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Yes I can - well sort of, we pack it up so it unravels into a long sausage then pick it up from one end and throw it over the frame and run down the length doing the same until the whole sausage is balancing along the middle of the frame then we unfold it over the frame - this way we are never taking the full weight of the canvas.  I know Im saying we but could be managed by one.  Can't do those damned button poles though!  We are taking it to France tomorrow very excited!!! 

Ours got a proper soaking 2 weeks ago - it does take a fair while to dry and it is ideally dried on the frame but if you have the space at home to lay it out to dry then you could do that but I wouldn't advise packing it away damp.  We actually packed up a day early to avoid getting it wet whilst taking it down but I'd say a good few hours to dry out fully.

For the small sleeping pod we manage to squeeze two Kampa airlock junior beds into it sideways on, & these are 170cms wide, now this does take the pod widthwise to its full capacity and it pulls on the pod sides a little - not enough to pull it down and we do lose the hanging space between the pods but it does fit - so you can get a little more width than the 135cms stated at a squeeze - bags would have to be stored elsewhere & you may want to inflate your airbed inside the pod to get the best fit.

Missed this thread while I was away camping...

I have an Aruba which is much the same as the Athena and like you Fiona I pitch and strike it on my own but I do it the other way round from you.

I will say in passing Piglet that I'm not particularly strong and I'm getting on a bit now but it's more a matter of how you go about it than brute strength!

I pack the tent so that when I pitch, I throw the canvas widthways over the top of the frame and drop the front first and then unfold the tent towards the back.  I do it this way round so I can peg out the guys as I go along starting at the front corners.  You can't peg the canvas really because then you can't lift the tent enough to slip the lower half of the legs into the upper half although I put in some "temporary" pegs along the front and the sides sometimes and take them out before raising the tent. 

While I'm pegging the guys at the front and to a lesser extent in the middle there is quite a weight of canvas to stop the tent taking off but even though I can manipulate the nipple thingies, I just wouldn't be strong enough to hold the whole tent down if a wind really caught it.  This happened to me once and although I was able to hang on to the canvas, it turned the whole frame upside down head over heals which was frightening and could have been dangerous.

One of the problems with putting the tent up single handed is that as a consequence of getting it off it's knees one leg at a time, some of the poles are going "bell mouthed" and I wouldn't be surprised if they split before long.

A possible way of making it easier to tweek the nipples into their holes may be to go over the swaged down ends of the poles with wax polish to make them more slippery but I don't know what this would do if it got over the canvas.

To dry the tent, it really is best left on the frame and I can't think of anywhere else it could be done more conveniently.  I chose the Aruba because it's the biggest tent I can pitch in my small inner city back yard.  In bright hot sun it'll dry out in three to four hours although I like to give it all day. 

Take care

R