1. Blacks Octane 2 Assembly time: 40 mins. Price: £145.99 This is the first tent we try to erect and we start with such good cheer and resolve. It is amazingly lightweight and my older daughter and son can assemble the tent poles with hardly any help. Even the baby likes banging the tent pegs together and unravelling the guy ropes.

My first problem is that I mistake the inner tent for the outer fly sheet and cannot fix the poles to it. Getting it upright is fiddlier than I anticipate but it roughly resembles the picture on the instructions — and then it collapses when I get inside to connect the inner tent.

Upright finally, it seems very cramped, despite being a two-person size, and I struggle to stretch out. I’m not keen.

2. Vaude Power Odyssee XT Assembly time: I give up after 35 mins. Price: £269.99 I am feeling quite breezy about this tent, having cut my teeth on the Octane 2, until we hit step 4: “Connect the two long poles with the respective square hooks . . . Attention: the upper middle power triangle has 2 clamping hooks; the pole frame which will be connected with the power triangle must be on top.”

None of the hooks looks square. There is only one long pole, then two medium and one littlie. I try them all but after almost half an hour have yet to identify the “power triangle”. I keep trying but I cannot produce anything more than a heap of green nylon.

3. Karakum 2+2. Assembly time: 2 mins. Price: £69.99 I love this tent: unpack it from its zipper bag; remove giant elastic band from its middle and stand back. It’s already pre-formed and really does spring into shape.And it’s huge — room for me, my husband and our children.

In the interests of balance, I must say that it is slightly more challenging to fold away and its circular, collapsed shape is quite bulky and not something to be strapped on to a rucksack.

I do not know the prices of any of the tents I have been loaned and I suspect this one is very expensive but, hell, it is worth every penny.