Arrived on site just after 1 pm and saw Chris in the temporary reception which has been moved to a portacabin near the site barriers. He said he knew it was me as he spotted the mobile antenna on the car as we turned into the site off the lane. Like visiting shops, masks are mandatory for interaction with the staff and they also recommend you wear hem when when using the shared facilities such as the washing up area and laundry, those are limited to one person at a time. Chris had allocated us pitch 44 but he said that we could pitch on any of the electrical hookup bays as long as we notified him if we chose a different one.
Weather was overcast but dry so pitching the tent went smoothly, not too much of a breeze so the tent was up and guyed in about 15 minutes. There was an electrical hookup pole with a tap for drinking water directly behind the tent so I only needed the 15m reel to get power into the tent. The Horizon has zipped ingress points for cables in the outer canopy and another in the inner tent so that you can get power into there. I put the reel just inside near the door. The reel has USB charging ports and the inner tent has adjacent storage pockets so it's very handy for plugging mobiles and tablets in to charge overnight. I ran another 4 gang reel from the inner tent, back out into the front of the tent. I put the reel beside the camp kitchen so that we could plug in the cool box, lighting and the kettle. We use the bottom tier of our original camp kitchen which is a small folding wire framed platform. It's handy for standing the gas bottle on for the stove, now also provides a handy place for the kettle. I made up two lighting leads but only deployed one. I clipped the inline switch for the lights onto the side of the camp kitchen and looped the lead onto the lantern clip point above the inner tent door. LED lamp in the holder generates no appreciable heat so safe for use in the tent. Provided plenty of light but could do with a small shade to just diffuse it slightly.
I was nicely tired by the time we had deployed all the rest of the kit and ready for my tea. Looking forward to a nice few days whatever the weather gave us. Tea sorted so I played radio for a bit and had a natter to couple of friends Ray in Winewall and Art over in Nelson, both good signals into Little Stainforth. Signed with them as it started to get dark. Had a brew then went up to the facilities for a wash and clean teeth etc. The shared toilet and shower facilities are well organised like the washing up and laundry. Alternate toilets are locked to provide social distancing, the washbasins are the same with fitted covers on alternate sinks, the gents have three screen segregated sinks which are still all in use. I took the opportunity to check the showers which were the same, 4 showers in the gents block but alternate ones locked and out of use. Statutory notices for hand washing and distancing all over the block and the floor marked out with distancing grids. Al in all well organised under extreme circumstance. I was in bed by 9pm, proper dark by then and probably asleep within 5 minutes.
II needed the loo at 11pm and this is where it went a bit pear shaped for me, I had the runs! Back to the tent and back to bed, up again at 1.30am, repeat, toilet, bed, 3am same, 4.30am same. I felt pretty rubbish by then. Fortunately it stayed fine through the night and there was a nearly full moon which lit up the paths and revealed all the rabbits exploring the site. I saw a stoat as well as a patrolling barn owl doing it's stuff. Not in the right frame of mind to enjoy the night time visitors though, just trying to hold body and soul together. Went to the loo again at 5.30am but I was pretty empty and hoping it would stay that way as Chris had mentioned that the shared facilities were closed off each day for deep cleaning between 5.30 and 7am and again between 1pm and 3pm. During daylight hours there is a toilet up in the main building that can be used. I was up early, not really had much sleep at all so as soon as Sally had breakfast we drove down into Settle to the supermarket (Booths) and Sally nipped in a secured me some Immodium. I took two according to instruction and we drove back to the site.
Sally went for a walk while I generally felt sorry for myself, I noticed I had started to cough. Not really up for anything to be quite honest, cold have packed up and come home but didn't have the energy. Moped about until dinner time, went through the shower mid morning which did make me feel a bit better although dog tired. I did think at that time that it was probably not the best plan to go camping straight after blood donors when your iron levels have taken a whack. At the sessions of course they do advise not to do strenuous exercise or activities for 24 hours, ooops! Magic tablets seemed to have done the trick but I was still running on empty so I had two slices of toast for my dinner. Very hungry by tea time so I made myself bacon egg and tomato for my tea. All still quiet, went for a short walk after tea down by the river which was running dark brown with the level of water, not far but all I could manage on the energy levels I had.
We were in bed at 8.30pm It had started raining, slept through a solid 12hours it was still raining. Cough was now accompanied by a sore throat, not infected just raw but again it was holding me down, out of sorts. We decided to have take away from the site restaurant on two nights so I had a chicken and sweet chilli wrap with chips which was very nice. Sally had a three cheese pie with chips. Sally kept up her walks over the weekend but had picked up the cough on Saturday night. Sunday Sally had a vegetable curry and I had beef cobbler, again excellent. The site is still taking bookings for the Knights Table restaurant but on a restricted booking basis to maintain the distancing rules. ey have increased the takeaway menu which essentially is the same as what is on offer in the restaurant but it comes in a bag. You agree a time when you book and collect, food was always piping hot and they haven't hiked the priced to make up for a reduced footfall. Site fees are the same and we also noticed that hey have waived the usual £10 deposit on the card key for the barrier entrance to the site. This was previously refunded when you checked out and returned the card. It now works on a "less handling" honesty system. You get the card when you check in, no deposit and there is a postbox on the side of the portacabin for you to return the card when you depart. The barrier cards are plastic credit card sized. I assume they will empty the box and probably spay disinfect the cards before putting them back into circulation. The fact that you have returned the card indicates that you have left the site.
Apart from the first day it rained pretty hard every other day. The tent performed well, it has a 4000mm hydrostatic head and turned all the heavens could chuck at it. By Sunday we felt that it would be prudent to get another test so Sally went online to the Gov.uk site to book one for Monday afternoon, we thought we would probably have to go to Nelson but there was no availability in the afternoon. We found that we could get 11.30 to 12pm at the Settle venue so booked for that. It hammered it down through the night and the field was very wet by the morning. it was still raining lightly when we went up for a wake up shower. Sally had packed the food and I had packed the stove and camp kitchen the night before, we just kept back the cereal and brewing up tackle. We were showered and sorted with breakfast by 8.30am. It had stopped raining by then and the tent would dry within an hour or two if it stayed fine but we didn't have the luxury of the time. I put my new waterproof walking boots on and my waterproof over trousers. I packed the top box first and then loaded the back leaving enough space to take the tent once packed. We took out the inner tent to give more room for manoeuvre.
We found a slight problem with the tent when we removed the inner. The rear air beam seems to be oversized! It has a kink in it when inflated as it does not fit in the sewn in channel for the beam. The front two beams are the same size but the back one should be shorter as the rear of the tent slopes away slightly. Front two beam channels are colour coded red and the back one is coded yellow. I think our tent has three beams the same size!
The beams are encased in their own zipped heavy duty canvas jackets then inserted through the sewn in channels of the flysheet. The beams are about 3" in diameter once inflated and each end of the beams jacket has a large velcro pad on the bottom which attaches to mating velcro pads on the integral groundsheet that keeps them firmly fixed.
Guys out, wrapped and stowed in the provided net pockets to keep them tidy. We rattled the tent on the air beams to shake most of the water off, Sally followed round with a couple of spare tea towels to give the canopy a bit of a wipe. Still wet of course but every little helps and you don't really want to end up with water inside once the tent is packed. The air-beams deflate quickly once you unscrew the captive valves on each beam, the valve bore is about 1" across. Everything tided inside and the tent is then folded from the back to chase the remainder of the air from the beams. Sky was threatening so we didn't do a perfect job on the packing, got it small enough one way or the other to get within the scope of the compression straps on the tent bag which is an open flat cross shaped design of ripstop nylon with sewn in compression straps. Folded tent in the middle sides folded up and strapped, front and back overlapped and straps pulled up there, it has integral webbing loops for handling. It was quite a bit heavier when it was wet. The less than perfect oversized packing is irrelevant as we will need to pitch it again at the earliest opportunity to dry it off properly. Last thing to pack was the footprint which is the muckiest job as the bottom has always picked up some mud, more so when it has been chucking it down fr the last few days. No point in trying to clean it off while packing, too big and too mucky. That will come out again and get washed off with the hose pipe in the street and allowed to dry.
We left the site at 11.15am and deposited our barrier card in the post box. Made our way to the Rugby Club to get our Covid test as reported in another thread. If we are spared on that front we are still hoping for another outing somewhere this year, Sally fancies somewhere on the coast, we'll see.
With regard to the suspect dodgy beam. I have messaged the supplier that we got the tent from. It's out of any warranty of course but I thought as they process hundreds of manufacturers returns they may be a good starting point for a potential replacement. They may have plenty of tents that are too damaged to resell but maybe strip for spares. I don't mind paying a bob or two to get it sorted.