Author: Jasmine Price
Age: 10
One of my funniest and most interesting travel experiences has to be when my family and I ‘glamped’ in a posh tent called a Yurt in a quaggy field in windy Staffordshire in October.
I like camping but this was different, our teepee shaped tent stood alone in a huge swamp-like boggy field and our only neighbours were curious cows and sheep hanging around outside like moody teenagers offering fragrant whiffs which just added to the ‘natural’ experience.
The Yurt was cosy with warm beds and heavy duvets to protect us from the Staffordshire tornado erupting outside. The rain pounded down very hard upon the tent and the sound was magnified, I recommend earplugs when yurting.
We had no electricity in the yurt but lots of fire lights, candles and kindling to keep the wood burning stove going. Learning the skill of keeping a fire alight made me feel like Bear Grylls, except I wasn’t willing to go and kill the sheep outside, I made do with fried bacon.
The toilet was the most entertaining part of my experience, it was a shed next to the yurt, it’s funny smell added to its character, a mix of cow poo and herbs, a bit like my mum’s cooking. Inside there was no actual toilet, just a seat with a bucket underneath and another bucket filled with sawdust !? My dad had a hilarious time one morning when he made a visit, sat down and someone had not replaced the bucket underneath. Unfortunately he was too late realising this and whilst sitting he wondered why he had warm feet. I think he blamed it on the cows. We did laugh, well my mum didn’t when, unaware she went in afterwards…..
Glamping is all about the ‘outdoor experience’ so trudging through a muddy field with your wellies on, avoiding livestock at 6am just to have a wee was supposedly meant to enrich my life and teach me not to yearn for swimming pools and sunshine…I am an open minded child.
Another highlight was our wooden hot tub that sat outside containing hot water and 2 rubber ducks. In it we shivered, covered in goosebumps, just in time for the cold rain to drench us once more. A beautiful rainbow did blossom in front of our eyes afterwards which cheered me up, not so my mum who, blue with cold ran off during the rainstorm in her swimming costume, manic arms waving, almost slipping head first onto a very freshly dumped cowpat….she saw the funny side (a week later)
The Staffordshire countryside in deep and Arctic Autumn is a great place for adventure and laughter with your family, we ended our trip with a brilliant day at Alton Towers which was 10 minutes away and got there early having lots of turns on the empty rides making my Staffordshire Glamp a truly exciting, organic and happy holiday!
(Glamp in August, not October)