Dirty Weekend

You’d have to be a real stick in the mud not to enjoy a weekend in one of Un Lit Au Pré’s safari-style tents, pitched uniquely in selected organic farms around the UK, France and Holland.

Known as Feather Down Farms in the UK, this is a company that has the art of roughing it in style just right. I thought it would be the farm and the countryside that would most grab my imagination—the fresh eggs in the morning and the silence at night—but no, it’s the tent. If a normal tent is a shopping trolley, these tents are like space shuttles. I know not everyone likes camping, but pretend-camping is something else; all the fun of canvas, advanced pyrotechnics, the great outdoors and all-night card games, but with fluffy duvets and room to stand up straight.

The tents are identical across all the farms, and about as comfortable as a night under canvas can be. Each tent has three bedrooms—a double, a bunk room, and a cubby room that shuts like a cupboard and is a sleeping machine. You cook on the wood-burning stove, keep food in a cold-box with frozen hot-water bottles, wash up in a sink with running mains water, and eat by candlelight in the evening. For a 6-year-old Nintendo fanatic who lives in an apartment building, this would be mind-boggling.

France: www.unlitaupre.fr
UK: www.featherdownfarm.co.uk

Jack now has a taste for ‘glamping’ and doesn’t think he’ll be able to go back to the real thing. If you’d like to see for yourself what all the fuss is about, give him a shout at jack@trufflepig.com.