It’s different here
in the UK of course. I never went camping with my dad. I never went camping at
all until I reached the grand old age of 24, and if I had gone with my dad I
would have found the whole experience to be quite different from that portrayed
in the American films I’d grown up with – we don’t have any bears for a start,
and as for camping in the wilderness… it can be more like camping on a council
estate (which is the British equivalent of a wild, untamed wilderness), since
in most cases campsites seem to be simply fields where people go for a cheap
holiday and to drink lots of lager, eat lots of barbequed food and sit about
being lairy, all side by side. Am I saying it’s a microcosm of British society?
Well, I wasn’t, but now I think about it, I suppose I could be.
Don’t get me wrong
though; camping is fun, I just haven’t really figured out what’s fun about it yet. Is it the sounds of people snoring from
across the field? No… is it waking up at three in the morning with a screaming
bladder and having to weigh up the benefits of emptying it against the
inconvenience of getting dressed lying down and then traipsing to the toilet
block in the cold and or dark and or wet? No, it’s not that either. Is it the
way you can never be sure of the weather, but how much fun you have depends on
it? Is it the kids that wake you up with their screaming and squealing at 7 in
the morning? Or the way it takes ages to
do anything? How it’s difficult to
get clean, stay clean, feel clean?
 |
| rocking it with the Stoli |
No, it’s none of
those things, but in spite of those
things, it’s good. It’s just something that people do in order to get a change
of scenery, and that in itself does them a world of good. There’s always
something new to see (and laugh at)… and it’s a great excuse for drinking with
your friends.
A couple of weekends
past, Mrs Cake and I decided to go camping on Anglesey, North Wales. I was
dispatched to Aldi to pick up some bottled beers for the missus, and while I
did so I started thinking about which of my spirits would be going with us. The
winner: Stolichnaya. There’s no point in taking your single malts when you’ll
be drinking from plastic beakers. I also picked up some Holsten Pils for me.
Ok, rules. First, find
the flattest pitch possible, as far away as possible from other campers, always
have your first beer while erecting the tent, reward yourself with a 2nd
beer as soon as the tent is up and carry an open can of beer around with you at
all times. Those seem pretty universal.
 |
| an empty shoe makes a handy drinks holder |
We stayed this time
at a site near the town of Moelfre, overlooking an enormous beach. It was a
peaceful site – in fact it would turn out to be too peaceful…
After a couple of
beers and dinner, I rolled a joint and we took it and a couple of cups of vodka
down to the beach for an early evening stroll, returning a little while later
with a happy buzz and a propensity for hysterics.
As the light faded
and we sat outside the tent that night, watching not very much in particular
happen, chatting and drinking a little more, I wondered – what’s it all about? Not life no, but why were we there? We were
just sitting in a field, not doing anything. And so was everyone else. We were having
a nice time, but couldn’t we have been having a nice time at home?
We could be having a
nice time at home, but while there would be more to entertain us, it wouldn’t
be the same – we wouldn’t be having quite
such a nice time. It’s the same reason you go on holiday.
As the evening wore
on, we moved our chairs into the shelter of the tent and continued the fun.
“This is great,
isn’t it?” I said. “It’s dead peaceful and relaxing, there’s no lairy people
about, it’s just really nice.”
Right at that moment
a man popped his head round and said, “just to let you know, it’s a very still
night and your voices carry a long way – you can be heard up to a quarter of a
mile away, so you know – just to let you know…”
So we were being
reprimanded for being noisy. It seems that for once we were the lairy ones. We looked around us and realised everyone
else on the entire campsite had gone to bed, and it was only 10.45! What the…
it’s Friday night! Why’s everyone gone to
bed?
Over the next hour
or so Mrs Cake and I went through a series of emotions and thought processes:
-
Yeah,
perhaps we were being a bit loud…
-
It is
after 10.30 (though we didn’t realise it at the time), and the campsite rules
did state ‘no noise after 10.30’…
-
We
weren’t being that loud!
-
It’s not
like we were shouting and swearing!
-
We might
have been jokingly singing that Taylor Swift Trouble song… you know, with the screaming goats.
-
How dare
they!
-
Oh
christ, was everyone able to hear what we were saying?
-
You
couldn’t have heard us a quarter of a mile away! The edge of the campsite isn’t
that far!
-
Ah, it’s
all right, he was kind of nice about it…
-
What a
dick.
-
Yeah, a bit neurotic
as someone whose had a few drinks and a joint might be… We kept ourselves a
little quieter on the Saturday night, though an incredibly Manc couple came
over to tell us we weren’t being that loud after all, which was nice. They had
been reprimanded for having a fire in a barbeque, which someone else had
earlier told them was ok. They compared the way the site was run to a
concentration camp with its military discipline and iron fist. You could see
the family home at the top end, and the Manc guy came over later to point out
that the owner was standing in his conservatory, surveying the site with a pair
of binoculars, like Ralph Fiennes in
Schindler’s List.
It wasn’t the first
time we’d heard the comparison – at the end of a walk to a nearby pub on the
Saturday we’d met an older couple who had asked where we were staying and
described the campsite as militaristic.
 |
| shower beer |
Ah well, we still had
a nice time and a good laugh, and that’s what it’s all about, eh? Yeah. And I was able to get a shower-beer in –
because the showers were warm and impeccably clean, so military discipline is
good for something.
A couple of weeks
later we camped with our friends Paul and Victoria in a field, behind a pub in
Derbyshire. This was a very different affair – more space, no noise
restrictions… and a pub, of course.
We’d been booze
shopping beforehand again, and this time we’d decided to try Asda just for a
change, and because they tend to have better deals on spirits than Tesco. I had
£30 burning a hole in my pocket and an intention to buy some gold rum.
 |
| shopping |
My idea had been to not buy two bottles, but I forgot this
when I was having trouble making a decision and Mrs Cake said, “you could buy two bottles”, so I did and here’s what I
ended up drinking that weekend in Derbyshire.
Mount Gay Eclipse
Class: Gold
Origin: Barbados
ABV: 40%
Price: £13
Presentation: I like
the bottle shape –rectangular with rounded shoulders – and it has a distinctive
label depicting a map of Barbados. It’s very recognisable.
Thoughts: I’ve read quite
a few nice things about this (user reviews on retail sites, blog reviews and
the like) but I can’t for the life of me understand why. To my palate this is
rough, grainy, thin and not particularly complex. It may have a 2.5% advantage,
but it also lacks the sweetness of Bacardi
Gold, which I would normally tend to look down on. I would actually prefer to like the Mount Gay Eclipse to
that, but I don’t. I’m not saying it’s a bad
rum, but it’s only good for mixing or for your hip flask.
Liberty Ship
Class: dark
Origin: unspecified
ABV: 37.5%
Price: £10
Presentation:
There’s nothing fancy here. It’s a very basic bottle with a very basic label
depicting a compass.
Thoughts: I have to
say I’m more impressed with this one than with the Mount Gay. Maybe it’s the
lower expectations and I know that for £10 it can’t be up to much, but for my
taste, there’s more going on here. Perhaps there should be, given that it is of
the dark variety…
On the nose I’m
getting balsamic vinegar, and in terms of palate it is dry and spicy. It’s
still not special, and it won’t get much use beyond cocktails and the hip flask
but it is marginally the better of my two camping purchases. In direct
comparisons with dark rums of a similar price point though, Lambs (thought
slightly more expensive in general) is preferable.
I did take both
bottles camping, and opened both, though I’m not sure why. One would surely
have sufficed. Perhaps I wanted to make sure there was some left for when we
got home, and there would be more likelihood of this if I dipped into two
bottles instead of relying on one. That must be it.
I know, it being the
middle of winter that this maybe isn’t the right time to be posting on this
topic, but such is arbitrary way in which I work. I mean, it doesn’t matter;
once it’s posted it’s there forever, so it will be relevant when spring rolls
around again.
And uh... yes, that’s
it for now. Have a good week!
No comments:
Post a Comment