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Well, we're now sat in our tent all nice and cosy, although it is very cold tonight. What a day. We arrived at Leekworth about three o'clock this afternoon, terrible journey, heavy rain and awful spray all the way here, took us three hours. When we arrived it was still raining and a bit windy, we got the footprint out anrolled the tent. We guyed the back down with it being a bit windy and attached our guys to some fence polls for extra strength. We'd just got the poles in and started to get the tent up when an amazing gust of wind just took it - and nearly me with it!! We just couldn't do anything, just had to keep a tight hold of the tent between the two of us. A very kind young man came and offered his help which was a godsend as there's no way we could've kept the tent under control between the two of us. On the down side when the gust took the tent it caught on the trailer causing a large tear in the side of the tent, I'm gutted. We've managed to patch it up for tonight with a patch and gaffa tape,enough to stop the rain coming in, but it was too wet to do anything more. Thankfully we've got three rolls of tenacious tape with us so hopefully we'll be able to do a better, more permanenet, job tomorrow if things dry up.

For the first time in ten years camping I was ready to pack up go back home, if it hadn't been for that very kind neighbour I don't know what we'd have done, we just needed that extra pair of hands!

Scary stuff!!

Thanks everyone! Managed to repair the tear and would just say that this shows what an essential part of your kit tenacious tape should be!!! We had torrential rain overnight and although we had managed to patch up the tear with the material in our tent repair kit and gaffa tape, the rain was still seeping through. Fortunately the tear was at the bottom half of the tent at the side of what would be our son's bedroom when he is with us, which he's not this trip! We lifted the bedroom pod up so it didn't get wet and we woke to a nice puddle this morning, although again thankfully the pitch was very flat so the water hadn't run elsewhere. The tear was about 10 inches long and then 3 inches down, but it was a pretty clean, straight tear which we were able to almost rejoin with the tenacious tape and our tent will live to at least see out this season

The kindness of the guy who came over to help us will always be remembered, there were plenty of others on the site, including a rally field just behind us full of army cadets and their instructors, yet only this one kind man came to help us when we were clearly in great difficulty and could easily have lost control of our tent altogether. So, if by any chance he uses this forum, once again a massive, massive thank you

Quote: Originally posted by Boston600 on 25/5/2014

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Nice site though, it is a bit of a wind trap especially pitch 13

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Quote: Originally posted by RTS5 on 27/5/2014

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Scary times Tracey, glad you are both okay and the tent isn't too damaged.

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Quote: Originally posted by Cross Camping on 27/5/2014

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I know this is to late but if you pitched the tent using the "cross camping method" (you can find this on youtube) the tent wouldn't of gone anywhere. The secret (not a big secret) is pegging the tent out first, at least the four corners and only putting one lot of legs and roof poles in at a time, even guying out each set as you go, anyway, watch the videos, there's a few.

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Quote: Originally posted by Cross Camping on 27/5/2014

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I know this is to late but if you pitched the tent using the "cross camping method" (you can find this on youtube) the tent wouldn't of gone anywhere. The secret (not a big secret) is pegging the tent out first, at least the four corners and only putting one lot of legs and roof poles in at a time, even guying out each set as you go, anyway, watch the videos, there's a few.

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