Budget Britain, and the Tale of the Tent

I haven’t yet calculated how much worse off I’ll be as a result of the budget but it’s time to start belt-tightening. My first austerity measure has been to buy a tent. I’ve been invited to speak at a literary festival in Cornwall but the organiser doesn’t consider me important enough to offer me a room in his house. One of his retainers suggested I hire a yurt, apparently unaware that the cost of doing so is over £800. In the end I decided to buy a family tent from Halfords for £89.99. Pretty reasonable, particularly as the price included two air beds, four sleeping bags and a couple of torches.

Caroline thought it would be sensible to practise putting it up beforehand so I dragged it out into my back garden last Saturday for a dummy run. I was planning to watch Ghana v. Australia at 3 p.m. so gave myself plenty of time.