Text contributed by Lisa; pics by Simon and Anne.
For relatively new IOG members, taking three facts we know to be true, i.e., Lou organises the Birthday Beer Camp (BBC), Lou’s birthday is about this time of year and Lou brings the home brew, it is very easy to reach the presumption that Lou invented the BBC. But no, we are completely wrong.
Back in 2011, a whole two years before Lou became an IOG member (can you imagine such a time?), Heather Franks organised a camping trip to celebrate various members’ birthdays in the beer garden of The White Horse pub in Edwardstone. The annual BBC was born and we are very grateful.
This year, 24 of us pitched our tents and set up camper vans in the sunshine in our usual field at the Shottisham campsite. We hung bunting and fairy lights around our seating area, happily settled in with the first tasting of four different home-brewed beers and lit the barbecues for the traditional Friday night meal.
Everyone brought their own meat for the barbecues and we had a salad buffet. Home-made birthday cakes were available for dessert. None of the original birthday IOGers were in attendance this year but four members with birthdays around about this time blew the candles out and accepted birthday wishes.
Lou’s Saturday walk commenced after a leisurely breakfast and multiple coffees in the sunshine. We walked around 13 miles in total, through Alderton to Shingle Street, where we sat on the beach for lunch and then admired enormous plants and the house that John Lennon lived in in the film Yesterday.
A stop at The Shepherd and Dog pub in Hollesley around 3 miles before the end of the walk ensured that we were not dehydrated. We arrived back at the campsite in time for animal feeding (the site has alpacas and pigs, as well as the pesky free-range chickens) or chilling, depending on preference.
Dinner was in the picturesque, thatched, Suffolk-pink Sorrel Horse pub, a convenient two-minute walk away. Another light, warm, lazy evening – well, except for the welly wanging – was had back at the site afterwards.
Sunday morning saw us packing up the tents and camping paraphernalia and still being ready for the start of our walk by 10.30 am. Kate led us on a sweltering 11-mile walk, thankfully much of the time through the shade of Rendlesham Forest.
Kate listed UFOs on the Risk Assessment and, frankly, I thought she was just being weird, but it seems I was the only person who didn’t know the stories and therefore was surprised to find a UFO art installation for us to pose on for the ubiquitous IOG group photo.
A gruelling last push through the sand at the end of the walk brought us back to bid a fond farewell to the campsite for another year.
With thanks to all who attended for making it such fun and to Lou for continuing the BBC tradition that we love to uphold.