One word? When seven would do…

Mine and Ali’s 🙂

July 2005, originally uploaded by nicgee.

Well actually its a bit on the roomy side so a few minor adjustments are in order, but the waistband is perfect and will be attached in time for photoshoot.

And I know her shaving habits too 😉

Catching up on stuff, although I still have a very long list of stuff I really should be doing, might do a list tomorrow and publish it to shame me into getting on with it 😉

Managed to get a bit done this morning actually – got in a dry load of washing from the line, pegged out a wet one (which is still there, slowly dripping due to the torrential showers we enjoyed here this afternoon!), put a loaf of bread on to bake, put away clean washing from pre-Kessingland and all I’d managed to get washed and dried since we got home and then set about tidying the playroom.

Had a cold hard shock about our finances this morning when I went to do my regular monthly juggling act and realised I am pretty much down to just the one ball – which makes juggling a mite tricky 🙁 Might blog about that in the correct place if I can face it later, but for now it has at least sent me into a creative frenzy of trying to sort out other out of control areas in my life and may even serve to bring in some cash… don’t do worrying very well actually, I am just too flippant of nature and within the hour I had gotten over it and was planning tent purchases again 😉 But it did spur me into going through all the toy cupboards with the express intention of getting out anything which both kids have totally outgrown toy wise and either chucking or settling it onto the ebay pile. Ady was being struck by the same sort of post holiday ‘we really could be more minimalist in our stuff approach’ mindset and we lazily debated doing some sort of spring clean of the house room by room… not sure we have either the time or the genuine inclination but at least we have a sort of half baked plan eh!

Anyway, the ebay pile currently teeters with great height at two jigsaw puzzles 😉 Having been all pissed off at SIL selling on clothes I had passed down to her from Davies instead of selling them on myself which for some reason really bothered me I do have at least one bag full of outgrown clothes from each child which I could also get up on ebay too – hey maybe I could raise enough cash for a tent 🙂

Took phone calls from Karen and Ali and my Dad during all this (Karen to clarify the cancelling of their trip down south after the Portico party, Ali to say she was standing on the platform awaiting a train and my dad to ask me to text my (29 year old) brother to remind him it is my Mum’s birthday tomorrow!!!)

Ali arrived in the middle of a newly accessible toy rediscovery frenzy which had puzzles and geomags strewn about the place, made some pink bread (a new Ady creation!) peanut butter toast which was largely ignored by all children and left them to get on with it while we had a lovely chat. Talked through a couple of things with Ali which were really nice to unload to someone and reassuring to get perspective and understanding on, gave her the unedited Kessingland stories and heard about her childfree weekend away, lovely couple of hours in hers and Freya’s company as ever 🙂 Kids played really well together. Tarly was adorable, Freya joined in the half naked child trend which exists in our house at all times and generally made herself at home which was lovely and Davies managed all sorts of convoluted games with train tracks and Taz and Tweety soft toys.

Ali left, despite offers of coats, brollies and a lift to the station to brave the rain back to the station and I tried to persuade the kids to eat some honey on fresh baked buttered bread, gave up and fed them coco pops (their choice!) then my Mum turned up closely followed by Ady. She left, Tarly went to sleep and I whizzed off to stock up on food for the week. Came home to find Davies still awake and looking at an Usborne Beginner book on Ancient Egypt, which very coincidentally is the theme for this week’s home ed group. He was saying he was scared of the tombs and masks so I read it all to him, we talked about it and he is now informed, not scared and looking forward to group 🙂

Funniest moment of the day was very possibly when Davies was getting all the little road signs out that go with his brio stuff and asking what the words said. He knew all the letter sounds for ‘STOP’ but didn’t want to attempt blending them to ‘read it’ nice to know he did pretty much have them skills to do so if he could have been bothered to make the effort though 🙂 Anyway, he had this yellow sign with two R’s and a cross and he wanted to know what started with R R. Tarly leapt straight in with ‘Ooh ee, ooh arr arr, ting tang, walla walla bing bang!’ from Witch Doctor which I found utterly hilarious 😀

Tomorrow a mad day already, half made plans to see Ros, friend bringing children round for tea who revealed by email today her and her DH have split up and mum’s birthday so they will be over for dinner in the evening. Don’t expect much in the way of blogs!

Any takers?

Pre arrival – you will be forced at pain of having your right to attend removed to nominate at least one activity you can lead / bring / supply to the group. If you fail to think of anything yourself you will become part of the Ady’s Krew Club* evening kids entertainment posse and have to have sponges soaked in the muddy puddles thrown at you by the small children.

A list of activties will be posted to the list, this will be a timetabled list of events with your entire week scheduled for you. Those wishing to can take this service a step further and have toilet breaks, handwashing, nose blowing, nit combing and menu planning written in for them can do so.

A dating agency style interview will be conducted via web cam. This will include the following information about you in hard copy, laminated wipe clean cards:

full description including details of physical appearance, regional accent, distinguishing features, odd foibles, phobias, quirks, pet peeves, dietary preferances, allergies, full medical history, birth story of any offspring, allergies, dietary needs, medical history, hobbies, phobias and quirks of any said offspring. Pictures of all members of the party in various hairstyles and likely outfits they may be spotted sporting throughout the week to be included.

In true dating agency style and to ensure you are buddied up with the most suitable and complementary member of the N&AL Krew you will also have to answer the following tie breaker style questions:

why did you choose to HE?
sum yourself up in three words
what most irritates you about people online and why
do you fully understand the following terms: communal, holiday and initiative
are you fully equip with digital camera and flickr account for post trip debrief?

This information will be carefully screened and you will be matched to a buddy for the duration of your week’s stay. You will also have a fall back buddy in the event of your original buddy not being available, able to assist you or simply getting lashed up on pimms early in the week and losing interest in you, your kids and the whole damn thing. Details of your buddy, where to meet them, a carefully drawn map of exactly where that is, where to go if you get lost without your buddy and details of at least three other attendees you are matched as having something in common with will also be forwarded to you with pre arranged meet ups with these families scheduled in your personal planner for the week.

Full details of your commitments for the week in terms of where you should be, who you will be with, a handy pocket sized list of conversation topics, an invoice for any cost involving activties you are due to attend offset against any costs of materials you are expected to provide will also be sent to you and you will need to pay this in advance.

Upon arrival – having put your tent up in line with the carefully planned pitching map designed to ensure no one is excluded, facing the wrong way or positioned next to anyone who is likely to be carrying anything from your list of allergen inducing foodstuffs or having checked into your static you will find your welcome pack. This contains a plan of where everyone is cross referenced with the wipe clean details on everyone, a name badge including a point of reference about you chosen by the team as the single most pertinant detail about you (e.g. my name is Felicity and I have an irrational fear of playdough, particularly green coloured.) , a baseball cap with the N&AL logo for each member of your party and a checklist for you to tick off as you go through the day so you don’t miss a thing.

After making yourself at home you will no doubt be keen to Get In There and start Making Friends, so run along to the Warm Up And Welcome Meet and Greet. Here you will meet Nic&Ady, the costume characters from Ady’s Krew Club (an oversized penguin wearing Portsmouth Football Club clothing and a fluffy bumble bee in a low cut top carrying a comedy wine bottle) and the rest of the host team. A variety of ice breaker type games will ensue including roll the ball to someone else in the circle while calling out your name and theirs, that one where you have to fall backwards while having faith in all but total strangers to catch you before you hit the ground (the on site first aiders will be on hand close by for this one!), the one where you have a sticker on your head with the name of someone famous on it only you don’t know who and you have to ask yes or no answer questions of others until you can guess who you are and more.

And then on with the proceedings 🙂

Scheduled events will include:
basket weaving
more of that sacrificial school dress material shredded to make weaved mini rugs
playdough (although not green and with particular care to keep it away from Felicity)
treasure hunt
one hour birthday party style games with Ady every morning for smaller ones while older ones can focus on more detailed crafty stuff. This will include singing, action songs, parachute play, musical statues, It, pass the parcel and more
sandcastle competition
photography competition
N&AL logo building on the beach
learning the song and dance routine to the N&AL theme tune
group photo session
bath bomb making
flubber making
water pistol chamionships – dryest child left standing wins
face painting, hair braiding
paper flower making
beading merrily 😉
home brew for beginners
guess who the baby is (everyone brings a baby photo and it is displayed for people to guess who is who)
communal static rented per every 10 families for emergency showers, beds if needed in the event of illness, film watching and a base nearer the beach as a changing room and somewhere to dry off wet clothes.
at least three communal meals including daytime picnic, sunday roast and evening barbecue. These to be facilitated by everyone paying for a ticket, food being mass purchased in an online shop and nominated / volunteered chefs who do not pay for food cooking, clearing up and preparing. At least one of these events to be fancy dress.
grand gaming machine tournament in one of the statics

Evening entertainment will be Ady’s Krew Club, assisted by the costume characters your cheesy host will lead the children in learning the dance routines to Macarena, The Locomotion, Achy Breaky Heart and Saturday Night (by Whigfield!), there will be games, kids talent show, karaoke for the grown ups..

Everyone will contribute something.

And of course merchandise will be available to purchase 🙂

Ady and I spent ages on the way home yesterday debating and discussing the trip to Off the Path in a couple of weeks time. We both want to go but have decided it is not really feasible. The kids will be horrid after two days running in the car for hours, Ady will be knackered spending his weekend driving when he does so much time behind the wheel all week and on reflection it just doesn’t seem such a good idea. Which is a bugger cos I was really looking forward to seeing Jasper and his parents and sisters, and indeed seeing those we said goodbye to yesterday again too 🙁

And then, as if that were not enough, in the pile of post waiting for us when we got home was a letter informing Ady that his wisdom teeth removal appointment at the hospital is for two days before The Portico party 🙁 He has to go in and have a general anasthetic and it says he *should hopefully* come home the same day. Fingers crossed it is straightforward, he feels up to the party and we still come (so I won’t cancel the hotel booking until the last minute) but it does mean I have had to cancel Karen, Steve and Emma coming back here for a couple of nights afterwards 🙁 If we do still manage to come it will be such a last minute decision that it will probably be made after they have set off for Reading anyway and if he is up to being sociable for a party he may well have used up all his quota and not be up to house guests afterwards – another time eh Karen? 🙁

So none of that helps with the post Kessingland, missing you already slump, coupled with Ady’s back to work tomorrow blues! 🙁

A good day today, over to Chris and Julie’s this afternoon for garden play for small people, tea and catch up chats for grown ups. Talked to them about tenting and Chris, who is Car Boot King reckons he can set us up with all the camping essentials dead cheap from car boots so that’ll be good 🙂 They are also up for getting a tent too, so it could mean we have tenting buddies to do weekends away with too!

We also had a very lively discussion about the whole Live 8 thing and Bob Geldof. I think Bob is utterly amazing, I know he gets slated for various reasons and perhaps he is often misguided, has a bit of a God complex and is a little naive in his belief that the world can be changed but in 100 years time he will be a figure of great power from the 21st century as a man who changed and made history, did in no small way make the world a better place and used his celebrity in probably the most positive way I think of as an example. Clearly I admire him for his whipping up a frenzy, making things happen, managerial abilities too 😉 He’d do well in marketing!

There were aspects of Live 8 which I found really quite sad and disturbing, mostly the coverage on TV of the whole thing which was far too much about egos, celebrity and individuals than it was about ‘the cause’. I don’t remember Live Aid in great detail but I do recall the overwhelming feeling being that everyone gave of their time and their talent because they truly believed and felt passionate about the reasons for it – this time I felt there was a huge value placed on the ‘being a part of history’ part of it. Frankly some of the interviews going on post performance were roughly translated ‘how much are you getting off on being part of this then?’ I’m not sure many of the people performing or indeed stood in the crowd wearing their white bands (and don’t even get me started on how you can now buy coloured bands with no affinity or money raising value at all as fashion accessories!!!) really knew what it was all about either. Live Aid was realised to be so monumental after it happened, Live 8 seemed more about ‘being part of the biggest concert ever’ than anything to do with the reasons why it was happening. And many of the musical geniuses given way too much stage time were cack anyway!

Home, more washing brought off the line to be replaced with more to dry taken out of the machine and replaced with more to get clean – seem to have barely made a dent despite being on at least the 6th wash – and several items have come out of the machine still firmly ingrained with puddle 🙁 Roast lamb smells are wafting upstairs and my body is craving a glass of very cold very dry white wine, I’ll be back later with some ideas for NicandAdyland camp 🙂

I’m back with stuff to say 😀

I did start doing a daily blog on word with a half hearted intention of uploading it all day by day when I got back but when I was still trying to finish Saturday’s entry on Wednesday night I realised this was not going to happen. Besides most people who read my blog were either with me, have just had a baby so probably not really up to reading a novel on my week at Kessingland, or wished they were there and are really only after the edited highlights (and bitches and rants too of course!). Coupled with that I was genuinely too busy to be blogging so rather than try and categorise my thoughts, feelings, account of the week etc into days it would seem more fitting to put them under other headings instead.

So, without further delay….

The Lows…
– socialisation 😉 Kessingland is one of the trips where the decision to static or to tent is not helped by the proportionately small difference in the two prices. The static was comfortable but tatty and certainly not really worth any more than the heavily discounted rate we paid. To be honest sleeping in very narrow, very hard beds, using a very tempremental shower, not having any plug points in the bedrooms and listening to every raindrop, seagull walking across the roof and being woken by the nightly exodus of folk returning to their statics from the onsite ‘entertainment’ could not be any less ‘roughing it’ than doing it in a tent with a hook up, blow up beds and a bucket to piss in at least surrounded by our friends. So while the static itself was not a ‘low’, being away from the epicentre of the group was. I was slightly torn between family and friends and ended up trying an unsatisfactory compromise most days, abandoning Ady and kids for a portion of early evening and then trekking back up to them just when the evening sessions of drinking wine were getting started. Would much rather have been able to combine both and have kids asleep in a tent while Ady and I both got to drink wine huddled 20 to a tent round a picnic table 🙂

Leading on from that was my kids’ behaviour which I don’t think was much helped by short bursts of intense being with the others on the tent bit. They tended to come down, go totally crazy, get yelled at by me and then get shipped off back to the caravan again. Davies particularly was quite trying. He was very tired, didn’t eat very well, spent too much time in the sun and was just totally overexcited to be with his friends. He had a definite touch of ringleader about him at various times and was told off by me and Ady far more than we would have liked, and even by a couple of other grown ups at various times. I just fear he was not at his most endearing last week 🙁 Jax did reassure me that he was simply being a four year old boy, and it’s true that tends to be when I struggle with him most 😉

The puddles. Despite making for a handful of ironic photos and some nice at our fingertips duck wildlife the ankle deep puddles bang in the middle of the tent area did hamper all sorts of activities really. 🙁 despite having suitable clothing for puddle dipping (well wellies borrowed from The Portico for Tarly til we got her some more the following day!) they still managed to get very muddy, very wet and very told off for not managing to keep out of the puddles at all. The weather on Thursday (it rained all afternoon, heavily) was also a downside from a getting on with anything point of view.

Sparkys. I had in my mind a very clear picture of what I thought this might be like. And I’ll be honest, it was worse! I had no great wish to introduce either of my two to the joys of such crud at all but on the last night, having had Ernest to our static for tea with our two I decided to take Davies along with him for an hour or so. Ernest and Davies always do this 11th hour friendship thing – they largely ignore each other all week and then with mere hours to go before parting they suddenly become best buddies (this did of course co-incide with the early departure of Ben 😉 ) so I wanted to foster that a bit too. Now I have no real objection to kids entertainment (although I am offended slightly by mis-spelling of words like ‘Krew’ ), indeed in my last paying job I did organise four on stage kids entertainment shows at the shopping mall we were sited at. We had a chessy presenter (my gay mate Dayve!), costume characters, booing and hissing, getting kids on stage to wrap each other up in toilet rolls, getting one side of the room to cheer louder than the other side and teaching everyone to dance to agadoo, so I can be the Mummy who gets dragged up by her offspring to dance to the Fast Food Rockers with the best of ’em. Would really rather it was hosted by people who are not still in their teens and would struggle to make it past the first round of that show Barrymore used to do in shopping malls around the country though. So we sat through the obligatory games with rules so tricky and complex they would be deemed too hard for the Krypton Factor let alone suitable for a gang of 5 year olds (Davies and Ernest gave these the wide berth they deserved and played their own game of musical statues instead 😉 ), I yelled support for ‘The Hoppers’, got up and danced to the Mexican Wave, smiled indulgently at Davies when he came racing over saying ‘ewww, ewww, ewww’ about people smoking but eventually the six kids lined up on stage with the 14 year old presenter in the middle clutching a stop watch and getting them to yell ‘spaaaaaaaaarkiiiiiiiiieeeeeees’ for as long as they could in to the microphone finished me off so I prised Davies away and we left. Ady was horrified that he stank of cigarette smoke (actually so was I but that’s a whole other rant!) and Davies pouted all the way back to the static about not having had a turn on stage. I explained that there was every chance that even if we’d gone every single night he might not have had a chance on stage and his response was ‘well that’s stupid then, why did you take me?!’ 🙂 I think perhaps I need to wait til he’s old enough to appreciate the whole Sparkys thing with an air of irony 😉

The plagues of stuff. Nits, mosquitos, sore throat lurgy, sunburn, heatrash, floods…..

The Highs

Spending time in real life with people I really really like. 🙂 As ever it was lovely to see everyone. I do so enjoy drinking and bitching with Layla, it was nice to spend time with Helen and Kirsty a bit more than I managed at Melrose, nice to meet some new faces and always lovely to see the rest of the blogring, spouses and offspring. Missed Ros and Sarah lots and Davies missed their boys too 🙁 Being a bit out of it in the statics aside it was nice to be part of the group again in real life. Ady did a spot of bloke bonding here and there which he is keen to continue next time he gets the chance and look out for other big news on that front under ‘ironies’ later.

Basket weaving and rag weaving. Surprised myself and possibly others by really enjoying making baskets. Was also commended on my base making and I reckon a fair percentage of the baskets taken home by puddlers were started by me so feel all glowy about that. Clearly I have a leaning towards practical tasks which require no brain stimulation such as scoubidous, basketing and erm, painting my nails. There was a lovely moment on Friday when there was a large group of adults and children, sat around making baskets adding in all sorts of stuff like beads, ribbons, scoubis, wool and so on and coming up with some really lovely creative stuff. There was chatting, laughter, all ages interacting and the sun shining. Ady was running some sort of impromtu creche facility on the other side of the grass and the sound of ten children singing ‘the wheels on the bus’ drifted over to us. This was all shattered about three minutes later by Davies sitting in a puddle but it was lovely while it lasted 😉

Ady relaxed. This was a huge high as he has had a mad few months at work and was in dire need of a holiday. We fell into a bit of a pattern most days of having a cooked breakfast in the static, wandering over to the beach for an hour or so, playing with the waves, making stuff with the sand and pebbles, flying kites and generally just enjoying being the four of us away from home together. Ady did do all of the cooking (breakfasts, bread making (which I will have you all know was used to make two small loaves a day and well worth bringing!!!) and dinner) but he enjoys it anyway, he also took over and relished the whole tea, bath, bed routine with the kids which was heavenly for me not to have to do. I really enjoyed having some one to one time with each child in the mornings. Davies and I went ‘sploring’ a few times on the beach following the sand dune trails while Ady and Scarlett played with the kites which was lovely, and Scarlett and I had periods of being together while Ady was off with Davies too. In the afternoons I also enjoyed being really rather neglectful and leaving most of the parenting to Ady 😉 We only went on one trip (the wildlife park one, which was fab!) which was also a good thing as normally on holiday we tend to rush around trying to pack in as much as possible so we did no more than one trip into Lowestoft and a couple of outings to McDs. This also made it a (in Nic terms anyway) fairly cheap week 🙂

Stuff which entertained me in one way or another.

Janey – and people either being desperate to ask her about famous stuff or being desperate to avoid looking like they were star struck. Found that very fun to observe 🙂 Layla and I were introduced to her but misheard her name so were utterly unsycophantic and just said ‘hi’ then were really impressed with ourselves when we found out who she really was. Ady is a bit of a fan so was quietly thrilled to be quite a hit with her boys and utterly delighted at the praise she heaped upon his potato salad! 😉 I did chat to her quite a bit at The Barbecue and having been prepared to sit through lots of ‘when I had dinner with Elton he said this’ type stories and them not appearing I really like her – and not cos she’s on the radio so there!

Davies’ justification for getting sodden in pond scented mud for the nth time having been told very clearly to go nowhere near them ‘well I thought this was a muddypuddle camp so I was only joining in’

Davies having leapt on me one morning and covered me with kisses and been asked why ‘we’re in kissingland mummy’

Scarlett having one of her own old before her time moments following in her brothers footsteps after climbing back down from a challenging climbing frame ‘it’s a bit tricky for me Mummy. I am only two’

Davies having walked past giraffes, lions, rhinos, ostriches and other exotic African plain animals ‘look Mummy, they’ve got DUCK!’ at the wildlife park.

Chris not bringing the poles 😉

James falling across the chairs at Sparkys when Alison tried to tag him.

Katy’s Becca wearing eye shadow. It was given to her by the neighbouring tenters and Katy thought it was equally funny 🙂

Timing my only jaunt to the swimming pool with arriving half an hour before it closed!

The Ben and Davies reunion. This was touching and emotional 🙂 Davies spotted Ben’s tent from Hesfes and was very confused to not find Ben in it! He had been told they would arrive at 4pm the next day and spent all of the day asking if it was that time yet. When they did arrive they spent all their time joined together and this time Tarly got in on the act and they were a lovely little threesome 🙂

Alexia pitching her tent and only going back to it at the end of the week to take it back down again 🙂

The Rant.

I’ve cogitated on this all week. It is in two parts really, the first is the barbecue and the second is the general vibe of ‘new people’ of which I am one myself (although I and everyone else forgets that!). But they are sort of intertwined. So I’ll do the general rant first.

Now this was my first Kessingland. OK I met lots of you at Melrose and HESFes, I blog a lot, I’ve been on various other meet ups which have developed individual friendships further and I probably don’t really fit into the shy and retiring category very well (infact probably even less well than I’d fit into a size 10!) but I still only had my own ideas of what to expect from it. I read what was posted on the camps list and was very aware that it came with the disclaimer that ‘It is not an organised camp, it is a group of families holidaying together’. There were three seperate days out planned, there were people talking of bringing stuff to do (basket weaving, scoubidouing, hair braiding, sewing, crochet etc) all of which happened on the two week days when there was not a trip planned and weather permitted, everyone in a static had a Muddlepuddle poster to display in their static window, the tents were obvious from the MP flag at Merry’s to the descriptions of tents and cars on the database to the much photographed children running around the area many wearing HESFES branded clothing 🙂

Now I did wonder a few times whether we were hugely welcoming, if someone new did wonder over we all introduced ourselves and made the circle bigger to accomodate anyone bringing a chair up but I imagine if you are shy it would be daunting to put yourself into the middle of a large group. For me it is easy and obvious, you bring a chair, some alcohol, have an idea of who will be there and maybe even have semi arranged to chat to someone you feel you might get on with in real life (posted to the list about looking forward to meeting them and chatting in real life, searched them out and had a pre prepared list of conversation topics or something!), introduce yourself with some point of reference as to who you are and then join in. Quite honestly if you and your children do not like large groups of people, will struggle to integrate without the aid of a Buddy (more on that later) and can honestly think of no activity to bring along which will facilitate people coming over to you then what are you doing there anyway, this was always destined to be your idea of a living nightmare. In which case you might have been better knocking on one of the doors of the statics with MP folk in them and trying to build some one to one friendships instead.

I am always annoyed by this attitude on lists whereby people join, get the first flood of ‘welcome to the list’ replies then proceed to post asking for help on every single thing they can think of. Neediness is a pet hate of mine anyway and I am often astonished that some of these people manage to stop short of posting asking what gas mark they should put the oven on for their tea tonight or whether everyone on list thinks their bath temperature is ok! So to bring that to camp and try and put some obligation on others for them mixing, mingling and having a good time really pisses me off. I made a point of saying hello to anyone who looked remotely Home Educatorish as we walked around, asked specifically if people were having a good week when I saw them around and mentioned the various crafty stuff going on and told people to come down and join in so I feel I did my bit anyway.

If there is genuine need for a more organised camp next year then I do think that such a thing is very easy to co-ordinate in advance but it does rely on people taking responsibility for it and offering something in return. A timetabled workshop of activities is all well and good but not if the weather wrecks it, the same faces are the ones bringing everything and running it meaning they don’t spend any down time with their own families doing laid back beach, swimming pool and not having to mind every minute, some sort of telephone tree for communicating last minute changes would need to be in place so that there was no one person feeling obliged to run around trying to find everyone and certain terms such as ‘communal’ ‘skill swap’ and ‘give and take’ would need defining clearly!

Which brings me to the barbecue. I think I may have been part of pushing this into a group thing really, there had been chat about doing something group-y and during one of the daytime sitting around Chris and Helen’s table we sort of decided Wednesday would be a good night as Helen would be around. I had debated with a few people as to whether we should all chip in and send one or two of us off to Morrisons or indeed whether I should try and compile some sort of who’s bringing what type list but it quickly became apparant that given the large group present and the different eating habits of everything, non carb, non meat, vegan, no dairy, no wheat, no fat, nothing except breastmilk, and so on that it would be better if people just brought their own and sat around together eating it. It did make sense for static dwellers to maybe bring salad stuff as they could make and store that easier, for disposable barbecues to be brought to cook on down there but it was basically a bring your own. I told everyone I met about it and was very specific in that it would be 6-6.30 start, at the tents, bring your own food and we’ll cook and eat it together. It was very much a hear this and pass it on type communication which of course is not particularly all encompassing but the best we could do really.

We were out all day Wednesday so missed the whole on again, off again bit about it but as I walked down to the tents with Tarly, Ady due to follow with the car, potato salad, beer and wine, 18 sausages, buttered and ketchuped rolls, paper plates, two disposable barbecues, chopped onions and Davies I certainly felt we brought all we could eat and more! Simon and Raymond did sterling work cooking everything, some people did bring crisps, salad, alcohol etc but a rather large amount of people brought sod all, sat on the chair belonging to others, drank and ate and then buggered off again. They didn’t bring food or drink, they didn’t bring chairs or tables, they didn’t offer any contributions, they didn’t help set up or clear up and they didn’t even trouble themselves to find out who to thanks for the expense and effort put in. Given that one of the best things about Melrose for me was the communal eating, the glow of cooking something which was enjoyed by many and thanked profusely for this was a bit of a shock to me. Frankly whether it was badly communicated or not (and we’re back to the above rant on that one), whether they thought it was some sort of laid on treat for them by the invisible Muddlepuddle elves or whether they are just poor and needy and thought it would be okay given the amount of food and drink laid on to not even say thank you was just fucking rude. Liggers!

Right, I’ve spent ages on this and am about to get dressed to go out so don’t have time to read it back to check whether it’s repetitive or coherant. My overwhelming feeling on the whole week was that it was fab. I love being with that group of people (that group being probably the ones who are reading this!), it was a genuine holiday for us as a family, we’ve all come back looking browner and rested, thank you so much to Merry for doing what she does to make it happen and I leave you with the shock news that after everything I have ever said next time we will be joining you all on the field in a TENT! 🙂

we’re back, but D is still awake and putting on ‘a show’ in his bedroom (and I only ever took him to sparkys for about an hour!), parents are here and a takeaway is due any moment.

Will be back tomorrow if not later with full details of the week. But in the meantime photos are on my flickr page – you know where to go 😉