Monday 28 September 2015

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.
 

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