Writers Abroad Magazine Issue 2 March 2015 | Page 25

WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE
hours later we were lying wide awake in our sleeping bags on our camp beds, listening
to the rain bounce off the tent.
We soon realised why no other campers had pitched up near us. We were at the
bottom of a slope and the rain ran straight down and flooded our temporary home.
Everything got soaked. I worried that the car would get bogged down in the mud; Helen
fretted that the wind would blow the tent away. We both wanted to give up and go to
the cheap hotel across the road and then go home. But neither of us said anything.
We had each independently decided that our muddy misery was preferable to the
choruses of “I told you so” that would have greeted our return after just 48 hours.
The next day the sun shone, as it did for the rest of the holiday. We even reached
Biarritz. It was the first of many camping trips to France. Years later, Gavin and I would
stay in gites and hotels, but I still get a pang of nostalgia whenever I see signs to
Camping Municipal. WA

25 | M a r c h 2 0 1 5