One night camping

We'd been planning to go camping last weekend with our friends the Fullers, but the weather was rather iffy all week, with sunshine and showers, and it became a rather last minute thing. Simon and Michelle took their boys, Freddie, 4, and Charlie, 2, on Friday night, and we went to join them on Saturday afternoon. As it turned out, the boys were sooo excited about camping that they wouldn't settle down on Friday evening, and the whole family went home at 10pm and slept there, leaving the tent up at the campsite! This was one of the benefits of camping in Henley on Thames, only a 20 minute drive home for them, and us! Simon and Michelle were testing out a big, new family tent, and it was the first time the four of them had been away camping together, so it made sense to stay local.
The campsite was lovely, just a ten minute walk into the centre of Henley, and for this particular weekend they allow dogs as it's "low season" - the cost was only £13 for the pitch, and because it was quiet at the campsite (only 5 or 6 other tents in the field) we could have had a pitch with electricity if we had anything with us that needed it!
Lara enjoyed playing with Freddie and Charlie, and clearly she charmed Freddie, whose previously had shown the usual toddler feelings towards the opposite gender, something like "girls are stupid", as he actually admitted on Sunday morning that Lara was "cute".
Lara took some time to calm down enough to go to sleep, but she'd had a nice day and was tired, and after a few minutes of Olga singing to her, she went off to sleep around 9pm and only woke once in the night for some water to calm a coughing fit. It was actually Mishka who woke us first, before 6am, he was crying and sniffing around, so I got up to take him for a walk, and by the time we came back at 6.30 Lara was starting to stir.

It was a nice morning, and so we all got up and made breakfast - the Fullers were up and moving by now too. By 9am the clouds started to gather, and after a stroll round Henley, by 10am the rain started to fall heavily, but the tent was up to the job and we all stayed dry, and the rain had given way to sun by 11am.
The benefit of the early start was that we were all packed up and ready to leave by 12.30, home by 1pm, and down in Wycombe town centre for a pub lunch by 2.30!

Here's our "little" tent, when compared the Taj Mahal of tents that Simon and Michelle had, and the familles playing before bedtime: