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.

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?!)

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.

Went out this morning to Get Lost in Devon in a maize maze that I’ve been meaning to go to for years now. Despite rain and various children having paddies over various things we really enjoyed it, and the go-karts at the end were great too.

Ate out at Bickleigh Mill which was nice too, I especially appreciated the Simon Drew place mats, I was sorely tempted to buy some in the gift shop at the end as I love Simon Drew!

Now home relaxing with sleep, reading, and games. I love having people to stay while they’re ‘on holiday’ as it means we feel as though we’re on holiday too

Saturday night at home with the MonsterTeenies, Sunday afternoon at the park, Sunday night watching a Green Day tribute band at the pub down the road, and today dodging showers in the woods

Other stuff we didn’t photograph but ought to remember … might add to this as I think of stuff

• Ros cleaning Abbie’s recorder with Cif

Thursday night was happily spent with Nic, Ady, Monster & Teeny. Got back to the campsite late and didn’t quite manage to line the van up with the awning so left it unhooked for the night, which then annoyed me no end the next morning!

Friday we did Nothing all morning. Which also annoyed me. Everyone else seemed perfectly happy doing nothing apart from the fact that the kids were a bit gutted not to have got hold of Ros, until lo and behold, just after lunch Ros found her phone and rang us back, which made everyone’s day! We went over to her house for the afternoon which was lovely too – said hello to Bob, Joyce and Hannah when they arrived, and then went back to the campsite, via Sainsbury’s and fish & chips on the sea front somewhere. Well, in the van, to be precise, but we could see water, does that count?

Saturday was the much-awaited day of the party and we slobbed around for the morning, watching Dick & Dom while I chopped veggies, then spent an hour or so getting ready and attracting plenty of attention on the campsite as we walked around in full halloween garb! The party itself was great fun as expected, and we had a fab time, so again a big thank you to Nic & Ady.

Popped back to the Goddards for a cuppa before going home to the campsite again. By now we had sussed the ‘hooking back up to the awning’ thing and had cunningly marked where the wheels of the van should go, as well as having visual landmarks to line the van up with the frame of the awning. Stayed up late finishing our bottle of wine and having deep and meaningful conversation!

This morning we got up at the usual time (which was of course an hour earlier ) and got everyone dressed, packed, the awning down, Steve & I showered, portapotty emptied, etc., all by 10am. Okay, the extra hour helped a lot there! Abbie has been a bit ill all of today with a headache, temperature and general under-the-weather-ness … not altogether surprising as Steve felt ill for most of the week and I’m starting to feel the same way this evening too

We brunched in MacDonalds (not too healthy but who cares), then set the sat nav for the scenic route to Oxfordshire, avoiding motorways. Great fun to do things differently for once but not have the stress of map-reading! Stopped en route for snacks and coffee, and to shut the sunroof on the van, which *someone* had opened and we only realised when it poured down with rain!

Elodie’s dedication was at 3pm and we arrived just on time. Forgot to take any photos, doh, but it was a good service and nice to see family and friends there. It’s a bit of a family-fest at the moment having seen them all last weekend and of course the wedding next weekend as well, which we’re all looking forward to!

On the way home we decided to call in at Steve’s parents’, and invited ourselves for dinner in the process, which was a good idea on my part fantastically executed by Steve’s mum (detect a pattern here?!), so I was spared having to cook this evening, and it was nice to catch up with them, briefly, too.

And now we’re home. Have unpacked some things and left others clogging up the hall. Washing is in the machine, but the rest can wait until tomorrow.

After saying goodbye to Ros, we set about getting ready to entertain more internet friends who were dropping by for lunch, while en route to Cornwall. Rain and heavy traffic meant they were much later than expected, so we didn’t have much time together (although Steve & I had the chance to sit down and read Devon Life together – he bought it in Sainsbury’s so he could drool over big country houses ) – will have to arrange another visit sometime.

As they left the piano teacher arrived, so she was here for a while, and it was still raining, so the rest of us emptied the lego out all over the floor and spent the rest of the afternoon building spaceships (Steve), houses for the astronauts to live in (the girls), and a digger + a mini rocket (Joe). It felt lovely just to play together. Of course it all fell apart when two children decided they wanted the same piece of lego and one of them ended up being sent to their room when fights broke out, but hey ho.

Tea, then X Factor, which I still love, sad though it is. And Casualty will follow shortly, if I can manage to tear Steve away from Cat Deeley’s dress Should be doing ironing as well but I’ve abandoned it until another day. Quite which day I don’t know, but there we are.

Puddlers was great today, lots of activities available (which did compensate somewhat for last week’s appalling lack of selection), and the children really enjoyed it, in fact Anna even said to me how much she’d enjoyed it with plenty to do. There are a couple more snaps on flickr if anyone’s interested.

Anna’s space picture – not scientifically correct, obviously, but I really liked it

Once home the kids watched a film, then after dinner they went to bed and we had grown ups’ film night – watched The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Chatted, and have fallen into bed, knackered as usual.

They arrived yesterday, I caught them driving the wrong way down the road as I was going home from EO group, so picked them up at Sainsbury’s and we went home together.

Kids were majorly overexcited and didn’t go to sleep until really late. Kessie (the dog) was just as bad! Today, though, we have succeeded in wearing them all out and it’s been a peaceful evening (so peaceful that I’ve been falling asleep on the sofa!).

We spent the day at Crealy, where the weather was beautiful. Kessie was allowed in as well, and having the dog with us meant that we had to avoid the indoor play areas (a Very Good Thing on such a lovely day), so we enjoyed all the outdoor bits – play areas, splash zone, bridge/lake walk, and plenty of sitting around inbetween. We also met up with Chris & Helen and their girls, which, after the children remembered one another, went really well. In fact, it went so well that I clean forgot to take Josiah to his music class at 4pm, so have had to phone and grovel this evening! Highlight of the day for me was definitely the splash zone part of the day, they had such fun in there, and then there was some involved game going on with the biggest girls, and some blackberry picking for the rest.

One of these days there will be some photos on flickr, not mine though, didn’t get the camera out all day (doh). Will link here in due course

This evening I seem to be as tired as the kids, for some unknown reason, so we’ve all gone to bed relatively early ready for our Eden Project trip tomorrow.

Just happy to have our friends here, the children have mainly been brilliant together (apart from Josiah, as usual but even he has *loved* having Buzz here), they’ve all fitted in really well. I appreciate the kids’ friendships as well as the grown ups’. And I’ve taken it as a compliment that Ros hasn’t felt the need to clean anything – yet

Anyway. As Steve hasn’t quite managed to fulfil his remit of blogging about the children’s education as well as actually making sure something happens, I feel I should fill in the gaps.

Yesterday he did a fair bit of housework (what a star) and the children did an assortment of stuff, from lists that they compiled. I think (if I remember correctly) it included tidying rooms so that he could hoover them. Electronics kit. Painting. Music practice. PC game (Joe). I know Abbie was on the pc too because I had an email from her while I was at work yesterday. Anna read a book about chocolate and where it comes from. Funnily enough I’d bought some cacao nibs on a whim the other day, just to see what they were like, so I think they tasted those [they taste foul! must find something to do with them]. They all played with Mollie (thank goodness schools go back this week, we love Mollie and her family, but we’re glad she gets something else ‘done’ with her during term time). Anna presented me with a decorated glass this morning, too, so she’d obviously done something with her glass art kit yesterday, which was successfully kept secret from me!

I got home to find them in front of Nemo and Steve pontificating about cooking dinner, I hadn’t bought quite the right ingredients for a recipe so got into trouble for that!

We had a bit of a chat about his time at home with them, and how I’m such a control freak that I want him to do things my way. Well, I figure I have to do things his way in the office, so it’s not too much to ask. No, I’m kidding. He has his way of operating when he’s with the kids, and I have mine, and they’re very different. Usually it’s fine for them to have three days of me/two of him/a couple of both and it works okay with our different styles, but I asked him if he could include the Narnia project in his way this morning. He wanted me to work (fair enough as I’m not doing tomorrow), but I didn’t want the kids to not do some of their project just because I wasn’t there. Especially as we have to write off the rest of the week because we’re doing other things! After all, for this one we have a study guide which lays it all out, so it’s not exactly difficult. I will be really interested to see how they all got on, as it’s probably not something that comes naturally to Steve (to be ‘structured’, I mean) but I hope they all enjoy it and all get something out of it. Must get him to blog afterwards

The plan today is to swap over at lunchtime then I’m hoping to take the children to home ed group/Anna’s cello lessons, and the Screamteam should be arriving sometime later today too, and we’re all looking forward to that