One word? When seven would do…

It’s because it is quite stoney and without appropriate footwear it hurts! 🙂

We’ve had a lovely, lovely weekend at Jan and Jonathan’s fab house in a very lovely part of the country with very lovely company. 🙂

Friday
Ady WFH’d in the morning while I took Tarly to Sainsburys where we bumped into a friend I’d not seen in a while and stood catching up with her for ages. We came home and I made various baking products to take as our contribution to the party food and packed up things for the weekend.

We got away after lunch around 1.30pm and made OK time considering it was a Friday afternoon in the Summer holidays with a journey taking in large parts of both the M25 and the M1. I think we arrived around 7pm and we had had a couple of stops along the way, so not so bad.

We were greeted with food and tea for grown ups and shrieks of ‘Davies’ and ‘Scarlett’ for the children which was all very nice. I’d origininally bottled out of pitching the tent after all as it was getting dark and the rain was on and off but I was shamed into reversing that decision by Chris French, single-handedly remembering poles and arriving later than us and still heading into the field to pitch so we changed our minds and with assistance from Katy we got ourselves pitched and ready in the dark after all.

Most of the house dwelling children were off to bed at a semi-respectable hour but we struck a deal with Davies, Scarlett, Elinor, Marcus and Alex that if they were quiet they could stay up later. They didn’t of course manage the keeping quiet although Tarly was entertained by a princesses bingo puzzle type thing for a while (washed down with a few sips of wine :roll:) before we all headed off to bed together sometime after midnight. Of course the instant I finally got comfy and cosy in bed I realised I was desperate for a wee and having not brought the portapottie I was forced to bare all in the pitch dark outside the tent round a corner instead (or trek back to the house!), which meant I never did get warmed back up and spent at least 2 hours lying in the tent feeling cold but not cold enough to rummage for more clothes. Foolish virgin camper! 😆

Saturday
A lovely breakfast of pancakes with some of Katy’s special chocolate sauce which Babs has amusing video footage of Tarly getting the most out of (I think she’d even choose it over pink wine!) and everyone scattered to various corners. Children played outside in different combinations – some more succesful, peaceful and friendly than others ;-), a feast of a lunch was served and we found various pockets of people in various rooms to have chats with which was lovely.

After lunch Jonathan organised a literal field trip down to the stream and pump house, so taking first prize for most unsuitable footwear to step off the path in (flipflops with little beaded bits!) we all slipped and slid down the slope, chancing DIY vasectomies as men stepped over barbed wire fences to the stream at the bottom. I’ve still not quite worked out how come Beth and Catie walked across and it barely touched their pants as they held their skirts aloft but somehow my calculation that my knees were about level with their pants and as such rolling my jeans up to above my knees would suffice was incorrect. Also I’ve not quite worked out how come no one told me we weren’t all going to paddle across the stream and actually I was the only adult who did – while all the rest congregated on the bank taking photos and pointing and laughing! 😆 My main concern was not for wet underwear, loss of dignity, pride or the overwhelming photographic evidence of Nic being a loon yet again, it was not that I only had an already slightly damp pair of cut off jeans as my only spare change of clothes, it was not even that I had a small child clutching each hand and if I went I’d take them both with me – it was that if I did indeed do what everyone was anticipating and slip over on the very slimy, frog inhabited rocks that made up the very uneven surface of the stream my phone which was in my pocket would probably die!

I managed not to slip and actually got across to the other side to join the annoying drier than me children congregated on the other side and the adults and other children who had simply walked along the bank on dry land at the other side, only for Jonathan to return and tell us we were all trespassing anyway. So I paddled back!

Jonathan then conducted a three children at a time, very interesting and informative talk on the purpose and method of the pumphouse. Clearly if I had the pumphouse on my land I’d be selling commemorative T shirts, pencils, fridge magnets and postcards of it and ensuring you left the stream via and overpriced gift shop, having had a motion sensored digital camera take a snap of you with an ‘ooh argh!’ expression as you encountered the slimy bottom of the stream with a bare foot, to be sold in a souvenier wallet bearing the legend ‘I stepped off the path’. And then we all walked back up the hill again. 🙂

There was then a ritual kidnapping of all males over 18 to go to the pub which Ady got swept up in 😉 There were womenfolk doing handicrafts in the house but as my repertoire does not extend beyond sewn cartoon characters with scrapstore offcuts of material I stayed in the garden pushing children on swings and generally overseeing Davies’ degeneration into overtired and slightly obnoxious boy. Fortunately he was in good company in the overtired stakes so the work of a mediator was called upon a fair bit! 😆

Further food was unveiled in the evening, with more people arriving which was lovely. Ady and I took our two very tired little people to the tent around 9pm and they were asleep within minutes freeing us to return to the house for further chatting, eating and drinking. Ady retired before me and I enjoyed a very pleasant evening in very lovely company. 🙂

This morning we woke later than planned so amended our plans to be away by 10am and went to the house to join everyone else for breakfast. The great search for missing belongings then began in earnest while Ady and I dismantled the tent and repacked the car up. All stuff except a small camera case which Tarly had filled with stones recovered we said our goodbyes and thankyous and headed for home. I think we were away around 11.30am in the end.

We had a brief lunch stop about halfway home and we were slowed down lots by huge storms on the M25 but made it home in good time and have enjoyed very deep, very hot baths all round, Charlie and Lola arrived from Tescos DVD rental so that has been watched several times already, they were both alseep looking very comfortable in their own beds again by 9pm and we’ve enjoyed a roast dinner while flickring some shots from the weekend.

Thank you so much to Jan and Jonathan for opening their lovely home to us and to everyone else who was there for their company. 🙂