HOLIDAYS = TENTS, BUGS, AND DO IT YOURSELF

AND CHILDREN WHO DREAMED OF A LE FOUR SEASONS HOTELS! "CAMPING" - we're going CAMPING???" EEEUW" Are the horrified replies to the news of

another family holiday.

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"There are, bugs, spiders, snakes AND, I add to this woefull exchange, YOU WILL HAVE TO WASH THE DISHES AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN STRETCHERS, plus sweep out the dirt floor and keep it tidy as there is not much room for us all!"

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"You also get to go to the beach and to your aunts farm which you love, in exchange for which, you all wash the dishes etc. etc........"

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The idea grows on them and they even start looking forward to the tenting holiday, that is until one day reality strikes.

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"Oh girls, I need your help out here" calls their father. They peer out of the windows and ....... it's getting worse, dad has the WHOLE tent out on the lawn in pieces. and it is no small tent. it has three 3 rooms after all.
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Soooooo..... while dad instructs, they are under the tent trying to fit poles together and attach the right rooms to the right poles - they got 11 out of 10 from me, that was for sure! It was at this time that their dad earned himself the name Major Dad, and he remained so for many years after that.
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It all had to come down of course as that was the trial run. It was folded up, and packed in the trailer, to be carted off to some part of the South African East Coast.


Shirley never married her four seasons husband, he is a hotel manager sure, but their best times are camping and going on nature walks. How our values change as we grow older and once the children arrive the emphasis of our lives becomes one of family and all that families should be to one another.

I remember this day. Brian was 2, tired, too much sun, hot, hungry, you know the story. So big sister Lisa took him back to the tent and it looks as though they are both enjoying playing with Brian's toy cars.

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Notice the little fridge in the background, and in the trailer we kept all our provisions.

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In the evenings we would sit in the "lounge" and play board games, what fun it was to do things we do did not normally do.

Off to the beach with their nets. The beach is just past the trees down the track, it has lovely rock pools with all sorts of interesting things swimming around in them. HHHmmmmmm, they don't seem worried now about spiders and snakes.

The tent is packed up and now we are on the farm. It is an Angora sheep farm owned by their Uncle and Aunt. They learned to inject, dip and round up sheep. Even did a bit of sheering!

This picture is not part of the holiday but it fitted into the outdoor way of life that my children enjoyed most of their growing up years. Here they are walking among baby elephants at feeding time. It was taken at a place called Tambuti Lodge, a few miles outside Triangle, Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

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Sooooo..... when I look back it is fair to say that they had more fun than they admitted to?