Camping at the Farm for Jimmy's 21st

Bah, this weekend, I two things that I thought I'd never do again:
1. Went to a 21st birthday party
2. Went camping! (what on earth?!)
For his 21st, Jimmy decided to go back to his Dad's farm in Drouin. The announcement was met with glee from the others about camping overnight and absolute horror from me about camping overnight and the semi-formal dresscode. In any case, a trip to Rays Outdoors, a poke around the house, and a lot of discussion with others resulted in me with enough equipment to camp comfortably although I did like the idea of getting a Taj Mahal of tents for maximum comfort.

A few acts of random stupidity meant the convoy to Drouin was a little late in starting, but we met up as designated location of Pakenham macca's for dinner.
We ended up arriving after sunset so I acted as torchbearer for everyone to set up their tents and waited for whoever would finish first so they could help me put mine up and pump up the mattress. I would have to grudgingly agree with John IT that it would most likely be hell to fill up a double air mattress without the aid of an electric pump attached to a car. I also think I should get a larger tent should I ever go camping again because it was a bit of a struggle to get the mattress into my 2-3 person tent. Marlene and Linda (my tentmates) then rocked up and the tent was suddenly filled with fluffy blankets and cushions. A view inside by the others made someone comment that it looked like the dream of a certain disgusting yellow-fevered guy.
After that, we had a bit of a poke around - finding a working tv in the barn's loft!

And then we got down to the business of the party!I dont know why these all seem to feature Kirsty.

Some people had a bit of fun with my choice of accessory.

Here's some shots of Jimmy during the speeches which were good...just a touch long though very entertaining.There are no photos after this other then this view from the doorway of the tent because no one (including myself) were up to it.

As you can imagine, the party went long into the night. Some crazy bastards also decided to stay up to watch the cricket (Aus vs Bangladesh) and didn't go to sleep after that. The birthday boy himself got only 30 minutes - we heard him laughing nice and loudly in the morning. I am pleased to say that I had 8 drinks - four for each night that the party went on, but I still only managed 3 hours of sleep. Breakfast consisted of bbqd sausages, toast and fried eggs, or if french toast if you were me, and we all slowly convoyed back to the big smoke.

So was camping fun? I will concede to a measure of fun but I believe that is related to hanging out with friends and a great deal of alcohol. The things that make camping camping - being in the outdoors, sleeping in a tent were not fun. The tent was poorly ventiled and difficult to get changed in and there was the constant threat of treading mud everywhere. Euw!!!

But happy birthday Jimmy - awesome party - and may everything be as awesome from now on as it obviously has been ;)