Sunset from the Tent

Sunset from Tent
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

Quite a nice sunset, not sure this photo does it justice really.

It's getting very cold so I think it's sleeping bag time.

This is the 9th night I have stayed near the office and as a result I have now saved 1440 miles.

Disposable Tent

Disposable Tent
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

I'm pitched next to one of those disposable tents that you can get from Argos for £9.99. It's a bit tiny really but I like the idea of a cheap (very cheap) tent, can't understand what makes it disposable apart from the price...

Throwing it away after use seems like a big waste to me, but I guess that being able to pitch it and not worry about it being damaged by drunken idiots (at festivals etc) is a good thing.

Weather is actually still OK, I am surprised!

The future

I'm all packed and ready for another night in the tent, it hasn't rained much today (if at all) so based on previous experience I can expect a massive storm to be heading my way as I type.

I'm actually not phased by a bit of bad weather because I know that I can keep myself warm and dry all night, it's more of an inconvenience rather than anything to worry about.

I think I can easily carry on camping a couple of times each week throughout the summer and probably the Autumn too, I think the winter would be alright but I would need to invest in some better gear. My sleeping bag would need to be changed and I think I would go for a smaller, quicker pitching tent... probably a pop-up tent like this.

If I had some spare cash I would probably think about getting myself some sort of camper van to see me through the cold spell, I could even make do with a normal van and add equipment to it to make it more homely, I'll have a think about it and see what the finances look like after the summer holiday.

That was all shockingly long-term wasn't it?

A little lie

The site
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

I lied to my boss today...

She asked me where I stayed last night and I pretended that I had stayed in a Travelodge! I just didn't feel like dealing with the "I think you're a bit weired" looks I think I'd get if I told the truth.

Last night was really quite nice, the sun was out and it was pretty warm. I woke up this morning at 5am and it was like there was a monsoon outside... I waited until 6am and it hadn't eased up at all so I decided to take the tent down as quickly as possible. I pretty much un-pegged it and threw it in the back of the car... it will stay there until the morning as I've done a 14hr day and I din't feel like sorting it right now.

Today

I've got a busy couple of days ahead. In a little while I have to head up to Nuneaton for a meeting, after that I need to be in Lichfield and early tomorrow morning I have a meeting in Crewe.

What I should do is try to find a site near junction 16 of the M6 but I think I'll probably stick with what I know rather than trying to find something at the last moment.

While I'm up near Crewe I will spend a bit of time having a look at different sites, I often have to work up there and it would be useful...

Comments

Someone (thanks Andy!) pointed out to me that you could only comment on this site if you were a Blogger/Blogspot user... I didn't realise this was the case (it's the default setting) so I've changed that now.

All comments are welcome!

Drying

Prodigyremixed.com - music to dry your fly-sheet to.

One of the few downsides to all this camping is trying to get the tent dry between trips. I've been pretty unlucky with the weather and I think I'm right in saying that it has rained, at least a bit, each time I have camped. I think even in dry weather the inside of the fly-sheet will be wet because of the condensation, if I didn't pack the tent down first thing in the morning it would probably help but I'm not on holiday and I've got to go early.

So, I made an elaborate drying system in the garden a little bit earlier with copious amounts of nylon rope... the tent was hanging for about 20 minutes before the heavy rain started.

I'm now going for the "chuck it over the banister" method..

Dawn

Dawn
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

This was around 5.40am, the sun was rising above the pitch. It seems like a long time since the sun was out so I thought I had better record the moment. It was pretty cold and now it's grey and miserable again.

Good Morning

I think that was actually one of the better nights sleep I've had in the tent so far, I feel pretty good this morning.

I think the key was a better bed; up until last night I have only had a couple of cheap fleece blankets, apart from the time I tried the old airbed and that let me down (literally) in the night. Last night I used the old airbed (deflated) as a bit of primary insulation, then the new airbed (which stayed up all night!) and then the two fleece blankets between my sleeping bag and the airbed. All told, it was pretty comfortable and much warmer than on previous occasions... I think I might be getting the hang of this!

So, as I said, a comfortable nights sleep but I did get awoken on a few occasions by the local wildlife. A couple of times during the night something was creeping around the back of the tent, I couldn't work out what it was exactly but my adrenaline fuelled state of "super alertness" helped me figure out that it was a smallish animal, rather than the larger axe-wielding variety I have been training myself to look out for.

Later (shortly before sunrise) a duck quacked right next to my head. I have no shame in telling you that I very nearly soiled my sleeping bag.

Anyway, I got up around 5.45am and had coffee and breakfast, packed all the gear and the (wet) tent into the car, showered and headed to work (in a rather fetching new pair of pin-stripe trousers), I was in the office by 7.45am. I could have chosen to be productive but I thought I'd write this instead.

I wonder what the other people in the office would say if I told them where I sleep at night...

Miserable

Image028
Originally uploaded by Saturner.

Pitching the tent tonight was a pretty miserable time, raining and standing water on the grass. Just think, I could have driven home and spent time with my wife and daughter....

Still, I have perked up a little bit now, the tent is watertight, the airbed is comfy, I have cooked the chilli (need to work on the rice) and I have laptop/mp3 player for entertainment.

1120 miles saved!

On rain and food

Earlier on today, for a very brief moment, the sun came out. I can tell you that there is absolutely no sign of blue sky at the moment. The weather is a mixture of plain damp and torrential rain. I have debated (with myself) the merits of staying Vs going home and I think I'll give it a go...

Is Lichfield officially the wettest place in the UK? I think someone should look into it.

Another aspect of the whole money saving thing is the forward preparation of meals to take camping, this weekend I bought a very large pot to facilitate this and I'm quite excited by it! Yesterday I cooked a massive chilli (using 1kg of minced beef!) and transferred it to meal sized bags in the freezer, it did *loads*. This morning I took a frozen bag of chilli from the freezer and transferred it to a cool-bag in the car, I'll cook some rice on the Trangia later and then chuck it in. Fingers crossed!

Future large scale cooking plans involve: Vegetable soup, Pasta sauces and curries. If you can think of anything else that is cheap to produce in bulk, use the comments below.

Watching the sky

You know, I thought summer would be here by now.

I've got all my gear in the car and the plan is to stay over tonight, it's very wet at the moment but I think it's due to clear up a little later on. I think I'll probably stay here anyway regardless of the weather, good weather is better but even in bad weather it's still better than driving all the way home just to turn back again a few hours later.

One of the few downsides to this camping lark is trying to get the tent dry between outings. I have been hanging it in the garden and that's worked OK but the weather isn't great and on Saturday morning I was afraid the high winds would damage it. I think the answer is to rig something up in the garage so that it can hang in there.

After the disaster of my last attempt at using an airbed my lovely wife went out and bought me a new one! It's a Eurohike double and I'm hoping the air stays in this time!

Updates later.

I made it!

Well, I made it through the night OK but I can't say that it was the most restful night I've ever had. The wind was pretty strong, weather forecast said it would be gusting to gale-force, certainly felt (and sounded) like it. The rain came later on and was very heavy in it's own right, coupled with the wind it was a bit like being inside a power shower...

The good news (for me) is that the tent stayed intact and watertight, I'm really pleased with this because I could have spent much, much more money on it and it's looking like I didn't make a bad choice.

Sleeping on the airbed was rubbish, I think it's leaking around the valve cap... it goes down pretty quickly. There was one very brief moment as the air was escaping that it was really comfortable, like floating in the sea, all the other times it wasn't worth the effort... I won't take it again.

More good news is that I have now saved a total of 960 commuting miles, not too shabby eh?

Judgement night

The tent is up (for now) and the weather forecast has described tonight as "a wild night", not as much fun as it sounds, it's going to be w-i-n-d-y.

Correction - it is windy already.

Airbed seems to have developed an even bigger leak and my lighter has bust and I can't light the stove.

Am I having fun? Hmmm.

Still, I am about to find out if a sub- £30 tent can survive a storm!

Weather

According to the weather forecast I can expect heavy rain and 50-60mph winds tonight, something to look forward to!

So far I have only had one night where it was very windy and rainy, everything held up OK and there were no leaks in the main tent although there was some water coming into the porch area. We'll see how it goes tonight... if it gets too bad then I can retreat to the car like a great big pansy.

Speaking of being a great big pansy; I shall be using the airbed for the first time tonight, first time I have ever camped with an airbed as it just doesn't seem right somehow. A small consolation is that it has a bit of a leak, so although I might go to sleep on an airbed I'll be waking up on the floor!

This week

This week it's looking like I'll only be camping on Thursday night, I'll be working from home a couple of days before then which is an even better way of saving those commuter miles.

The weekend was camping free, apart for the obligatory session of hanging bits of tent in the garden in an attempt to dry them out.

The next thing on my list of things to source is a couple of decent sturdy boxes to hold all the gear when in transport (in the back of the car) or in storage (at home). In an ideal world I'd get a couple of nice flight cases, a big one to hold the tent, sleeping bags, airbed (and pump) and a smaller on to contain stove, fuel, food etc. I'd like to be able to secure the boxes together with ratchet straps and then secure them to the lashing points in the back of the car. Cost may well be prohibitive though, flight cases are expensive and those Council issued recycling boxes are looking like a cheap DIY alternative!

A discovery

As this whole thing is partly about saving money I have been very economical when it comes to purchasing all the camping gear I'm using. The single most expensive item was the tent, but I shopped around for a long time and I got the model I wanted for £24.99 which is a bargain (it's £60 in some shops).

One of the things I didn't buy was a camping mat (roll mat) or anything of a similar ilk to sleep on, this was an oversight really but I've been getting on fine without one by using a couple of fleece blankets. If I can manage without something then it's not necessary, even something cheap like a roll mat!

The down side to not sleeping on anything is that the ground is cold and it can sap heat, even through sleeping bags, it also causes a bit of condensation overnight and stuff gets damp.

Ages ago we used to have an airbed, but it was a cheap one and it didn't get much use... I *thought* it had been thrown away a long time back but I just found it!

Now, camping with an airbed isn't really "back to basics" but it's something I already have and it's going to make things more comfortable...result!

It's a good job that space isn't an issue!

Last night

I didn't really have a good nights sleep last night, it's the snoring that does it... I'm worried about keeping other people awake and so I only sleep very lightly.

I was up, packed, showered and off the site by 7am this morning, it was a lovely sunny morning and it was nice to be in the office early. Knackered now though.

Chillin'

Tent is up, so much easier when it's not pouring down with rain! It's a very pleasant evening actually, looks like there is going to be a nice sunset soon and then I think I might see if I can get an early night and an early start.

I cooked dinner on the Trangia as usual, did a pretty mean Chilli but I'm not good at judging portions, I made way too much really but I stuck at it and managed to eat all of it. A bit stuffed now though!

For the first time ever I'm not the only tent on the site, a van pulled up a while ago and a couple have pitched their tent about 50' away.. not a problem of course but I do worry about snoring, mine specifically as I'm told it's very, very loud. Not much I can do about it though...

Sat in the sunshine earlier with a decent cup of coffee and watched the world go by, very relaxing.

One thing I hope for with this lark is to become a little less materialistic, I'm not too bad but I guess I take a lot of stuff for granted. I'm hoping that by going back to basics, even for short spells, I can remind myself of what is important. One route to all this is to watch the pennies, I am trying to spend as little as possible and it makes planning meals something that takes a bit of thought rather than a call to Dominoes! All in all I'm still feeling good about this!

800 miles saved now!

Getting Ready

I'll be camping tonight for the fifth time since I started this experiment, this will take me up to 800 miles of commuting avoided and around 80 litres of diesel that I haven't had to pump into the car (am going to miss the Tesco Clubcard points though!).

The weather is really very nice at the moment, I hope it lasts but I have proved to myself that I'm not just a fair-weather camper and I'm willing to put up with a bit of cold and damp!

There are still a few bits of equipment I need to buy; I don't have a sleeping mat or airbed or anything like that, I'm not bothered about the comfort too much but the ground saps heat and you tend to get a bit of condensation overnight. As I'm all about being on a budget for this experiment I won't be buying more equipment but I'll recycle something else... I think a nice bit of carpet off-cut will do nicely!

Planning on putting the tent up at about 6pm tonight, I'll have laptop and GPRS connection so maybe I'll post a progress report here!

Introduction

I'm Steve, I'm 29 years old, I live in North Oxfordshire in the UK.

I spend a lot of my life commuting to and from work, I am driving an average of 35,000 miles per year and have done so for the last four years, I'm very tired.

I work in Procurement and Logistics on a very large civil engineering project in the UK, the project covers a large area (400 miles long) and this is the reason that I can't always be working in an office close to home.

I tend to work in certain "sub projects" for around 12 months at a time, then move to another location (often further from home). Right now my main office is 80 miles from home and it can take two hours to do the journey in rush hour traffic.

Early in 2006 I decided that too much of my income and (possibly more importantly, my time) was being spent on commuting. All the traveling has made me tired, broke, unfit and miserable... I could change my job, or I could change my approach to commuting.

My solution is to stay a couple of nights per week near the office, the cheap way of doing this is to camp there in a tent. I can reduce my weekly mileage from 720 miles to 288 miles and regain some of my life at the same time.

This is my story.