just another morning here

Some good things
• Leaving early, arriving early, getting tent up before the heavens opened on Saturday afternoon.
• Beautiful setting – the site was fab. Toilets and showers had the usual ‘too many people using them too often’ problems but they were quickly sorted so a general thumbs up from us. No internet though, think hesfes wins it on that score
• Spending time with the friends from our local church who we were there with.
• Meeting lots of old friends – some whom I haven’t seen for years, and others who we keep in touch with more regularly – great to see both kinds Special mention to Nigel & Liz (who we used to share a house with), Stuart & Liz (of Adoption Blog fame), and Jonathan & Vicky (who live in the Borders, some of you met Vicky at Melrose 2004), all of whom we spent extra time with one way and another
• A visit to Ros & Tony‘s – much enjoyed by all of us, in fact the children didn’t want to leave, but Ros didn’t fancy keeping Anna until September, so we dragged her away.
• Steve enjoyed the camping! Will miracles never cease?
• Group type things – the kids enjoyed their activities, and we also appreciated the provision for them I went to a few of the meetings but not all – enjoyed the ones I went to, in the main. We also spent a fair bit of time just walking and talking together which was great.
• Being told (a good number of times) that I didn’t look as though I was camping. Result!
• Kids really really enjoyed being on the same holiday as Grandad and Nanna, and spent a fair bit of time off ‘finding’ them and Esther & Ben too. Groaned this morning when they came back with ‘goodbye present’ cuddly toys
• Packing up a couple of hours earlier than we had intended, getting everything in the car just before the heavens opened!
• Did I mention the roast dinner that we came home to?

Some bad things:
• Joe falling over with Steve’s camera in his hands. That was an expensive trip, have yet to see if the house insurance will cover it.
• Forgetting to take my swimming costume. Another expensive mistake, but I needed a new one anyway …
• The car battery going flat just as we were about to leave. Of course it was pelting down with rain at this point. This was the beginning of one of the worst car journeys I’ve been on with Steve, turned out to be so bad that we just had to laugh and get on with it, everything that could go wrong did, but hey, we got there eventually.
• Spilling the contents of our slops bucket on my Monsoon skirt. That will teach me to take nice clothes camping. The price of all those compliments! I had hoped the grease might wash out but it hasn’t, with Shout application beforehand as well Any other tips? Will drycleaning save it?

And the ugly?
Steve wants to upload his pictures himself. Dammit, because I only have 10 of my own, I think! They will arrive, slowly …

Thanks to everyone who’s sent their love both on and off blog – things went as well as could be expected at the funeral today, the children were really well behaved and rose to the occasion admirably. It actually felt very positive, which can only be good.

I’m now procrastinating hugely, as usual, the day before we go on holiday. I must go and attack the laundry pile. Signing off for a week now, as we are off to a church camp for the week. Most of the HEM family are coming to stay in our house while we’re away; I am not going to manage to clean as much as I’d have liked (mainly cos I’m blogging instead of working ) but hope you have a good time. I really do almost wish I was staying here … apparently mobile signal is not too good where we’ll be but I suspect Steve will walk round the whole site to find somewhere to pick it up, so text me if you need anything and hopefully it will get through. Oh, and Ros, don’t worry about the directions, we have sat nav in the car! Will see you on Wednesday, text me if you need to change anything.