"Carry On Camping..."

Not having had a terribly restful sleep (I woke in the middle of the night to find the lights still on and husband snoring in time to dance music blasting from the radio - "sleep timer much?"), it is with some trepidation that I face the day. True, it's gorgeously sunny, and this weekend is meant to be the last hurrah of summer with temperatures predicted to hover around the 20 degree mark, but you won't find me sprawled on my customary place on the Common, lazily flipping through Grazia and steadily making my way through bouteille numero deux of a chilled Oyster Bay.

Instead, I'm apparently to be deposited in some giant field somewhere a few hours outside of the big smoke, courtesy of our 'Kamper Van', alongside four smelly boys, a load of undefrosted bacon and a giant bag of marshmallows. (Note to self: must remember the 'Night-Time Advil'.)

The husband tells me we'll be 'making a memory' for the boys, and that our boys need to get into a large field and run like dogs. True though that may be, the fact is that our boys are going to be bent perpendicular over their respective devices (ipads/ipods/nicked iphone), oblivious to anything around them, cramming marshmallows down their gobs and having simultaneous freak-outs when their batteries run out.

I can see it already: the husband will dutifully fry up some bacon, warm up some beans, and enthusiastically prepare food for all of us, revelling in his portable stove, the great outdoors and his ability to 'live off the land' (courtesy of Waitrose and the bottle of scotch he has no doubt already procured and stashed in the van somewhere). No one will eat anything and he'll be left scoffing the whole lot and feeling sick for the rest of the day. Squitty will enthusiastically agree to go on a long walk and then two minutes in will start his customary wail of, 'My LEGS are TIRED!" and the husband will have to hoick the chubby chicken up onto his shoulders where he will squirm, complain and rip his hair out in an attempt to hang on, before the walk is abandoned and we all return to sit in or around the van, plugged into our respective devices whilst the husband gives up on the whole lot of us and goes off to hang out with strangers camped nearby for the remainder of the time.

I know how this story goes, but am powerless to stop the wheels already in motion. Now where's that bloody Night-Time Advil????