just another morning here

Home from Greenbelt, had an excellent time, don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to have a shower though! When Neil told me the other day that he didn’t know what the Greenbelt showers were like I thought he was mad, but honestly, seeing the queues for showers (queues for the kids’ groups were bad enough!) I gave up hope of washing my hair for 4 days and went and bought myself a bandana instead

Great to be camped with friends and friends of friends, even though we didn’t spent that much time together! There was so much to do and we didn’t even manage to get round to some of the stuff we’d picked out as possibles, which frustrated me somewhat, but you just had to chill out – especially with the children there too.

So – Friday night we went to the opening ceremony at the main stage, then I can’t remember what we did next. Got lost! Had some chips, went to the end of Bob Hartman‘s storytelling session, then to a classical cello recital. Joe took these photos while he was ignoring the cellist

Caught some of Martyn Joseph on the way back past the main stage … wished we could have stopped but the children needed bed.

Saturday we tried and failed to get the children in to the first children’s festival session. Got priority tickets for the afternoon session though so it wasn’t all bad. The girls did the climbing wall instead, and we mooched around a bit, and watched some animated films on the big screen.

Abbie and Joe ended up at the Saturday afternoon children’s festival session and then the Monday morning session too. We were fine once we’d sussed the system, lol, this morning Steve took a chair and a book over to sit in the queue an hour and a half before it opened, and he was still nowhere near the front of the line! Anna went to the Big Intent Theatre Co for three sessions over the weekend and really enjoyed that.

Saturday evening was a two-fold highlight for me. Firstly I took the girls to see a gospel choir who had an urban dance group performing with them, and that whole session was brilliant. Loved the music and the dance too, as did Anna. And after that, Daniel Bedingfield on the main stage. Thought he was simply excellent live and enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. Josiah lay down on our rug and fell asleep for most of it, so Abbie broke Steve’s shoulders while Anna was on my back, and periodically we had to shove passers by to stop them trampling Josiah (we were right in the middle of the crowd!). All good fun

We had a lazy morning on Sunday, made it down for Anna’s theatre thing again, and took the younger two to make a clay model for the City of Clay art thingummy – you got a hunk of clay, made a building of some kind, then they displayed them all together and lit candles in them in the evening, it looked pretty cool.

Then mooched around (again ), ate sandwiches, and ended up listening to the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain who were fantastic. Didn’t do anything in the evening – we had planned to go out later but the children were tired … so tired that they didn’t go to sleep for ages so I think we fell asleep before they did.

Today was the last day; the children all did their various stuff, and we mooched. Again! We didn’t quite have enough free time to actually do anything. I guess we could have made more of it if we’d done our own thing a bit more, but on the other hand it was quite nice just to bum around together. We ended up in a performance cafe a couple of times which was good.

Took down the awning after lunch, and then decided to abandon plans for the afternoon as none of the children were desperately bothered about any of it, it was raining (the ground in front of the main stage was pretty swampy!) and the stuff Steve and I had been bothered about was too late really. I thought it was a shame but then again we do have to work tomorrow and needed to get back with enough time for nice long showers and sorting out.

Anyway, really glad we went, we all enjoyed it a lot, and will probably go back again. Would be even better with even more friends there though! Felt like we only scraped the surface of what Greenbelt had to offer and is all about, so there’s as good a reason as any to go back again. Official photos are here and Greenbelt 2006 pool here

Anna didn’t carry on with her diary unfortunately, as I’m sure her version of events would be far more entertaining than mine! Beware, lots of photos, big post, not really apologising though. Read on if you like …
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We’re going camping here tonight so that we can cycle on the Granite Way from Okehampton to Lydford (probably in two halves, today and tomorrow) … hoping to get on the train too at some point Back tomorrow night.

Must get off the computer and pack the van

Despite a couple of snow flurries (in April!!!) we had a mainly beautiful sunny (if a little cold) weekend, and survived with all five of us living in the van for a couple of days, in fact I think we even enjoyed it I was surprised, tbh, I thought it would feel a bit cramped but it wasn’t too bad. In fact it was mainly lovely, with only a few ‘everyone-on-top-of-each-other’ moments!

I had to giggle at the family opposite who arrived on Sunday with a caravan, and a brand new awning, and seeing them struggle to put it up brought back many memories of camping with my parents

Campsite was okay … wouldn’t want to stay there for a week or at a busier time of year but it was great for a weekend. Very friendly people The children had a long swim in the pool on Sunday morning and we had a lovely walk in the woods too. The play area was good and they spent ages outside playing. And we had some nice time together in the van as well, playing games, watching films, reading, etc.