Le Camping. Just a few somewhat random thoughts.And above: my boys at Newgale Beach, Pembrokeshire. And Pembrokeshire rocks.

Every year, we take a decent tent and put it through its paces on a wild headland somewhere. This summer, extra ropes and, at one point, tying part of the tent to the car were called for. But enough: we are hardy and here are some camping ideas.

When I was a child, we had a fire at the campsite; these days, it seems that only the posher campsites have fire pits. So I will make the assumption that you are in possession of a small camping stove.

1. Have really excellent picnics. Don't make sandwiches for lunches, but take the wherewithal for everyone to do self assembly in situ. For me, this means hunks of cucumber, tortilla wraps, cherry tomatoes and some decent corned beef. Have plenty of pickle to hand, which for us means Branstons and a hot Indian pickle such as mango. There needs to be some kind of cake, I think. As we are usually on the wild and marvellous coast of Pembrokeshire, near my wild and marvellous family, this will mean Welsh Cakes or Bara Brith -- a tea bread. I actually favour this picnic for breakfast, too. In general, make a very large fruit cake before you go and hack into it as you go. A robust fruit cake is good with a piece of apple and cheese, for example.
2. For breakfast, spread a tortilla with peanut buter and grate in some cheddar cheese or some sliced banana. Doesn't sound promising, but I urge you to try it.
3. Dhal. You would think that making a lentil curry for tea would not be possible, but really, if you take a bag of red lentils and follow the masoor dhal (red lentil curry) recipe earlier in this text, then you're away. Simplify it by using a good ready-made curry powder -- such as Bolst's or Rajah.
4. This year, I did my usual tea establishment test. There was a clear winner, which served loose Assam tea in a big speckled teapot with local milk. And good thick mugs. We had also ordered cawl (soup) because, of course, it was raining. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, we had also wandered into a scene of domestic discontent. Excellent tea, but a door slammed, out went the owner, his wife stomped upstairs after their morose teenage son and there we were. Muffled crying from upstairs. Money left on table and we repaired to a different establishment for dressed crab -- which consisted of nothing more than the meat from the main body of the crab piled back into the shell with a squeeze of lemon. There were Pembrokeshire potatoes to one side, butter and a salad which contained no iceberg. Hurrah! Actually, I would have been happy with just the crab.
5. Make mulled wine. Sounds nuts but, especially if it's cold, you'll be pleased. For four, just heat up a bottle of some half decent red wine, add a tablespoon of brown sugar, a handful of cloves and some cinnamon quills. This may sound hopelessly decadent, but these whole spices are full of flavour and very cheering. Plus whole spices are far less likely to moulder than the dried ones. Or just add a couple of teaspoons of allspice powder.
6. Super noodles. Just cook egg noodles according to appetite. Put them to one side. Chop up a red chilli -- which I would be doing with the scissors on my Swiss Army knife. Fry it in a little oil (or just sweat it in a little water if you haven't brought oil: if you're in a tent at a festival, bet you haven't!), add the noodles and then add some generous glugs of Kikoman soy sauce. Done. If you are near the sea, you could add a handful of local prawns, bought or caught. AND if you know what you're looking for, a handful of snipped up wild green onions (they look like chives) would be good. Hedgerow food is always rewarding.
7. And if you are cooking with a fire, then get going with silver foil and some local whole fish, baked bananas, potatoes cooked in the ashes or a silver turtle -- the camp fire staple of my husband's Georgia Scout troop. You just take a good weighty hamburger (or mould your own gently from minced beef), then put each burger in silver foil with some thickly-sliced onion and cook until done. Serve in a bun with relish or mustard -- preferably not French's (sorry, U.S.) but Coleman's English.