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

Briefly, we enjoyed:

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 :

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.

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

It was lovely to be with friends and get to know some new ones too – the children really enjoyed themselves, so much that I hardly saw them – I even had to round them up at mealtimes, most days! Most of our time was spent kicking around the hostel, with the odd trip to the park thrown in. Oh, and we went swimming too – driving round Galashiels in search of the pool was probably the most amusing moment of the week for me! We spent a nice day with friends on Wednesday too, and enjoyed taking their dogs out for a walk across the fields where they live. I thought everything at the hostel went smoothly, the food was fantastic this year, no-one was sick (always a good thing ), I got to cuddle the babies, and just generally enjoyed being in the company of friends, and seeing my children enjoying the company of their friends too.

I warmed to the Volvo, as it did go rather well – all the driving was relatively peaceful, and on the way home we popped in to see Stuart and Liz, then Joe’s little friend Isaac and family, who’ve recently moved away too. Eventually got home around 7.30 last night, to fish & chips with Steve

Didn’t set an alarm for this morning, but as I woke up in time we decided to go swimming, then home for brunch, now we’re watching Labyrinth before going to a talk by Brian and Wendy Froud this afternoon at the museum – part of the Animated Exeter stuff. I love Labyrinth, it’s a fab film – I think the kids will really enjoy the talk today, I’m looking forward to it as well. Of course Toby (the baby in the Labyrinth film) is their son, too. We did want to get The Dark Crystal as well, but despite it having been first on my LOVEfilm list for at least 6 weeks now it hasn’t arrived, and we asked at the video shop too but they didn’t have it. We might go to the showing at the university on Wednesday instead. Then we’re off to Ruth‘s for tea, so that will be nice. Laundry and sorting out from the week away will happen eventually

Spent yesterday farting around sorting out the car, and then we had some friends over in the afternoon who are thinking of home educating their four children when they move house probably later in the year. I think all the children got on well, although we managed to be a bad influence with the Gamecube We had a good discussion too, Steve managed to get home from work which was nice – made us think all over again about they hows and whys of our home education, which is never a bad thing, either.

Last night I packed all the packable stuff, the boot is full, now I’m praying that the food from the fridge/freezer will fit in the front footwell. My friend who lives in the Borders finally got back to me so I’ve arranged to go and see her one day while we’re at Melrose. Anyway, those of you who are going to Melrose, see you later. Those who aren’t, have a good week, I’ll be back next weekend. And Steve, don’t forget to feed the hamster

We ended up trudging the whole way across Kensington Gardens to find the playpark (although we weren’t the only ones!!) and all really enjoyed our time there – the park is lovely and there were some great games going on I think. Abbie especially enjoyed seeing Piers again!

Slight disappointment as Anna didn’t manage to rope Poppy into her TV thing, because despite having asked Kensington & Chelsea Council for permission and having paid £100 to get it, it then turned out that Kensington Gardens is royal property and therefore not under council jurisdiction anyway – so no filming allowed. Still, it was a relatively amusing episode for Alison and I plus an entourage of vaguely related children to have traipsed over to the lake and then be held up by a police car!

Lovely to meet fellow muddlepuddlers too, although it was too short! Maybe that was our fault – we headed off around 3pm for our river cruise – organised by the tv people so we didn’t complain too much, especially as they were chauffeuring us around as well. So that happened, then they did a bit more filming by Tower Bridge, and after that we were free to go (phew! We’re off to see the editing this week though, so that should be fun).

Thought we’d do a spontaneous evening London Eye ride, as it was a nice evening, but our plans for that were short lived too, when we got there and found that it had closed early due to a private function!

Ho hum – so that night ended with pasta & pesto cooked in the hotel kitchen. Steve & I tried out the babysitting and went out for a walk after the children were asleep, which was pleasant – ended up in Tescos buying lunch for the next day – how sad is that?!

A moochy day here today, I’ve been busy parcelling up ebay items, while the kids have done all sorts from watching Tintin videos, to playing outside, in the garage with clay, on the PS2, etc. Mollie has been around and they’ve been over to her house too – and Mollie’s mum and I had coffee this morning which was lovely. Somehow while Anna had been over there with Ruby (Mollie’s baby sister) she’d dropped homebirth into the conversation, and it turns out that we have that in common, amongst other things. I’m hoping that she and I will become as firm friends as the children have – I know from experience how nice it is to have good friends close by geographically, and most of mine have moved away or lived away to start with!

Went to Tescos this afternoon, then this evening Steve’s out … Joe read his books (again – so either it wasn’t a fluke last night or he’s memorised them since yesterday) and went to bed, while the girls and I watched a film and I did a huge pile of ironing. So I think it’s been a productive day.

Oh, and the director from A Different Life rang me this evening, and it sounds like there is a possibility of them coming up to London to film for a day while we are there, so guess which date I gave him?!!! Told you I’d get more puddlers involved somehow – hope lots of people are going to make it to the MuddlePuddle meet up, don’t let this put you off!!

Theoretical question for you all to end with … if you went out on test drive, and pranged the car you were test driving, would you expect to have to pay something towards the cost of repair? Just want a quick opinion poll!

Highlights of our week away were generally taking it easy and watching Wimbledon, spending time with friends (ours), the children spending time with friends (theirs), Sparky, the 2p machines in the arcade, being in a static when it rained (sorry, real campers!), oh, and having Steve there made it a great week for us as a family. Someone asked me whether I was getting twitchy being away from the pc for so long, and I have to admit that I didn’t miss it much all week – but that was because I was with the people who I use the pc to ‘be’ with! I am really grateful for the community of friends that is MuddlePuddle (cheesey moment to follow) so thanks so much guys for your friendship both online and in real life.

On the way home we heard that we have completed on our house, so we were a bit excited about that, although I still don’t really want to leave this part of Exeter for that one – but there we go, I’m sure I’ll get used to it. We stopped at Ikea on the way back too and managed not to buy anything, that was pretty good going!

We have a busy few weeks ahead so apologies in advance; my blogging will be more sporadic than usual. Packing this week, moving next week, and i haven’t sorted anything out with regards to my internet connection in the new house! But there’s always the library

I’m not sure I’ve completely assimilated the whole thing yet, we got home this afternoon and my first priority was to get all three children bathed, and some washing on! I’ve also had a bath and a glass of wine, Steve had the afternoon off work, so it’s been lovely to have him around this afternoon. There are some things about hesfes that I think I’ll never ‘like’, but other things that make it so nice that we will have to make it a regular thing – because overall the positives outweighed the negatives (although had it been a rainy week I’m not sure I would have lasted). Don’t think I feel like philosophising though, so on with the highlights …

Katy’s tent – I know she warned us – was really massive! During the first day after everyone had arrived we ended up moving things around to give ourselves a lovely little circle of tents with space in the middle. We were right next to the playground – which was good for our children during the day but not quite so good at night …

Chris did a great job of being ‘camp dad’ during the first few days when he was around, followed by Bob who arrived as a surprise for Hannah on Wednesday – reducing Kirsty, Jax and I to tears watching the moment when Hannah realised what the ‘parcel that was too large to post’ actually was! Steve came up for the day on Sunday and I was pleased that he saw where we were and the sorts of things that we were up to.

We had a Muddle Puddle Barbecue on Monday night which was really lovely – as you can see the children all tucked in ;o)

Actually, one of the nice things was how well all our children played together, there were all sorts of combinations that seemed to work, and it was interesting to watch the relationships develop. By the end of the week the little ones were quite happy jumping all over one another like this:

Obviously there were lots of things laid on in up in the marquees, from bands, to a children’s cabaret in the evening, I think there might have been a solar powered cinema too – and all sorts of craft workshops. Anna really enjoyed the dancing sessions, particularly the Egyptian dancing ones, but to be honest I didn’t really get to much! I made it to half of one of the ‘conference’ sessions but it was difficult to listen and look after Joe at the same time. There was some excellent face painting going on up in the big field, Anna, Abbie, Poppy and Tilda all had arty faces on different days:

Mainly I just enjoyed a camping holiday with friends, so here are a couple of pics …

Personally, I think my children really enjoyed the freedom they were allowed while we were away. Abigail made a friend at the beginning of the week, and that little friendship kept us all amused for the rest of the time! It was built on a common love of sweets, I think, but Abbie has come home with Piers’ address with every good intention of writing to him, so we’ll see what happens!

Anna played with Hannah, Poppy, Matilda, and a friend from our local HE group who was there, Alice – and generally just enjoyed being herself.

Joe was ready to come home slightly before the girls, having had enough of camping, I think! But he did enjoy himself – tonight we were talking about his birthday which is only a few weeks away and he wants to invite Adam, Marcus and Alex! I’m wondering about a birthday party while we’re at muddlepuddle camp – I know there are lots of June birthdays – anyone fancy joining in?

Meanwhile, I enjoyed just hanging with my friends, reading, getting sunburnt, but mostly getting to know everyone a bit better – particularly Simon (!!) – who has to win the prize for being the cutest camp baby in his little bandana! It was fab to see Roslyn and her crew when they came up on Wednesday, even if it was only for a short time. And I met up with a couple of people from other email lists too so it was nice to put faces to names there.

The downsides were the noise at night – it didn’t *really* affect me personally but I guess I still think that a bunch of home-educated teenagers should somehow have more sense than your average group of teens, and be able to be different – I hope my kids will be, when they’re that age. Personally I found the ‘drift in and out’ approach to everything difficult too – I’m more of an organised person – but I guess it worked, so maybe I should just lighten up on that score. The campsite annoyed me too – but again, maybe I’m just too picky! I do wonder what sort of picture of home education Hesfes gives, though …

So all in all, a long post (sorry) but a jolly good time. I will be looking out for a tent soon in preparation for a couple of camps later this summer, and next year – despite all my misgivings I started sentences ‘next year …’ all too many times!!