal in order to not spend *all* my salary at the diesel pump.

This week I changed my company car for a new one, it's a "Compact MPV" and it's much more practical than a saloon car. I have had a test run and I've found that with all the back seats folded into the floor and the front middle seat folded down (it's a Honda FR-V with 3 seats in the front) I can lie down in it with plenty of room to spare. This might lead to a change in my solo-camping set up.

If I had some spare cash I think I would get myself a "Day Shelter" like the one that Khyam do, it's a bit like a Gazebo but with sides on that can roll up. I could back the car up against a rolled up side and have a decent cooking/working/sitting area in the shelter and a sleeping area in the flat load area of the MPV. Khyam sell the Day Shelter for about £90 and I just don't think I can afford that at the moment.

There are a few reasons why I'd like to sleep in the back of the car, the biggest one is that I wouldn't have to worry so much about my snoring disturbing other people! Also, the car has a decent entertainment system so I could watch a DVD to pass the time. It has "privacy glass" too so you can't easily see in from the outside.

Maybe I'll experiment further next week!

New site

You had the whole field
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

Last night, for the first time since I started camping, I stayed at a different campsite. I was working in Crewe (and I still am) so I stayed at a place near Winsford, I was quite impressed with the place even though it was further from the office than I would have liked (better than being 140 miles away though).

When I arrived I was shown to the camping field (as opposed to the "touring caravan field") and I had the whole massive field to myself, I set the tent up and did a bit of cooking... then my neighbours arrived.

I couldn't believe that with a massive field in which to pitch the chap decided to put his tent a few metres from mine. I'm not anti-social, but I was looking forward to a bit of solitude and there just didn't seem to be a need to do it. If he was there first I would have headed for the far corner.

It's not like they (couple, mid twenties) were any trouble, but I found it difficult to relax with them so close. I'm told that I snore line a Rottweiler being waxed, so this was playing on my mind and I was trying not to (like this ever works). I wonder if they regretted being so close!

It was my birthday over the weekend, my parents got me one of those wind-up radios (at my request), it's an excellent gadget! I like to have the radio quietly when I pitch the tent but I worry about the car battery going flat after being caught out last time, it was great to be able to listen to the radio while cooking and eating too.

I also remembered to take a book with me, I read a couple of chapters but I wasn't really in a reading mood. I did forget to take a pillow (not bothered about that) and a towel (more of a problem)