Roughing it - or not

Posted at 08:52 on 03 August 2006

This is the twenty-fourth Faith Camp and my twenty-second.

Normally I stay in a tent on the showground, but this year I'm in the hotel -- the Sleep Inn at the Peterborough service station on the A1.

It does have some advantages. I get a good night's sleep, I don't have to share the showers with five thousand other people, and there's a wi-fi access point, so I can blog. It also means that I don't have to put up with being out in a tent if there's a thunderstorm at night, which usually happens at least once during the week nearly every year.

However, when all's said and done, I think I prefer my tent.

The big problem is that the hotel is pretty isolated from the camp life on the showground. The thing that I love about Faith Camp is that it's a time when we meet up with old friends, make new friends, and generally have a good time all together. A mile from the showground on the other side of the motorway, it's a bit awkward. Besides, sleeping on hard ground (or an inflatable camp bed), fitting your shower time round everybody else, night-time thunderstorms, and being well and truly off-line is half the fun of it.