Camping is Dangerous to the Health

We've been 'enjoying' the current Melbourne heatwave by camping near the sea over the long weekend (it's Labor Day here).  Saturday was terribly unpleasant.  Our little camping group ended up with people chasing shade and flopping out on the grass, arms spread wide to soak up any hint of coolness possible.  I went to sleep like that, because, you know, if you sleep through the heat you don't feel it so much.

Our injury list for the weekend became quite long.  One of the boys around Mr Busy's age ended up with a broken hand due to some rough-housing type boy play.  Mr Busy has been suffering a bit of dehydration I think, partly from the heat and partly from not drinking enough on his school camp last week.  One of the mum's ended up with awful lobster-red sunburn on her legs from sitting in the water one afternoon.

I ended up spectacularly spraining both ankles.  My story is that the caravan threw me out the door quite unceremoniously.  Truthfully, I twisted one ankle as I stepped down and then the other twisted even worse.  There was a lot of noise and tears involved.  And ice.  And pain.  I have a rather nasty bruise on my arm as well, although I didn't realise I'd even hurt it at the time. The good news is that I can walk, albeit it very slowly.

On Mr Busy's school camp last week there were lots of wombat encounters.  Wombats looking for food, specifically.  They're not quite as dangerous as bears but they still do their fair share of demolishing.  Mr Busy apparently had a wombat in his tent on the first night whilst the kids were on a night walk.  He had done the right thing and all his belongings survived and are intact, but the tent did not survive.   Somehow each night there was some child who didn't put their food in the bus and had a wombat visit them to share their food. How appropriate to be reading 'Diary of a Wombat' by Jackie French in the lower Primary classes last week.  I wonder if Jackie had met the wombats at Wilson's Prom before writing that book?!

Every camping trip needs to come home with some good stories.  I think we've got our share of them stored up for now.  Miss Mischief is off on a camping trip for school this coming week.  I'm praying for everything to go smoothly....no wombats, injuries or other unnecessary challenges.