It’s a surprisingly long drive, all the way to our South Wales campsite from Yorkshire. It takes many hours of hideous motorway torpor, punctuated by dead-eyed service station coffee, and huge great tranches of 50mph roadwork drudgery. So it’s a welcome relief to kiss the churning motorway goodbye, and head out into the hills, which glow firered, amber and green in the setting sun. Much more exciting.
Thanks to those motorway ‘entertainments’, Antony and I arrive at our campsite a good couple of hours later than we planned. We’re forced to pitch our tents hurriedly by torchlight. The stars emerge, quietly magnificent, but powerless to cast any but the most feeble light on our frantic pole assembly and fabric draping. The hurry ensures we’ve enough time to scamper to the pub for food, and the inevitable beer means we don’t notice quite how poorly we’ve pitched our tents until the next morning.