6 TILLIER’S GO CAMPING IN CORNWALL

When Richard told me that he had booked 2 weeks holiday from work and that we were going to go away to Somerset for a break, little did I realise at the time he actually meant Somerset via Cornwall for a muster!! The practical side of me wondered how on earth I was going to fit all the stuff we usually take to a muster and then clothes, etc. for five people for ten days. “We’ll pack light for the muster”, said Richard. Well, light we certainly packed, ‘cos I managed it to get it all in and we were soon on our way to the depths of Cornwall on the Thursday morning.

It was a long trip down with couple of pit stops for lunch, etc. but we soon arrived on the campsite, which resembled the Marie Celeste – no-one seemed to be about at all and the howling wind did not bode well. However, we soon spotted Cliff sitting in his car reading his paper (trying desperately to pretend he hadn’t seen us!) Richard went in search of the rest of the Tercio only to find that they were camped in the next field on the other side of the road. Their campsite was not only sheltered from the wind but also seemed to have more toilets (very important at my age) so we decided to camp over there, much to Cliff’s evident relief (he had obviously spotted all the kids by now).

We had just got the tent up, with a bit of help from Cliff (in case we changed our minds and came back to his quiet spot), when along drove Andy and Julie Robertson, from O’Cahans, also down for the weekend for the muster/surfing. Cliff breathed a sigh of relief when out of their car came their young son, Alex – another child not on his campsite, hurray!

We were all soon ready to head off to ‘Cliff’s’ field where the beer tent was. I say beer tent, it was not bigger than our own tent and half the space was taken up by the beer kegs and serving counter, which seemed ludicrously large for the size of the tent. It was not to prove a problem however, as everyone else seemed to sit outside in a huge circle, leaving us a corner to huddle in. Craig discovered a liking for Richard’s cider and decided that from then on in he was going to be ‘Dad’s Beer Tent Buddy’ and determined to be the last to leave.

The next morning we thought we’d potter up to The Eden Project, seeing as we were on holiday. Lots of looking at plants later and with most of the gift shop in the car (haven’t worked out how we spent more in there than we did getting in) we soon headed back to Trevarno, via the biggest traffic jam we had ever encountered. On our return we decided that a Chinese takeaway would be ideal for tea and Cliff kindly volunteered to fetch it. After a meal that could have easily fed half the campsite, we headed back to the beer tent to take up our spot in the corner again. At around 10.30 Edwin and Alex wanted to go to bed, so Julie and I went back to the tents, leaving the hubbys and Dad’s Beer Tent Buddy, Craig. Not long after, the boys were back with Craig, who was carried back fast asleep in his chair. Richard then told me he had been sneaking lots of sips of his cider – far too many by the sound of it. Anyway, with the kids tucked up in bed, the bottle of port appeared and with neither myself nor Julie drinking much of it, it was left to Richard and Andy to finish – this was to prove a BIG mistake!!

Saturday morning and all bright and cheerful, I go and say hello to Andy and Julie, who are not looking so bright and cheerful. The reason soon becomes clear – Andy had been extremely sick during the night (some bug going round he claimed) and he had managed to be sick over most of the tent and bedding. The bug going round had also made his sick purple-Port coloured. Luckily the bug was only confined to Andy. Julie had conveniently packed her large pack of baby wipes (please see my forthcoming article on useful things to pack for musters) and had managed to clean the tent. We gave Andy water (he threw it up), we gave him headache pills (he threw them up), we gave him a bacon sandwich (he threw it up) and we gave him re-hydrate (he threw it up). We decided not to offer the ungrateful swine anything else and sent him instead in search of a leisure centre where he could have a shower and wash the sick out of his hair – yuk!!

Soon came the time for us to go to battle. Cliff found someone to pike with and Andy and Rich found someone to musket with. I wandered around aimlessly until I found someone to campfollow with. The battlefield was huge, bigger than Southwell, with probably less than 100 on the field, so we had loads of room to be great in. Richard tried to take on some Manchester girly, who wasn’t having any of it and claimed that he would hit her too hard and she was not prepared to take a bruise from him – big softies, some of those Manchesters. I got killed in the end by Keith Allmark and had nice lie down.

That evening we decided to go to the pub for something to eat, which was very nice until Crusty Aldwinkle came in and put us off our food with that horrendous cleavage hanging out all over the place – a sight that had not been seen by Julie before. Needless to say, we could not face pudding and soon headed back to the beer tent, where I bumped into Sharon Allmark and settled down for some girly chat. Several hours later, I realised that my family had all gone to bed and Keith was yawning loudly saying that he had to be up for 6 to do gate guard.

No port was opened that night and we all slept soundly.

Sunday was much the same, battle-wise. We were great and I got killed again. It was soon time to pack away and start our holiday for real. We said our goodbyes and headed into Devon to a B&B for the night. All in all a nice laid back little muster. If anyone has yet to do a Cornish mini, you should give it a go. They are normally well worth the travelling. We had a lovely time – it was a shame there weren’t more Tillier’s there but we made some new friends, which is always good.

Jane