just another morning here

It rained. Horrible wet drizzly rain. I stayed in bed for hours, can’t remember the last time I did that without a hangover! Steve and the children played cards, everyone coloured doodle patterns, I finished all my books (so did they, I think!), and then the kids went out to play despite the rain, getting wet and sandy and muddy in the process!

During the afternoon Steve and I popped to Carrefour on a secret mission; Steve had been hoping to pick up a small tv/dvd combi for the caravan at some point anyway, so we figured we’d do it sooner rather than later, hoping that we had the right sort of leads/sockets/adaptors to make it work! We found exactly what we’d been looking for, came back, and got it working which was fantastic, Josiah was thrilled to be able to watch his Spiderman DVD that he’d bought in Amsterdam the week before!

The rain stopped briefly over dinnertime so the kids rushed out to play, but then had to come in when it started again later. We cleaned them up (a major operation!) and had stories, then Steve & I watched the first couple of hours of 24 (season 1) which we’d picked up really cheaply in Carrefour – only 5 years after the rest of the world, but we hadn’t watched any of them before – really enjoyed it!

We had to be off one site by 12pm but supposedly not arriving at the next until 4pm so we ambled around for a bit in the morning, went and found a supermarket and did some shopping before coming back to pick up the trailer. Said goodbye to the hustle and bustle of Camping Zeeburg at almost exactly noon, and travelled down to Turnhout and Baalse Hei. We were there by 2pm, and they were happy about that so no problems there.

It felt like a huge contrast between the two sites – Baalse Hei was in the middle of the countryside, very peaceful, and the site itself was fairly empty and quiet. In our small camping area only 3/10 of the pitches were occupied at any one time, and this was mid-August, we were really surprised. Plenty of space for our palace this time, and we were thrilled to see a little play area in the middle of the field, which our kids had to themselves for 99% of the time!

After we’d set up we went for a walk and explored the site, sat and had a beer in the bar while the children played in the big play area, the length of the lake away! Felt as though we were going to have a lovely relaxing week, and we did

We set off early this morning, having packed pretty much everything the day before. I love getting up early to go on holiday, it makes you feel excited before you’ve even gone anywhere because you have to whisper and creep about as you leave the house, and usually we eat a strange breakfast as well (hot cross buns on the A303 in this case!).

Got to Dover early and asked if we could go on the next available ferry, which we did. I realised that I had forgotten my watch, so bought myself a trendy looking Swatch from the shop, as I absolutely can’t stand to be without a watch on my wrist!

The driving through France/Belgium/the Netherlands afterwards seemed to take a long time, punctuated by the different phone companies sending Steve and I service texts every time we crossed into different territory! The children were impressed to have been in four countries in one day.

We arrived at Camping Zeeburg around 5pm local time, and the place was absolutely heaving. It was a bit of a culture shock, I must admit. The site is a very busy city campsite, and was full to overflowing, mainly with young people backpacking their way around Europe, or so it seemed! There were lots of motorhomes too, big ones, that came and went every couple of days. The site itself was more rough and ready than your average Caravan Club site in the UK as well, and the pitches were small!

When we were shown to our plot we immediately realised that it wasn’t really big enough for our awning to go up – well, not as well as keeping the car near the caravan anyway. Given that it really was busy and the car parks were overflowing in any case, we decided to shove the awning in the boot of the car and manage without it for the week. We knew we’d be out and about a fair bit anyway. In some ways it was quite nice not to bother with putting it up!

Having said all that, Camping Zeeburg was well run/organised, ideally situated for exploring Amsterdam and environs, and we had a great time there. They had a small pet enclosure with a few goats and chickens in it, which kept Abbie completely happy for the week, and the kids all enjoyed scootering around the site. The children’s play area was as good as useless as people were camping in it, but I don’t think our kids even noticed it was there!

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