I swear: the kid was determined to have himself eaten, or lost, or smashed, or drowned. His secondary mission was to spill, burn, rip, squish or otherwise desecrate every element of our supplies and camping infrastructure. His tertiary mission was to stay up all night.

Littlestar and I would've slept poorly regardless. We were listening for bears. I was pretty sure that at least some of the small woodland creatures I heard bending the grass outside our tent in the small hours were bears -- especially crafty bears who left chipmunk footprints as a part of a programme of disinformation.

Black bears, of course, are pussies.

They're not like grizzlies or polar, or even like bruins. You're not meant to play dead or flee when you meet one. All you have to do be noisy and to try to appear large and menacing, to make attractive to the bear the idea of fucking off. They want to eat your popcorn, not your face.

Never the less, the idea of having bears investigating our camp made us nervous. There were signs tacked up at the water pumps explaining how best to intimidate a black bear; we memorized the signs, then explained the steps to the dog using very small words. We didn't want Yam or Popsicle to end up as bear stool, or as the subject of a pre- and post-surgical freakumentary on The Learning Channel.

The upshot of poor sleep while camping is that every time you step out of the tent to take a steaming piss in the grass you get to look up to be shocked and bemused by the unadulterated glory of the Milky Way, so clear and so crisp the whorls of gas occulting the galactic centre looked like black cotton I could reach up and touch, drifiting just over my head.

Quite nice.

There was a glade where the stone of the shield showed through the ground up above our allotted site on the periphery of the provincial park's camping zone, and Popsicle said that the glade was a magic place (though as the sun went down it became a scary place). She told me there were real, live faeries there so I took her hand and she led me through the bush into the clear and there, indeed, were waspy, dragonfly-like insects who hovered in the air and reared up their long bodies to resemble little pinched-faced people with wings.

"They're really real faeries," said Popsicle.

"They're very pretty."

"Yup, and they probably know secrets."

(Popsicle hasn't seen Pan's Labyrinth due to the upsetting amount of bloodshed and fascism in the film, but I think she'd like the rest. In Guillermo del Toro's dark, dreamy movie a Spanish girl double Popsicle's age befriends a long-bodied insect whom she interprets, perhaps through mental illness, as the faerykind messenger of a creepy half-naked European guy with chromakey-green bandanas around his knees.)

Young Yam also enjoyed the glade. He saw it as a jumping off point to explore the woods beyond. He wanted to run across the rocky forest floor in mad downhill dashes following random trajectories, stopping only to stumble. Popsicle and I pursued him, called him, implored him; ultimately, I was forced to carry him. "No!" he'd argue, squirming as we headed back to camp. "Go! Go! Papa, no! Go!"

"Mama's made lunch," Littlestar might say, and that would hold Yam's attention for four or even five minutes. A blink later and he'd have either wrecked something or vanished.

(I do admit that at one point out of frustration I tried tethering him to a picnic table with the dog leash, but he got really mad so I let him go.)

It was just a short spot of camping but a taxing one so when the last day came I was very relieved to pack up and make fast our kipple for a return to the old schoolhouse. Yes -- Littlestar, Popsicle and I had survived camping with Yam, and we would be returning home virtually unscathed (aside from various itchy bug bites and a renewed layer of exhaustion) where I could spend the rest of my vacation at more relaxing pursuits!

...Which is, of course, precisely when it became clear to us how determined the black Volvo was not to start at all.

In the tradition of an inspired Kids in the Hall sketch, we tried doing random things to the vehicle between attempts to start it. We opened the hood and tapped the battery connections, for instance. "Try it now!" Littlestar fidgeted with the fuses. "Try it now!" I tightened the engine oil cap and kicked the front fender. "Try it now!" We turned off the radio and engaged the parking brake. "Try it now!"

On and on. The Volvo was stubborn. It didn't want electricity or oil or gasoline. It just wanted to sit still and bake in the sun.

The children played at the beach while we frowned and fretted.

Littlestar used her dying telephone to text for help. Hours later we were rescued by Old Oak in his black Volvo (it's like we have a fleet of 'em) and ferried home to put the children to bed. Littlestar and I would be obliged to return in the yellow Mini the next day to deal with the stranded black Volvo. We learned that the Volvo wanted to rest for about twelve hours between starts, but we only figured that out after stranding it at a gas-station/food-stop on the way home. On the third day, we managed to drive the Volvo into our driveway where it would lie in wait until we had the funds to have it fixed.

(A few days later the yellow Mini's left front tire retired from active duty. It whistled while it signed off, the car sagging visibly. I also sagged, and spoke some profane words with respect to automotive life. Fuck you, cars!)

That night we unpacked the essentials while the children slept. I discovered that Yam had managed to spill grape juice into my paper notebook, thus rendering half of my notes an eternal mystery and calling the plots of some newly developed stories into even more question than usual. I sighed.

"It'll be easier next year," Littlestar assured me.

"Oh boy," I said.