Check out my light hearted blog about a wet Sunday in Glenbrittle.

Never on a Sunday

a tent goes up fast always remember a friend leaping through one like a stunt man through a ring of fire – granted they tend to not to scream and have clothes on.

They were cooking, on a primus, in a tent?! 🙄 Oh well, lesson learned the hard way I suppose. 😯

Friends of mine used to camp in Glenbrittle…. one wet midgey day when they were inside with their two very small and bored children, one of the kids knocked over a catering size tin of marmalade…..

Mind you, whenever I see a documentary on Everest or one of the poles they do all their cooking indoors.

Nice to know I’m not the only one that’s had a fire disaster. Here’s today’s debacle…

Sunday afternoon fettling fail. Degreasing my cassette. Sprayed it liberally with degreaser and cleaned the grime off. Sat the cassette down on the counter and turned the tap on to rinse the degreaser off…then all of a sudden there’s an explosion and the cassette bursts into flames. Unbeknown to me the wife had lit a candle and the fumes from the degreaser must have reached it, which ignited the degreaser soaked cassette and the bundle of degreaser soaked rags it was sitting on and me as I’m also liberally soaked in degreaser. Absolutely shat myself because at that point I didn’t know about the candle. Put out the flames that were engulfing me, grabbed a towel, soaked it with water and tried to smother the flames. Took three attempts to get it out. Kitchen floor is ruined, no lasting damage to me though I’m fairly sure I hit my maximum heart rate in under 2 seconds.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of people that cook in tents.

DO NOT COOK IN YOUR TENT!!!

(That was the closest I could find to a shout)

1) Tents are made of very nice burny stuff which will go up in no time (and quite happily take you with them)

2) Carbon monoxide can happily build up and quietly kill anyone in the tent at the time – there have been numerous instances of this in the news over the last few years. Doesn’t matter what fuel you are using -incomplete combustion can lead to CO build up. (Although if you are using a primus in your tent, this is not actually likely to be a problem since your tent will not be capable of accumulating CO following the effects of point 1 above…)

Just appreciate that an outdoors lifestyle may require you to interact with the elements occaisionly…

When I was in the scouts one of the boys was pumping up the pressure on a Primus when the mantle flew off up in the air and landed on his head. His very thick curly hair burnt very nicely and he only became aware of the problem due to our laughter and the very unpleasant smell of burnt hair.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of people that cook in tents.

Perfectly possible to do this safely.

Just appreciate that an outdoors lifestyle may require you to interact with the elements occaisionly…

I’ll be sure to tell my climbing buddy to pop outside and rustle up some tea next time we’re sitting out a blizzard.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of people that cook in tents.

DO NOT COOK IN YOUR TENT!!!

(That was the closest I could find to a shout)

Quick you’d best tell every high altitude mountaineer ever that they’ve been doing it all wrong.

from my experience there’s no alternative to cooking in your tent if the weather is adverse. Just don’t turn your back on the stove and remember that tents and wives are highly flammable.