IF you were annoyed about the terrible weather this week, I have to offer my apologies.

It is all my fault, as I decided to take the family camping. Naturally, it proceeded to tip it down for most of our three days over in the Lakes.

Disaster is never far away from us when we go camping, and this year it was no different.

First of all, I have to make a confession. We’ve had so many bad experiences pitching a tent in the rain, missing poles and other vital parts, that we decided this year would be different. So we stayed in a camping pod.

It had electricity, so we could charge our phones up, and keep our eight-year-old entertained with films on the laptop. And, of course, we didn’t have to pitch it. When we arrived, it was bucketing it down, and all we needed to do was tip the contents of the car into the pod and work from there.

The purists out there will be frothing with fury, but it is still camping. It’s still awkward. Making a coffee is still an achievement, and something simple as using the toilet in the middle of the night is still a production. And, when it rains, there’s still the sneaking suspicion that you’ve sprang a leak and that you’ll wake up surrounded by pools of water. Which is still a likelihood if you have failed in making a toilet trip, I hasten to add.

We abandoned last year’s camping trip on the second day after it rained incessantly, everything we had was sodden and the campsite owners had decided to mow the grass while we were there, leaving all of our belongings covered in blades of grass.

Our luck with the rain has never been good. We could have pitched a tent in Arizona and we’d have picked the one rainy day.

And it always sounds worse than it is. We camped during a thunderstorm once and it sounded like God was putting the bins out.

But this trip, although it rained, was going well until Wednesday. We were all dry, we managed to get the barbecue working, it was a genuinely enjoyable time. And on Wednesday morning, the weather gods smiled on us.

So I went off for a run. And that’s where it all went wrong.

I’m writing this column from my sick bed, with a badly sprained ankle packed in ice after suffering a nasty fall while ‘exploring’ the woodland near to our campsite.

I knew something had gone wrong when the path I was following became more and more overgrown, then ended with a fence. Trying to find a way out of the woods, I saw a small wall, so I hopped over that, not realising it was steeper on the other side. And, down I went with a nasty-sounding crunch.

I managed to get back to the site – two miles away – having gone over on the ankle three further times, covered in nettle stings and scratches from the bushes. I looked like Rambo gone wrong.

So I’m having to negotiate the house with crutches at the moment. It’s no fun, neither for me, nor the rest of my family who have to put up with my rotten mood and diva requests for drinks and chocolate.

Next year, we’re going to somewhere sunny. And I’m leaving the running shoes at home.