Now is the Winter of Our Discount Tent...

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With two weeks (tomorrow) until Clarissa and I board a Cathay Pacific 747 to Hong Kong, I sit here and honestly wonder how we're going to be ready in time. We booked our tickets a month ago, and apart from the odd-job here and there have had no pressing engagements other than finishing paperwork and getting packed.
But the extraordinary assortment of chattels which I alone have collected over four years of living above my own business - let alone the plethora of "important stuff" which Clarissa has brought into my life - are sitting in vague, silently accusing piles around the rooms and corridors of our first-floor accommodation. A stark contrast to the neaty, clean, bustling atmosphere of the bar and restaurant a few feet below.
But we are making steady progress. Yesterday we forayed to Stapeley Water Gardens near Nantwich, since they were hosting a 2-day "Tent Extravaganza" promising ridiculous discounts on everything from forks to canvas castles.
The place was absolutely heaving on a warm Sunday afternoon. If we hadn't been there in the context of travelling to the other side of the world, I'm pretty sure I would have fallen foul of an assistant or two. Followed shortly after by a row with Clarissa and mud-slinging the endless press of bodies wandering aimlessly about. Happily this wasn't the case; we smiled graciously, and grinned knowingly at each other as we bore the brunt of nudges, trips, bumps and bad breath until we found what we were looking for: a decent tent and two VERY bulky sleeping bags.
Our brand new '4-man' (ie. '2-person-in-comfort') tent is a Gelert Tornado 5, complete with dayglo guyropes and woefully crappy pegs. Of course, we had to put it up within ten minutes of getting home; the beer garden seemed appropriate, and our first attempt had it up and stable inside 30 minutes - not a bad effort. Having promised ourselves we'd sleep in it as well, somehow we managed not to. Nor tonight it seems, although we've justified that by describing it as an 'unsupervised 2-night weather test'. We'll have to bite the bullet tomorrow though, or we'll not live it down among the crowd of locals who are of course feigning disinterest at our approaching departure.

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