Of camping, rain and great customer service
by Tamsin Hemingray in At home on 15.08.08
Is it unbelievably stupid still to be going camping in Pembrokeshire tomorrow when the five day forecast on the BBC weather site looks like this:
Looks like rain
Yes. I know the answer already. But, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I love camping with all my heart.
The tent my family and I will be sheltering from the storm in is of the super-duper, lots of separate “pods” and a nice porch area variety. We’ll be sharing it with another family - in fact it’s their tent. It is freshly delivered by Vango, the maker, who replaced it without quibble or prejudice after the previous one was ripped to shreds in the coastal storms that battered Dorset a few weeks ago. Vango are famous amongst persons of a camping persuasion like me for their tents’ lifetime guarantee. Apparently, even damage caused by being crazy enough to pitch your tent in a gale is covered by this.
When I compare that kind of warantee with, say, the warantee on my mobile phone - today I was told that apparently my phone company’s technical team have detected “water damage” in my phone that just stopped working for no reason last week, and so they’re going to make me claim for a new one on my insurance so I’m now going to have pay £25 excess to get a working phone - I’m impressed. It typifies for me the honesty of camping. It’s not fancy, it’s not clever.
But in a howling gale, it’s also not much fun. Stiff upper lip, campers!
Add your comment