My son and I were in the Ochils, not far from where we live, for our November camp. We were going for his camp-once-a-month-for-a-year challenge. This was his 11th month.
But life is busy. He had a rugby match in the morning, I did Parkrun, and by the time we'd had lunch and packed up, it was early afternoon.
We headed up past Stirling, and stopped at the Dunblane Marks and Spencer for pastries and snacks. We then headed up into the Ochils, parked at the side of the Sheriffmuir road, and walked in to an informal camp in the trees. There's a little sign there indicating that the camp is called 'Camp Runamuck', and a picnic table and fire ring.
At 4:30, we got in the the tent to escape from the rain. I'd brought in some kindling for a camp fire, and put it under the picnic table. Unfortunately, it wasn't a night for a fire.
The weather forecast, at least as far as I could recall it, had indicated that it would be partly sunny with a low chance of rain.
However, shortly after we'd set up the tent, the first rain drops started to fall. It strengthened, and rained for hours. Even in the middle of the night when I awoke, I could hear heavy drops on the tent fly. In the morning, the rain was intermittent, and finally paused.
It was a little chilly with the wind, so we ended up in our bags. We continued a book that I'd been reading to my son - Natural Born Heroes - which describes a WWII mission to kidnap a German general on Crete. The story is compelling, and the author includes quite a number of digressions, so we've been reading on and off now for about a year.
Later, still in the rain, I warmed some bacon in the tent vestibule (with the vestibule door open, of course). The warmed bacon butties were welcome, and somehow tasted better than at home.
We played Risk on my kindle. We were both a little tired, and after 8 p.m. turned in.
The rain continued all night.
In the morning, finally, the rain eased a bit. There was a little water on the tent floor where the fly didn't quite cover the tent, but otherwise my old tent held up well again. With our inflatable Therma-rests, our sleeping bags escaped the moisture.
There was an inversion, and the valley below was still in cloud.
We bundled up and headed into the hills. We ticked off another Ochil (we're trying to do them all). The hill was a broad peat bog, and the route was cross country, but it was good to get out. We headed back to camp and packed up.
And that was it. We'd been tent-bound from 4:30 p.m. until about 8 in the morning, except for pee breaks. One forgets how long the nights are at this time of year, but it's also a time for relaxing and enjoying being tent-bound in the rain.
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