It feels like an age since I was able to report on a camp of our own. The Pandemic lockdown was a massive blow to the group and since then we have held our camps under the umbrella of other events but not had a camp of our own.
At this meet we were also joined by members of the “Wicked Lanterns” group who share our interest in collecting non pressurised paraffin / kerosene lanterns and seem to be a good fit with the atmospheric camps we like to set up.
Richard joined us with his Oz Tent which is not unlike an old Baker Tent. He even tricked it out with some bunting to get into the spirit of things.
James brought a converted Army Tent that he normally trades from but it fitted very well into the camp as well.
Of course, lanterns were the flavour of the month and it was wonderful to see such a variety on show.
It was suggested that we move from our usual pitch to a more open area deeper into the site. This was to avoid getting caught up in a large wedding party but actually the new pitch has some advantages that we might avail ourselves of again.
Much more open than our usual location, it gave us space to spread out, which given to number of lanterns we brought, was a good thing.
Since our visit to the stove and lantern meet at Newark last year both Steve and I have expanded our collections somewhat and at the BushMoot earlier this year we had well over a hundred in use.
Inventive as ever, Colin had produced a shadow caster for his tent. Unfortunately he was unable to stay long so I only have this phone shot to show you.
Kathryn’s display has continued to grow and we also enjoyed another Magic Lantern show including some new slides contributed by Colin.
Debs and I were in the Bell tent again but we set up a tarp nearby that allowed us to move much of the gear out for a better view.
This gave us a very useful kitchen preparation area not too far from the main fire place.
A nice feature of the new pitch is that it comes with its own fire shelter.
This did mean that it would have been impractical to use our much loved fire rig but it also meant it saved us needing to set up the monster tarp.
I have to say that for our purposes it worked really well and we have already started to consider how we can adapt it further for next time.
In conclusion, the meeting went very well and discussions were had about more such joint meetings in the future.
We are considering Easter next year as a few people felt that Halloween was a bit hard core for camping.
Watch this space...
