Bell Tent Life - too many nic nacks and not enough time!

Following on from the first few nights and a few weeks before the tent's first official outing I decided to get some things for it. Nothing like a last minute shop to get the stress levels up. I took a lot of inspiration from the Bell Tent group on facebook, what a lovely group!!!

Firstly I had to keep it all secret as it was a big surprise for my girlfriend Cheryl, all she knew at this point was I had bought some things and a tent. So I spent my mornings on eBay and Facebook collecting bits and bobs for the tent. Unfortunately not everything came on time but as I write this I am about to pack-up to see Cheryl later this week and take the new things with me. We live a few hours apart so I travel down to see her when possible, hence the tent as my house has now sold (see pic) and I will stay in the tent for the interim period while we find a house together. Dogs aren't allowed where she lives so the tent seemed like a good idea.

The gathering of things was a massive success, people kept coming over and asking to have a look in the tent as I started to adorn it with bunting and fairy lights - as I explained about the surprise more and more people came over. It did make me smile when a few of the couples walked away and the ladies said to the men "you never do things like that for me" and I figured I owed the men of the camp a beer haha.

So here's the tent in all it's glory. I'll write a little on each thing as I did comment on the group's post that I would tell everyone how and where I got things from.

Flooring:

Coir Matting sounded a touch harsh on the ol' feet so bought some rag rugs and some sheepskins. I also went to Asda to pick-up a fire-pit and ended up buying a huge thin black throw and a rubber backed mat. 

I didn't like the idea of walking straight in the tent so I looked in our wood store (have wood burning stoves at home) and found some softwood planks in various sizes and some paracord, then tied them all together with one continuous thread. The idea being that I could transport them around as a load of planks and create it each time. Although I ended up using it as firewood in the end to save packing it up.

Links:

• Rag Rugs £26 & £7.50
• Black throw
• Door Mat
• Sheepskins £18.00 & £20.00
• Deer Skins £13.50 x 2

Seating:

It's a long story but I have three carved African chairs, all for less than £20 each. The really small one you see in the top picture is great for in the tent. I only had one delivered at the time but I have a matching one to take this week. The larger chair was so comfy and spent it's time by the fire pit. They are just two pieces of wood that slot together which means they fold away flat.

• Chair 1 - 99p
• Chair 2 - £25.00
• Chair 3 - £11.50

Cooking:

The firepit came from eBay and the cooking tripod was from eBay but I was too late so I called the guy and found out that he was 45 minutes from the camp site so I drove down to meet him in a car park. A bargain at £20! locally picked up.

Links: 

• Firepit - £25.00
• Cooking Tripod £25.00 (Call: 07906372003)

Storage:

A simple box found on eBay for £30, I did prefer some others but time was tight. Although it did it's job perfectly well.

Link: 

• Wooden Box £29.00

Lighting:

I have more than what is shown in the photos as you can see from the links. I wanted a chandelier but I also wanted to make something as Cheryl is VERY good at making things and I wanted to show that I could turn my hand to something creative. 

So the lights are suspended from the main pole ring using some jack chain (hanging baskets) which you can get for about £2 a length. Using pliers I bent the links in places and hung a round parasol candle holder from it. Then I put another two chains down and hung some tealight lamps from that. I also have another tealight holder which didn't come on time, I plan to do the same and have all three in there. I found that searching for 'parasol candle holder' gave some awesome results but mainly from USA.

The little LED lights around the tent pole and the bed are battery powered. However the external ones... I can't remember where it was, I went shopping with a friend on the first night camping, had a drink, bought a toy unicorn and the rest was a blur :-/

Links:

• Top holder £2.00
• Two Lamps - £14.00
• New one £2.20
• LED lights £3.95 ea
• Bulb lights (not in tent) £9.49

Bunting / Accessories:

I got the bunting because Cheryl loves Alice in Wonderland so I found these on eBay. The signs on the pole I tied to the pole using some string that I found on the labels of the mats and the outside bunting I tied on using the guy ropes. Although they ended up ruined because the morning dampness soon lifted the ink off, to be expected though.

Links:

• Signs £6.95
• Bunting £5.99
• Buddha £19.99

And now for all the piccies.

Bell Tent Life

This year has been manic to say the least, so manic that the house is now sold and I have no-where to live per-se. I have to wait for my partner to sell hers and we don't want to rush into a new one. I cannot move to where she is as it's no dogs allowed so I figure the next best thing was to buy a tent. Yes it's nearly October and yes it does sound mental but after months of research I found out that I'm not the only one!

I have slept in it in the garden for a bit and also been away at a game fair which went really well, they really are worlds apart from a nylon tent and I would never go back even after this short time.

After much hunting around I found what looked like a good company called Dusky Deer (https://duskydeer.co.uk/). They just seemed quite personable on the site and explained the benefits well. So I parted with £399 of my hard earned pennies and purchased a 4m Bell.

Before this and whilst I was waiting for it to be delivered I spent weeks buying little things for it but kept it as a secret from my partner Cheryl. I took lots of inspiration from a fantastic group on facebook where everybody was so helpful and lovely. More on the bits and bobs that are in and on the tent >>here<<.

The tent came within a few days and I decided to get it pitched up so it could at least have one night of rain on it to weather it before I went away. I was amazed at how quick and easy they are to put up! 20 minutes and I was done, including putting some wooden guy doobreyfirkins on to replace the plastic ones.

The first night it rained, oh boy did it rain! So much that it came in the tent a little. Not through the fabric but through the zip on the groundsheet which was directly attributable to my shocking pegging out of the guy ropes leading to water wicking up underneath the skirt. That said, after 8 hours of heavy rain there wasn't enough to wet a tea-towel. The following morning was nice and sunny but amazingly it wasn't like a Chinese sweat shop inside like the nylon tent was. I was sold!

After a few days the weather dried up and I managed to pack it away, quickly realising that even though it was in the garden I needed to put something under the groundsheet so I didn't have to brush it all down as I packed it away so much. So the first purchase was an £8 blue groundsheet from B&Q.

Fitting it in the car was another story altogether. I bought, and bought, and bought, to the point that I couldn't see out of the rear view mirror and I could just see my left wing mirror. So the drive down was spent in the slow lane of the motorway due to not being able to see my blind spot!

The drive down was eventful as I had to pick-up a wooden box on the way and some camping fire irons. When I picked the box up I realised that I couldn't fit in in the car and had to unpack it in the middle of a street in Nottingham so I could put some things into it and put it back in the car! It dawned on me at that point that the firepit I was supposed to be picking up in Telford later certainly would not fit!

Long story short, it just fit and the first outing was a massive success.... more to follow.

Nice large bag with plenty of room.
No more trying to squeeze a tent down.

Lots of really strong pegs and some nice touches with the wooden guy things.

Really simple to lay out, few pegs into the groundsheet and then it's in with the pole.

One pole in and just the A frame to go.

Not a bad first job I thought, Even frank was impressed.

A quick lie down to take in how large it really was and I was immediately covered in spaniel.