30th Birthday: Camping Weekend

Many, many months ago, an idea formed in Tom’s mind to hold a surprise 30th birthday weekend for me where we would go camping alongside lots of other friends and have a meal on the Sunday with our families too.  Now, those of you who know me will know though I am probably one of the most difficult people ever to plan a surprise for.  My addiction to crime and law type programmes (see: currently ploughing through Scandal) is mainly because in another life I’d have loved to be involved in the Police in crime analytics or anything investigative – so as soon as I caught a whiff that something was being planned I naturally cross-examined Tom until, a few weeks ago I pretty much had everything figured out and had completely spoiled the surprise.  I know – I am AWFUL.  The good thing though, is that finding out all of the plans meant that I had loads to look forward to (and could plan what I was going to wear – isn’t that always the downside of a surprise, you’re never wearing the right clothes).

SO – the weekend before last, we headed off to Eweleaze Farm near Weymouth for three nights of camping by the sea, on a farm – what could be cooler than that? What I didn’t know until a couple of days before is that Eweleaze Farm has farm animals wandering around, a stonebaked pizza oven and hot food cabin, piglet handling and sheep shearing and even a meditation tent and a Turkish Bath.  It was a rather special campsite to say the least! Tom had also arranged for us to stay in a bell tent, complete with super-comfy double bed and lots of fairy lights – right up my street! I think Bodhi liked it too…

Bell tentBodhi camping

One of my friends arrived that night with her own tent to pitch outside ours, so we had a little party in our tent with some champagne! Tom and Kate cheekily arranged some birthday cupcakes and candles so that when I popped out to go to the loo they were waiting for me when I got back! They were absolutely amazing and disappeared pretty quickly….

Birthday cupcakesBirthday cupcakes

After a couple of drinks, the three of us and Bodhi decided to go for an explore of the campsite and to search out some food.  We were treated to a rather beautiful sunset…

Sunset
Bodhi and Tom

As I mentioned, the campsite has a hot food cabin, a stonebaked pizza van, a bakery, a patisserie and an ice cream shop!  You can sit outside and eat your dinner under strings of fairy lights.  We opted for pizza, and after a bit more champagne and some campsite wandering, we were ready for our beds.

Food area
Hot food

The next day we got up and had a leisurely loll in camping chairs in our PJs, before brewing cups of tea on the gas stove and visiting the hot food cabin for breakfast baps (we had these included in our bell tent stay – pretty awesome!) A couple more of my friends arrived, and then also Kate’s family, so we had two little girls to use as token children to give us an excuse to visit the piglets! The brown one was my favourite.

Piglets
Pig

We also went for another walk around the campsite and along some of the South West coastal path.  I think you’ll agree, it’s a pretty awesome location for a campsite!

View

Campsite view
Beach

In the evening it was BBQ time, and some of Tom and mine’s friends who live in nearby Weymouth joined us for some BBQing and cider and champagne drinking! We love our two little BBQs, they are perfect for camping or BBQs in the garden for just the two of us.

Barbecue

Archie the pug definitely liked the smell of the barbecue!

Pug

One of our friends brought with her some home-baked and utterly delicious Oreo cupcakes, as well as a Bose speaker, so we blasted out 90s R&B tunes and munched on cake until it got dark – also lighting a campfire to keep us warm.  Unfortunately around 10pm the UK’s version of Hurricane Bertha set in, bringing with it almost immediate torrential rain and strong winds! We then all did the campsite rain scramble – grabbing whatever needed to be put indoors and hiding in our tents watching the rain.  This brought the party to a rather sudden close and we all snuggled into our duvets and tried to sleep through the storm (which was totally impossible).

The next day we cured our sogginess and slight hangovers with McDonalds breakfasts (the hot food cabin was so busy they couldn’t sell hot food!) and I waved goodbye to my friends, with Tom and I filling the remaining day and a half with trips to the Turkish bath, reading, walks around the campsite and post-storm snoozes.  We also had a lovely meal out on the Sunday with both of our parents at the Pie and Ale House in Weymouth.  Perfection – and what an amazing way to celebrate my 30th birthday! Tom is a good egg for organising it, isn’t he? I am a lucky lady!

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