A very good reason not to camp...

Never be the same again!

Despite being of a certain age, I like to think that I embrace new technology - I’m writing this on my MacBook and use my iPad and iPhone on a daily basis. I enjoy online shopping and social media, and love how I can engage with people with similar interests on Instagram, even though I don't know them in person.

There is, however, one technological phenomenon that leaves me cold. Pop-up tents. Now I have been camping, in my dim and distant past, and remember all too well the stress, arguments and threats of divorce that accompanied the end of a long journey and the erecting of a piece of canvas using sticks, pegs and bits of string. So I can understand why someone wanted to improve that experience, but all they did was shift it to the other end of the holiday. Pop-up tents may pop up, but they sure as hell don’t pop down again. And this technology hasn't limited itself to tents - you can get pop-up gazebos, garden shelters and windbreaks. And they are all equally impossible to ‘unpop’.

Already wonky - or on the huh!

We bought a, thankfully, cheap child-sized shelter for the garden when our grandchildren were small. We duly popped it up on a sunny day, and it was great - affording much needed protection from the sun and a place to enjoy a picnic. At the end of the day, the children went home, we tidied the garden and optimistically fetched the bag for the shelter. Fools! The world is divided into two groups of people - one group that can unpop a popup shelter, and one that can’t. What I discovered on that fateful Sunday evening was that my family is entirely made up of those in the latter group. After struggling for some considerable time, we resorted to the instructions. 

You're having a laugh!

That made things even worse! I can follow a recipe, I can operate a washing machine and drive a car, but these instructions made absolutely no sense. We ended up with a bent and mangled shelter, that got thrown behind a shelving unit in the spare bedroom!

This annoyance is only equalled by the smugness of the people who happen to fall within the ‘able to unpop’ group, who can, with a few seemingly simple hand movements, put a huge tent in a tiny bag. Someone needs to tell them that it isn't polite to smile and say, ‘It’s so easy, don't know what all the fuss is about’ 

Ugh -so smug!

I’m convinced that the ability to unpop a tent is genetically defined, in the same way that some people can roll their tongues. If you can’t do it the first time you try, then you will never be able to learn how to. I’m sure someone could carry out some research and write a useful dissertation about it - at least that way the non-unpoppers would know to stop trying!

I know I am not alone - last Sunday we sat on the cliffs at Southwold, eating our sausage rolls and watching a man confidently pick up his pop-up shelter and start to fold it. To give him his due, he persevered for at least ten minutes before throwing it aside and folding up the blanket instead. His wife (I’m presuming that, because they had three children, but anyway she was a she) picked it up and, without doing anything at all, put it in the bag. The smugness swept up to the top of the cliff, and I swear she looked desperately round for someone to ‘high five’. Her partner just walked off...

Never been unpopped!

The next day I met up with some former colleagues for a picnic lunch. The host has a lovely garden and the children there played happily - some of them in a pop-up tent. We discussed the issues with folding them up, and she said,’Oh I can’t - I just throw it in the summer house!’

At least I can put this one away!

We have since bought a different sun shelter for the garden - this one has poles and strings and, while it takes longer to erect, at least I am confident in my ability to put it away at the end of the day!