I invite all who doubt me to undertake the Hardcore Challenge - sleep outdoors for one night wearing as much uniform as you like in any tent / bivvy you like but with no camp bed, no bed roll and no sleeping bag.
Then do a day's work rather than going to a warm bed for 8 hours.
Oddly the key is not to wear all the clothes. By wearing them you crush the air out of them and your clothes then help to conduct heat away from the body rather than insulate you. Plenty of insulation underneath the body (spruce branches etc.) and pile the clothes over the top of you in lots of lovely layers.
Toasty nice!
My other top tip is persuade somebody else to be first up to light the fire and bring you a nice hot cup of tea at about 8am, before you rise for a brisk shower.
However the reality of a show like Crich is thus....
9am - 5pm Public show.
5.01pm - 7pm food and getting tarted up in drinking kit
7.01pm - 12 PUB!
12.01 - 3am Drinking round fires by the tent
3am Bed
4am... awake really needing a wee, decide to try and get back to sleep
4.20am ..awake really needing a wee, decide to try and get back to sleep
5am .awake really needing a wee, decide to try and get back to sleep
5.30am awake really needing a wee... put on boots without lacing them up, try and steal out of the tent without falling over everyones kit and have blessed wee in the freezing cold.
5.31am get back into cold bed and try and get warm again.... fall into blissful sleep.
7am. get woken up to get the camp ready and have brekkie. 
ONE event I'm actually going to get up and go the loo the first time... either that or not consume my own bodyweight in ale at the Red Lion
"I think we are in rats' alley - Where the dead men lost their bones."
...those unfortunate troops on the Steppe who had not been issued winter clothing, retreat meant having to leave their meagre shelters in temperatures of -20C... - Stalingrad
And I can't hack the back of a van without bedrolls, spruce branches and arctic sleeping bags.
ONE event I'm actually going to get up and go the loo the first time... either that or not consume my own bodyweight in ale at the Red Lion
I did look at getting a bed pan to avoid this. I believe Chommers does have one.
ONE event I'm actually going to get up and go the loo the first time... either that or not consume my own bodyweight in ale at the Red Lion
I did look at getting a bed pan to avoid this. I believe Chommers does have one.
Or the Pilton en suite, aka a fabric conditioner bottle!
To the tune of "Mademoiselle from Armentières"
Napoleons army ran away, As you do
The guard stood firm for Frances Pride, As you do
They said the guard will stand and die
But we heard what their Colonel cried
It wasn't pretty I tell you.
Resistance is fertile
Just don't do what some people have been know to do, don't use your mates bed space!, He wont like it!
"Will you stop talking about the war!!"
"What, you started it!"
"We did NOT start it!"
"Yes you did, you invaded Poland..."
I did look at getting a bed pan to avoid this. I believe Chommers does have one.
Hehe, yes I actually used it at the Victory show as I had the command tent tent to myself and what a jolly useful thing it was!
At alsos, I was on a camp bed, lying on a roll mat, inside an £8 sleeping bag from Primark with a thin blanket over me. I wasn't too bad, although my nose was cold. Problems arose when I gave up my blanket and roll mat for the love of my life, then i got cold.
Not that people will want to know, but i was only in boxers.
Oh, and I was inside Yith's Bell tent, which is an important part to it I guess 
