Camping in the family way

6 months pregnant.

Camping.

Small Children.

It's not sounding good is it? I'm still not totally sure how Dave managed to persuade me that such a holiday would be A Good Thing and Quite Fun Really and We Really Ought To.

But we did. And he was right, it was a good thing that was quite fun really. I'm not saying that it was the holiday I would want to do more than anything else given the vast stomach (as that would clearly include a lot of sleep and quite a bit of reading a really good book in a quiet atmosphere as well as other people cooking gourmet meals and also doing the washing up and probably a substantial number of child free moments) but given the circumstances (small children, little cash, little holiday) it was perfect.

There are too many stories to relate, so I thought I would just give my top five tips for how to survive a camping holiday with your family whilst fairly heavily pregnant:

1. Take an airbed. Do not under any circumstances feel sorry for your husband and let him have a night on it. He will only realise that you now know what a sacrifice he has made in letting you have the airbed and will draw attention to it on numerous occasions, leading to you to feel the need to grumble and point out that there are NO OTHER pregnant women in the whole campsite and that is probably for a reason...

2. Take a husband who despite 1) gets stuck into amusing small boys with endless football and Top Trumps, cooks all the meals and generally makes sure that you get a decent amount of quiet time to read a book.

3. Remember that French swimming pools ban males from wearing baggy shorts. For the English baggy shorts card carrying members of the family that will mean a quick purchase from the campsite shop. Do not, under any circumstances think that the tight orange trunks with a picture of a sunset and silhouetted palm trees might be acceptable to your husband, however much you know you will laugh over the next few days. Instead let him get the sensible dark blue ones and think of Daniel Craig rising out of the sea every time you see him heading for the pool.

4. Go places where there have been some good historic battles. Storming the beaches of Normandy is excellent exercise for small boys who are then suitably impressed when you take them to the museums. Seeing tapestries with King Harold shot in the eye with an arrow is also very exciting for small boys but you will need to be able to discuss this part of the 1066 tale endlessly and in great detail for at least 3 days after they have been to see it.

5. Don't expect your children to go to bed. 10 was the earliest we got ours down. They did however return the favour by sleeping until 9am on at least one morning which is a good 3 hours later than the previous latest getting up time record. We did need to divide and rule though, one boy each which meant sharing the air bed with the wriggliest child around.

We'll be going camping again. Just might wait until I don't have the equivalent of a beach ball stuck up my shirt and can actually managed to get changed in a reasonable degree of comfort in the tent.