Impossible

The first thing I found upon arriving back from the Gower was a pamphlet advertising new conservatories and bay windows for our terraced house in the centre of Cardiff. I know that rules aren't extraordinarily stuck to by people trying to flog their wares on a door-to-door basis, but now it just seems like the laws of common sense and good business knowledge just don't apply to people anymore. Evidently the conservatory sellers aren't doing their homework I'd like to find a single garden on this stretch of road, if not this entire region, that has enough space for an entire new room to put in their garden. We just about have enough space to fit a barbecue, and even then it's a struggle to fit people around it to tend to it, eat the food, and tip a wine bottle at a 45 degree angle. No conservatory, thank you. No bay windows either, we've only got one main window on the ground floor of our house, and it's mine, and I don't need any more attention drawn to my house more than I already to, with a CD rack and 3 toy giraffes already sat there. I did have a shoe in the window, but that's long gone.

A conservatory would have been lovely on The Gower Peninsular mind, as in just two nights, a lifetime of reminders why I hate camping. This weekend, which for me was Friday and Saturday, although for others was Thursday as well, and for the majority of lazy deadbeats, just the Saturday. This was probably the most organised camping trip I've been on, not least because I was with a group of dad-minded people who think ahead and bring six barbecues, a fold-up table, a windbreak and a million and five methods of wiring mp3 players up to speaker systems to flatten nearby tents with sound waves. Despite this, I left the campsite situated right on the coast in Nathan's car with the same desire to return to comfort and bed and shower and socks and Seinfeld as I have on any incident where I'd damaged myself irreversibly, psychologically and mentally, at the Reading Festival in 2000 or 2001, or the time we camped in Penmon in North Wales, where even though I didn't drink anything all weekend, I somehow returned home from the 7 hour car journey feeling like I'd been wallowing in a pigs trough of alcohol for the previous 48 hours. Which is why I fell asleep almost the second I returned and have just woken up wondering what's going on. I did organise myself this time around, and took a spare duvet, and a sleeping bag, and a pillow, and all sorts of things, yet I was still as uncomfortable as it gets when I bedded down for the night. At least I didn't have to share my tent with anyone. There's a certain culture that takes over on camping trips, where due to the combination of advanced intimacy created by sleeping right next to people you probably wouldn't if it was, say, a house party or a Thursday, and the forced familiarity created by spending more than an hour in the company of people you know too well and/or don't know at all. In-jokes spread like wild fire, minute pockets of humour, usually at the expense of others - made up nicknames related to things which are good for a yuck but 10/10 times you have to have been there, and people who don't know each other in the slightest engage in ridiculous banter which suggests they're going to be friends forever, right up until the cars are started on the way home and that's the end of that. I go through hundreds of different conflicting feelings whenever I go on these sorts of trips, which I attempt to resolve by wandering around aimlessly on my own away from the group, forging a new vision of myself, and then returning to the group only to get bored and walk off again. I think it's because the surroundings lend themselves well to studying the beauty and general prettiness of the world. Down on the beach at Hills End, there's a causeway you can't see, a few rocks and headlands that you can see, and a huge, vast expanse of ocean that you definitely can see, and does cheerily predictably romantic things like reflect the surface of the moon, and wash up jellyfish. Although it's perfectly feasible to admire the postcard-quality scenery and gentle moon from the social-binge-combat zone of a group of friends with wine and Dire Straits nothing beats half an hour of aimless wandering and staring at sundown. This might be my favourite thing to do in the world, and I guess it's sad in a way, that my favourite thing to do in the whole world can't be shared with anybody, but it makes me thankful for having even just a few friends and people just to sit in a circle with, because it's a treat to take 30 minutes out and count shooting stars. Then you can return, thankful that it's not your entire life just yet.

It might be because I'm just an insecure idiot, a safe assumption and an excuse I fall back on regularly to explain any of my random and potentially obnoxious antics. Elongated socialising stints are not my best suit when I find it impossible to start conversations and live life on the cusp of an invite-only utopia, but at festivals, and weekends away, unless they're secure units of just myself and one other person, or two, then I find them strangely more isolating and terrifying then otherwise. It's a strange paradox, but if my main memories of various trips are staring out to sea from the cliff edges of Anglesey, or getting windswept, soaked, and stared at on the beaches of Camber Sands, then I know I've got out of the weekend what I wanted. If I made any friends for life, then that's a bonus.

I don't want to feel like it's the end of a summer