just another morning here

We got home very late last night (early this morning?) from a good week away. We were incredibly grateful for a week of fantastic weather, bar one night of very heavy rain at the beginning of the week it was great. Finally!

The wet night did make the whole site a bit muddy for a couple of days but nothing too terrible on our side of the site anyway. My parents did have a bit of a Kessingland week in their awning though, and ended up throwing their groundsheet away rather than cleaning it! Think swamp mixed with cowpats and you have the general idea, yuk.

We were camped with friends from one of the other churches in the network, which was nice, because we were the only campers there from our own local church, so it meant that the children had friends to play with, I had more hair to braid (!!) and we had friends to laze around and share coffee and wine with

Saw a number of old friends throughout the week which was nice, and we also saw rather a lot of my youngest brother as well, who clearly had too much time on his hands and kept coming back to be clambered on by small girls – lovely to have him around though.

The organised ‘churchy’ activities (for want of a better word!) consisted of various meetings most mornings and in the evenings too, as well as sports and other stuff going on during the afternoon. The children all had groups to go to, which they really enjoyed and got lots out of. I was on a team helping with the 3 and 4 year olds during the morning sessions, which was a lot of fun.

Managed to get to most of the evening meetings as well, and generally felt like it was good for me, the spiritual kick up the backside was long overdue.

We had a couple of free days as well, where we escaped the site (it was *so* noisy!) and did our own thing. On the first day we went to Herstmonceux Science Centre where we met some of the Screamteam and most of the Monsterteenies, and had a fab day there. (I didn’t ever get my email from the Art Machine by the way, what happened to that I wonder?!)

From there we found a swimming pool in Hailsham – decided that was the easiest way to clean all our children at once

On our other day off we ended up in Eastbourne visiting Ros & Tony at Bonners Music Superstore. Steve made himself at home immediately and made a long phonecall but for some reason didn’t want me to take a photo Anna made herself at home too We didn’t spend too much money though!

Mooched around Eastbourne for a while, then went swimming again, then ended up at Pevensey Castle on the way back to the campsite. Fab castle with lots of interesting different parts added over the years. Tried desperately to get a picture of all three children looking nice at the same time but after four attempts I gave up!

We spent a fair bit of time enjoying Ashburnham again; it is a gorgeous site. Tried hard to get the camera to do things it isn’t really cut out to do with the lens I was using but the results weren’t too bad, all things considered.

As an aside, my Flickr post bar has miraculously sprung back into life tonight after months of not recognising me as a user – don’t know what happened there but I’m very glad to have it back!

Got a bit of washing done today but generally lazed around as we were fairly exhausted. Our wonderful neighbour(s) had done a fantastic job with the guinea pigs which was an extra blessing.

So, we went to the 5th MuddlePuddle Summer Camp at Kessingland Beach. Only our third, we missed a couple of years, but it was good to be back Didn’t get the camera out much, but photos are here.

Various highlights according to the various members of this family, but as this is my blog, I’ll write about mine We will certainly remember the rain and mud. Thankfully it served to highlight the wonderfulness of the new folding camper, which is definitely a change for the better, I think all of us appreciated it for the space it gave us. Even the awning wasn’t too horrendous to put up (although we did have a fair bit of help both times we did it so I’ll reserve judgement until after the rest of the summer). We did have an awful muddy flood in the awning for a few days; when the trailer started to simultaneously sink (unevenly) while the awning pegs fell out of the ground, and the mud began to smell, we decided to move to higher ground – but had to get a tractor to tow the trailer out, as the cars were getting stuck in the field and our car would never have managed! So that was amusing

It was great to be among friends for a week, and to chat to new people too, albeit briefly. In some ways it was a shame that the weather wasn’t really ‘sitting round outside’ weather as I didn’t see enough of some people, but there we go.

Our day at Bewilderwood was fab, highly recommended by all of us.

Sparky’s – some of us love it, some of us hate it. Actually this year in some ways it was good to have somewhere warm and dry to go! And it’s only a couple of years until all my children are old enough not to need the accompanying adult (and have to ask other people’s parents )! This year some of the children entered the karaoke competition and Anna won, meaning someone is going to end up taking her back in October for a second helping of Sparky fun – aargh! Still, at least she won static caravan accommodation for the week as well.

What else?
We went to see Shrek 3 at Lowestoft cinema on the Sunday (a mini-tradition there as we watched Shrek 2 there on its release weekend three years ago).
I managed to miss pretty much all the planned camp events (well, the ones that still happened!) for one reason and another. Anna did some tie-dying though!
Didn’t go to the beach at all. I don’t really like beaches, and no-one else asked to go, so we didn’t.
Enjoyed the cabaret on Thursday, fab to see so many different performances.

Had a really really naff journey home, it took three hours longer than it should have, which just goes to cement my hatred of driving to and from the East coast (Em, don’t know how you do it on a regular basis, it would do my head in!). Still, despite that and the general swampiness of the week, it was definitely a great time

Josiah and I got home late last night. We had a fantastic week away in Melrose, followed by a weekend in Sheffield for a friend’s wedding, which was a great day as well. I hardly took any photos, as everywhere I went there were other people taking (probably better) pictures than me, so I didn’t bother, I’ll add links as and when people flickr them!

Briefly, we enjoyed:

seeing/meeting friends both old and new

Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh on Wednesday

Nostalgic trip round the Borders visiting friends and seeing our old house on Thursday

All the lovely food

Lots of DSing (yes, both of us, Joe was as bad as me!)

and I’m sure there was more, but I can’t remember it now.

There was lots (and lots) of Fimo craft going on, which ended up annoying me as I could never get inspired and also couldn’t stand seeing small children muck up the colours, not to mention welding bits of uncooked fimo to the table, chairs, and floor – aargh! But it was fun nevertheless I enjoyed the week almost as much as the first Melrose camp back in 2004 I think. It was very strange not to have the girls there but they seem to have had a good week at home with Steve too.

A few snaps of us from Melrose courtesy of the Beans :

We spent a very relaxing night in the Travelodge in Sheffield, I was obviously just tired enough not to notice or care about the usual things that annoy me about (a) Travelodges and (b) Little Chefs!

Kirsty and James’ wedding was also a fabulous day, lovely to see them get married and enjoy their day, and great to see so many of our friends there too.

The drive home was easy and the girls were still up when we got back so that was nice, they looked as if they had missed me, and now I’m hoping they will have missed me enough to think of bringing me breakfast in bed!

… and as long as I don’t get held up and then the ovens are working properly, dinner should be okay, all is chopped and ready to cook! Managed to gather everything together and pack today as well as have a nice time with the children doing various things along the way. Well, I’ve probably forgotten something but never mind. OH yes, it does matter – the wine! I’ll go and pack it now!!

Feels really weird to be just taking Josiah to a home ed camp rather than all three children, but the girls are looking forward to organising Steve/the household while we’re away