Camping: An underated passtime

There are some things in life that I love way out of proportion to their surface merits. Tea, for example, Thomas Pynchon, San Pelligrino. Camping is one of such pursuits that has me grinning from ear to ear. When I think about it, this love for putting on damp jeans in a small space and trekking half a mile to the loo in the dark doesn't make any logical sense. I like luxury, who doesn't? A feather duvet and a soft, high bed, sharply cut sushi with wasabi in a flower shape, ahhh. Yet something in my psyche is chuffed as anything at the chance to sleep with a rock sticking into my back and the prospect of a stale hot cross bun and lukewarm weak tea for breakfast.

On a train on Monday morning, sleepy and too-warm, I pondered why I love it so much. I realised it's because it's everything ordinary life is not...