Go Wigwam

Mid afternoon, after a fantastic family lunch at church and at a time when we would normally be sorting things out for the week ahead and beginning to think about Monday, we packed up our car and headed northwards into the sunshine. Oh I do like long weekends.

We were staying with our friends from fife at East Grange Farm near Kinloss on the Moray coast. In wigwams. I had read these sort of wigwams before but never stayed in one. They are basically simple wooden camping huts which provide thick waterproof backed mattresses that either lie on the floor or on wooden props, a light, a heater, in some cases a fridge, and little else. Think camping, without the tent. They are springing up all over the place on campsites and on farms and many other similar such places. We actually once stayed at the Strathfillan wigwam site, which I think might have been the first of it's type in Scotland, but that time stayed in the yurt instead of the wigwam (but that is a whole other story altogether and one for another time) so this was our first wigwam experience.

Our fife friends, having one more in their party than ourselves, opted for the large sized wigwam, with daytime sofas benches with mattresses which at night converted to one large bed and two small beds. Ours was of the more basic variety with a small area at the entrance where you could leave your food, bags, shoes, wellies, lego and anything else you might have brought with you and then a sleeping area with two large mattresses side by side on the floor. It was amazing. For many it would seem like a crush, but for my lovely husband and I, who are almost nightly sharing a bed with two fast growing little ones, it was a vast space. The fact that we were all in sleeping bags and that that meant the littlest one could cuddle up close without being able to simultaneously kick both of us, one foot each way, was fantastic. We are now seriously considering putting our mattress on the floor of our bedroom and introducing sleeping bags at home.

Anyway, with all the excitement of seeing friends we hadn't seen for a while, exploring a new place, investigating sleeping arrangements and enjoying the late evening sun, the children took an absolute age to go to sleep and so the thought of the adults regrouping on the picnic tables outside the wigwams and chatting the evening away was shelved and we all headed off to bed shortly after our little ones.

For me though, not before I caught the beautiful sunset just visible in the distance over the Moray Firth.