roof

I HAVE never really been one for camping.

The thought of huddling around a dimming campfire with a cold drizzle hanging in the air would normally fill me with dread.

But that’s before I discovered TentBox.

After a weekend away in Dorset, this little gadget changed my mind on camping entirely . . .  and I had the time of my life.

Unlike other tents, TentBox – which attaches to the roof of your car, positioning you high above the ground — adds a certain sophistication to the outdoorsy experience.

We didn’t have to carefully peg it down, nor spend the best part of our evening inflating a mattress.

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And instead of wasting hours faffing with poles, this shortened our camping set-up time to less than ten minutes.

Although, a word of warning, if you’re not very tall (like me), be prepared for it to take a little longer as you struggle to reach the roof of your car.

Luckily, you don’t need to be a camping pro either.

The hardest part of the set-up is firmly securing the box to your car roof — you will need roof bars for that and can check your car’s compatibility easily online (there are certain weight limits on smaller cars).

Once that is out of the way, all you need to do is unzip the sides, pull down the ladder, and pop the tent up.

Simple, right? Once you have clambered inside, you will find a comfy foam mattress, enough space for two to four people (depending on the TentBox model) and even skylights, so on a clear night you can stargaze in your PJs.

The highlight for me, however, was being able to avoid invading creepy crawlies thanks to our rooftop perch.

With the TentBox fitted, we made our way to Sweet Hill Farm, which cost us just £13pp per night — much less than a Dorset hotel room — and it came with much better views, too.

At the very tip of the Isle of Portland peninsula, Sweet Hill Farm is strictly a no-frills spot, made up of just four fields with basic compost toilets, cold water taps and hot showers that cost £1 for three minutes of water.

But for non-campers like me, you can still get a flavour of luxury.

A short walk away from the pitches is a wellness area, home to an icy cold plunge bath and a converted horsebox sauna, which costs £15 for an hour and a half session. Well worth it.

There is an on-site cafe, too, surrounded by picnic tables. It’s great for when you are too lazy to spark up the campfire or need your morning coffee and bacon sarnie.

If you are up to campfire cooking, Kitchenbox does excellent camping sets that come with a stove, saucepan, chopping board, dishes, cutlery and a windbreak.

Scrambled egg and ham baguettes became our easy go-to.

When the weather took an unfortunate turn, we were packed up and heading towards a sunnier patch in minutes.

Chesil Beach, which connects Portland to the mainland, is a great spot for views — and it stretches for 18 miles.

While it is stoney and not the ideal sunbathing spot, the sights of the Jurassic Coast on a bright day are incredible and sweep across the white cliffs to the steep hills of Portland.

Head to nearby Cove House Inn for hearty grub. This 18th-century pub sits right on Chesil Beach’s esplanade and has been on my radar for a while, after it made the Big 7 Travel list of the 25 best spots for a seaside pint last year.

For classic seaside fun, Weymouth is less than a 20-minute ride down the coast from here.

Then you can make your way over to Durdle Door, or Boscombe and then Bournemouth, if you fancy.

Thanks to sweltering heat, the stretching golden sands of Bournemouth Beach were calling.

By this point, we had saved so much cash by ditching expensive beachside hotel rooms that we were able to treat ourselves to an Aperol Spritz and a cold beer on Bournemouth Pier.

It was an ideal way to toast to an adventure-filled weekend. Perhaps one of many camping adventures to come . . . 

Last January, Spencer Pratt’s house in Pacific Palisades was razed by the raging flames of the Palisades Fire. Now, there has been what he called a “very suspicious fire” in a building in the neighborhood’s tony Highlands where he maintained an office for his crystals company.

Pratt, a former reality TV star who ran a high-profile campaign for Los Angeles mayor that he appeared to concede on Friday, talked to the California Post about the incident, which was first reported by the Palisadian-Post. According to the company’s website, the business sells precious and semi-precious crystal pendants, carvings and chains.

“I want to be careful to not compromise an arson investigation, but this incident is very suspicious,” Pratt told the California Post.

“I will wait for the investigators to make public the details, but this was no accident, and the timing of this … on the heels of all of the contentious election tomfoolery of the last two weeks, it is very suspect, indeed.”

Fire officials have not determined what sparked the blaze, and, in an interview with the Palisadian-Post, the building superintendent said he doesn’t believe the fire is related to Pratt’s campaign for mayor.

A spokesperson for Pratt did not immediately respond to phone calls and a text message seeking comment Saturday afternoon. Pratt suggested in his remarks to the California Post that he believes the fire may have been a politically motivated arson.

“This fire was not an accident, and it would not surprise me in the least if this were a reprisal for my work in opposing Karen Bass and Nithya Raman,” he said.

LAFD Public Service Officer Jamie Stewart told The Times in a phone interview Saturday afternoon that the department received a call at 6:09 p.m. Thursday reporting “a two-story commercial building with light smoke showing.” Stewart added that “arson was notified” and that LAFD arson personnel “did respond and they were on scene” of what he said was a one-alarm fire.

According to the Palisadian-Post, on Thursday, “Multiple firefighting units, including two ladder trucks, were dispatched by LAFD from Fire Stations 23 and 69 in the Palisades and Station 92 in Cheviot Hills to respond to the fire.”

The complex’s superintendent, Oscar Chang, told the local publication that the building was being remediated while waiting for a permit for work on its roof. Eyewitnesses, he told the Palisadian-Post, “saw two guys exiting the building shortly before the fire was reported.”

Chang added that he did not believe the fire was related to Pratt’s political campaign.

“One of the tenants shared a video with me of a homeless person right around the corner,” Chang told the publication, but “no one was living in the building.”

On Saturday morning, Pratt posted on social media about the Thursday fire, which tore through the Highlands Circle commercial complex at 1515 Palisades Drive. The complex was best known as the longtime home of the beloved Italian eatery Casa Nostra Ristorante, which closed a week before the Jan. 7, 2025, Palisades Fire and never reopened.

In the social media posting, he referred to the Los Angeles Times as the El Segundo Times — a derisive moniker referring to the location of its building in the coastal city near LAX Airport — and his repeated allegation that the newspaper “doxxed” him by reporting in April that he was staying in Santa Barbara County, not L.A.

“The El Segundo Times were very eager to dox where my children sleep; they thought that was newsworthy,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Have they reported on the arsonists who set fire to my office in the middle of my election?”

Overhead video footage of the fire posted on the Palisadian-Post’s YouTube channel showed smoke rising from the building as firefighters stood on the roof.

A filing in February with the L.A. City Department of Buildings and Safety proposed work for “change of use from commercial to retail, 2-story” at the property. In September, the department issued a code enforcement violation for “ABANDONED OR VACANT BUILDING LEFT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.”