late season camping

I'm not sure how it is that we often end up camping in April. It seems quite late in the season and the chances of being rained on (we were) or it getting really cold at night (it did) are fairly high.
Nevertheless, we often camp in April.

We are of the get dirty, don't brush hair, sleep in, play with bugs school of campers. It wasn't camping if we don't come home reeking of wood smoke, with mountains of laundry and a couple of scrapes and bruises.

However I've also always come home really, really tired. The one thing I don't do well camping is sleeping - this despite us having a super-comfy mattress in our trailer tent - far more comfortable than most people would be on hiking mattresses and the like - but I still struggle. I worry in the night if my babies are cold, if a dog's going to slip away and cause a nuisance in the campsite. I listen to the wind and wonder if we extinguished the fire well enough. I strain to remember if we put the milk away, or imagine I hear the rustle of a small creature in our bread rolls. I wonder if I need a wee and then balk at the thought of getting up and finding shoes ... I wonder if anyone else needs a wee...

But this time, in addition to tons of food and warm clothes and swimsuits and first aid and and and ... all the other camping clobber, I packed ...  sleeping pills.

And that my friends, made all the difference.

Fabulous long weekend camp with old friends, lots of sleep, great food, some sunshine, some rain (ha ha quite a lot of rain), one stinky sewer, a full moon, some cows and a chameleon named Steve.