Putting the camp into camping

I really really didn’t want to go to work today. It was just such a nice day and I could think of at least 47 better things to be doing here with my family instead.

First thing Scarlett and I had a massive trying on session with all her clothes. That’s clothes from last summer to see if they still fit, new clothes I’ve had put away to see if they fit yet and things like trousers and skirts to see whether they will be worth putting away for the winter or whether they will be too small by then. She thoroughly enjoyed it, dancing in and out her bedroom to go and show Ady and Davies all her different outfits. So I have a big bin liner ready for ebaying and her wardrobe is all tidy and hung up nicely. My mother has bought her loads of really pretty pretty dresses over the years, none of which are really very Scarlett and none of which I’ve ever felt were right for just wearing for normal days but as this will be the last summer for most of those such items if she liked them then we kept them and she can just wear them whenever rather than the whole saving things for best notion which means clothes get kept unworn until she outgrows them altogether. Today she wore a very pretty pink and white polka dot dress for pottering around in the garden but she looked very cute and enjoyed sweeping around the place. 😆

Davies and Ady were playing all sorts of games in the lounge including a butchered version of hangman and some sort of racing game – nice to take Tarly out of the equation and hear them really enjoying each others’ company in the other room. 🙂 Then Davies wanted to try on his summer clothes too. He has a load of new tops which I bought in the sale at the end of last summer but as he’s still not really grown he also has all of last summers tops too, so he has an embarrassment of tops and will probably take to having three changes of clothes a day just to get wear out of all of them 😆 Last years cropped trousers are still a fine fit round his waist and are now properly cropped rather than just a bit short so he is fine for clothes too.

We then all went outside. Ady was using a wire brush borrowed from my Dad to rub down the camp kitchen I got from freecycle last week and then the children and I painted the top section with some donated by Dad white hammerite. It’s not covered it very well and I desperately want to jazz it all up with some different colours and maybe even some stick on jewells. I really like the idea of making the camp kitchen as camp as possible! Ady is torn between thinking it might be quite a fun idea and knowing full well it will mostly be him actually stood behind it doing cooking so feeling a bit cautious about the idea of that on a public campsite! 😆 We’ll see ;).

I had some lunch, got changed and headed off to work leaving them all to it. Actually the walk to work was nice, I listeded to some Sheryl Crow on my phone which has a built in MP3 player which I don’t often get to use. Work was very slow and quiet – the odd person who did come in said the town was dead but there was a huge queue to get into the carpark for the beach. Walking home again (listening to Oasis and Jack Johnson but also walking along reading a book too) the air was filled with the scent of a hundred barbecues.

I found Ady, Davies and Scarlett still in the garden pretty much as I’d left them 4 and a half hours previously having had a lovely afternoon playing. We needed a few bits of shopping so I popped up to Tescos and came home with choc ices for everyone, a new sunhat for Tarly (cowboy style white straw, so far she is wearing it!) and a packet of Tesco value coloured pencils each for the children. They are both taken pens and paper to bed with them each night and drawing / writing and I’d told them I didn’t want pens and felt tips in their beds so I’d get them some colours just for bedtime. Must get them some cheap notebooks too rather than them taking loads of paper to bed.

We all sat in the garden for a while longer, I’m on a not-drinking-as-much-as-I-have-been kick so I was mixing wine with schloer in an effort to only drink half as much alcohol, so that was very pleasant to be drinking sitting out in the garden. We came in, the children had a bath and then went off to bed eager to use their new pencils. We taped and watched Dr Who while eating dinner and now, as it is my turn to get up in the morning I’m off to bed.