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.

We’re having something of a Psalty revival here, owing to the fact that I am crap at keeping secrets for Christmas, and that the kids begged me for more cds after I’d given them the couple of Christmas ones that I was always going to bring out before Christmas anyway, and I couldn’t resist. Every night this week they’ve asked me if they can have the next one in the series. We did use to have some of them on tape but they’ve long since worn out/got lost/broken, so I indulged myself in the set on CD.

They keep almost reciting lines from the various cds and then being gobsmacked when I finish the lines (“how come you know them *all*, mum?!”), which are indelibly inscribed in my brain from years of listening to them when I was a kid. They are cheesy, American, and now 25 – 30 years old but still so much good stuff in them and I love them so I’m completely chuffed that the kids are enjoying them so much Mark, if you are reading this, they are hoping you’ll do a Risky Rat thing for them at Christmas as apparently my Risky Rat voice isn’t up to much

More fun here had by all – Steve went in to work for an hour or so, some of us went to the park first thing, then we just bummed around at home for the rest of the morning. After lunch the dads and two daughters went into town and came home with a nice haul from the Gap sale, as well as a couple of CDs and important birthday presents.

Meanwhile those of us left behind did a whole load of crafty bits preparing some Stations of the Cross symbolic pictures (with slight adaptations on our part ) to use as part of our Good Friday meal.

Kids have done beading, drawing, played on the piano/other musical instruments and generally been great, got along well, and enjoyed themselves.

Just had roast lamb which was yummy, and in the middle of the meal shared the Stations of the Cross stuff which was good – I like to mark Good Friday, even if the children still insist on calling it Bad Friday. Ice cream was pretty scrummy too, topped with chocolate bunnies. And for those of you who are au fait with the Veggie Tales there were a few very bad renditions of the Bunny Song included, just for good measure. Confused? Me too! Just SING the SONG!

I have time to blog because I cooked, so the clearing up and children-to-bed stuff is happily happening without me … we’re playing bongos and then planning to watch a film later too.

Just putting this link here completely for my benefit, although there may be people out there who might be interested … found on one of the blogs that I read in my (ahem) spare time … an article explaining how the emergent church is similar to a home school group.

I can really identify with this article, actually – for us the journey into home education was synonymous with much of our church-exploration-thinking, so it was nice to hear someone put it into words.

Not sure quite where it leaves us now, but that’s another story!