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.

based on this poem, using a format found here, first seen on Making it Up.

I am from brown velour sofas, Doctor Who, a Commodore 64 and cassette tapes.

I am from the Old Bakery, the house in the village square where the mobile library used to stop every week, so we always took the librarians cups of tea after school on a Thursday afternoon.

I am from the brambles growing down the lane, and the tree hanging over the stream where we used to cross it and paddle in it. And in the summer, from the woods where we played hide and seek to the soundtrack of trains going past at the bottom of the garden. From lavendar, raspberries, and all sorts of flowers, mixed with the scent of chlorine from the swimming pool.

I am from long drawn out cups of coffee on Christmas morning, and always being right. From Colgate Palmolive, from hand made and embroidered doll’s clothes, Great Danes, and tomato plants.

From ‘sorry means I won’t do it again’, and ‘that’s understandable but inexcusable’.

I am from Cote Baptist Chapel, from the Charismatic movement in the seventies. From Bible verses memorised, from a Christian school, and Psalty the singing songbook. From a strong heritage of faith and my own personal experience of Jesus.

I’m from Oxford, yet a mixture of Liverpool, Wales, France and Belgium thrown in as well. From croissants-aux-amandes, framboisines, baked ham with a crust around it, and toast with cheese and marmite.

From the time the field flooded and froze over in the village, and we all went skating on it, two of us in ice skates and the rest in wellies. From working out exactly how to play Spider and Fly on the morning my sister was born. From excitedly getting up in the early hours of the morning to go on holiday.

I am from a trunk in a garage, boxes that haven’t been opened in 20 years.

Trying to fulfil my blogging duty here, there were a couple of things that I wanted to record but just hadn’t got round to it, so here we go. It’s long, and personal, bragging in places, so only read it if you’re *really* needing to fill up that blog-reading schedule

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Comes round quickly, Sunday night, doesn’t it. Must go and cook tea then fold the washing so that they have school uniform ready for the morning.

It has been a beautiful day here; bit gutted that we haven’t managed to make the most of it, but there we go. I had the annual Memorial Service for babies lost through miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death to go to this afternoon, and Steve had to go in to work to let someone test drive a car, so it was always going to be a non-starter of a day, really.

The children have played out a fair bit though, with Mollie and Ruby in the close, Josiah is out there still in his pyjamas, and Abbie is in her sunsuit! Just couldn’t be bothered to insist on anything today.

Abbie spent the first part of *her* morning on a hamster hunt, she did admit responsibility in having accidentally left the cage open yesterday, so I think she breathed a huge sigh of relief when she found him in her dolls’ cot.

Anna has dossed around, but came with me to the service this afternoon. Her comments were that it was a short service, and that she was surprised at how much crying there was. Doh. My feelings on the whole thing are pretty much the same as last year and the year before that. I can’t quite decide if it’s good to give time to feel stuff all over again, or if it’s just a strange sadistic thing to put yourself through once a year. I am really considering stopping the support group, and if I do stop it I don’t think I’d go to the service, which leads me to think that it is just me getting emotionally carried away by the situation rather than any real grief of my own. Obviously I did and occasionally still do grieve, but the service itself doesn’t help in that for me personally, I don’t think. Still, having said that, someone read a very powerful poem today which I might post one day.

We had a lovely night out (at Harry’s) yesterday, too, which deserves a mention – we were celebrating a decent month of sales at the garage, so it was a works’ do – felt like a proper one for the first time ever though as it included our mechanic and his wife as well as Steve’s parents and us. We might even manage it this month as well, if we’re lucky