The 29th of June is a special date as it’s the big Wild Night Out – an initiative which once a year encourages people of all ages to get outside and enjoy the outdoors for the evening. Millets, the outdoor clothing and camping people are getting behind this idea and kindly sent us some camping gear to try out our very own Wild Night Out! The initiative was set up as fewer people are getting outside. Only a third of children in Britain spend more than an hour a day outdoors (though not mine – mine are always outside and getting filthy!). If you want to take the kids camping, here are some great camping with kids tips.
So to do our bit, we set up our own mini garden festival with tents, beach chairs, sleeping bags, bunting and fairy lights!
June is a perfect time of year to get outdoors too, the weather tends to be milder (though, obviously this is the UK so it could also be scorching or chucking it down, either way!), and the garden is in full bloom. Serendipitously, we set up our tents under a beautiful wild rose that was wonderfully scented at dusk.
You can see all the roses in the hedge to the left of the blue tent!
The children each chose a tent and a parent – I shared with Master T in the blue tent (it’s a Eurohike Cairns Tent) while Miss H went in with Mr Wonders in the Teepee (Eurohike Teepee 4 Person Tent). The Teepee was fab actually and really easy to put up. You stretch and peg the tent into the ground, put up a single pole in the middle and then peg out your guy ropes. Job done in ten minutes! You can stand up in the middle too which is great, plus, how cool does it look?
As twilight set in, and then darkness, we all got cosied up in jumpers and blankets and I made us all hot chocolate. We then took turns stargazing with the telescope Mr W bought me for Christmas a few years ago. Earlier in the day we had downloaded an app to my tablet that shows you which constellation is which and we then mapped them with the telescope. We live on a farm and have lots of resident owls in the old barns that kept us company with their hooting and swooping around. It’s never quiet around here – not to mention the dawn chorus of birds and sheep starting at around 3.30am!
We had some battery powered fairy lights that I surrounded the teepee door with and in the background on the tree you can see our gorgeous solar festoon lights.
This vintage looking bulb is also solar and can be hung from the roof of your tent.
After our stargazing session, the children indulged in a ‘midnight’ feast before eventually falling asleep! All in all we had a lovely family night. Camping in your garden is free and easy to do if you have the space. But more importantly it was an exciting adventure for the children to be out, looking at the stars and experiencing the wildlife in a different way.
This is a collaborative post with Millets.