NicCamps does Christmas

Monday The drive to Helmsley was very easy, we’d gone from The Babs’ house last time so the route was almost the same and I’d remembered the nearest Tesco was in a place beginning with ‘T’ that you turned left instead of right at a roundabout before Helmsley at so when we saw signs for Thirsk and it looked vaguely familiar we knew we’d found it.

The others stayed in the car (surrounded by books) while I did a trolley dash round Tesco balancing stuff precariously on the heaped trolley and running back up and down aisles as I remembered vital things I’d forgotten. I finally stopped when I couldn’t fit any more in the trolley and realised just how tricky it was going to be to get it in the car anyway. At the till the cashier sent someone to get a second trolley for me when it became apparent that what had come out of one wasn’t going to go back into one when it was all bagged up. An older guy came along to help me out with it just as it started to tip down with rain outside. He said to me ‘I hope your car isn’t too far from the entrance!’ to which I felt compelled to reply ‘Oh no, I don’t have a car, I live just a few roads away’ 😆 He looked horrified and then even more so when I confided ‘no actually I live down in Sussex’. He thought we were really mad when we actually got to the most loaded up car in the carpark with kids and many books already filling every spare inch of space. Somehow we managed to cram it all in though and then enjoyed that very scenic route up Sutton Bank.

As we reached the very top of the hill there was suddenly a very brief flurry of snow, just as with split second timing ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow’ came on the cd player and we all got very excited 🙂

We got to the youth hostel at about 2pm, a full 2 hours before we were supposed to arrive but I’d hoped it would be the same friendly hostel manager as when we went 2 years ago who let us in early, left us to it and opened up another bedroom for us to use too. The place was totallly locked up and dark and deserted though so after a brief walk round it we decided to have a wander into Helmsley instead. I left a message on the hostel answerphone incase the manager arrived back early and was willing to let us in and we reaquainted ourselves with Helmsley which is a lovely little town.

We got back to the car at about 330pm and I sat and did some knitting til The Babs turned up, scarily on time and the first! ;). The new hostel manager (who was equally jolly, friendly and smiley to the one from a couple of years ago – they must clone them somewhere) arrived and let us in. I got the tour complete with H&S annoucements about the wood burner, the newly sharpened kitchen knives and was shown a huge stash of spare wood for the burner before he headed cheerily off on his way and I got on with the serious business of putting the food and drink away and getting a vat of mulled wine on the go. Ady sorted our room out wonderfully so when I managed to get up there an hour or so later it was all softly lit, Christmas music playing and everything hung up and properly put away. Love that man :).

Friends all arrived fairly quickly afterwards with Mich and Chloe being the last to arrive. We had pasta (which just about stretched) with veggie or meat sauce options and piles of garlic bread. Children scattered to do crafts, DS, run shrieking around the place at risk of trapping fingers and toes in the heavy fire doors and annoying the adults and with the smell of mulled wine in the air the scene was set for the week really :).

I think everyone was fairly late to bed. I certainly wasn’t the last up any of the evenings but then the gaming folk held that title I think ;).

Tuesday We were woken by Davies pulling open the curtains on the slit window by his top bunk and saying ‘Hey, it’s snowed!!!’ I tried to convince him it was just a pictureque heavy frost but he was insistant enough for me to get out of bed and pull back the curtain to show him only to have me equally excited because he was right, it had snowed!!! :). We woke Scarlett who had been very grumpy the night before due to tiredness and we were expecting a rough first day with and she was like a character from a film as she blearily rubbed her eyes, sat up, glanced out of the window and broke into a beautiful beaming smile and a ‘WOW’. All of us were downstairs by about 830am and Davies and Scarlett stayed out in the snow for well over an hour along with loads of other children – and Chris! 😆


Tuesday was stew day so there was much peeling and chopping of vegetables in the morning, along with an army of helpers as always, all armed with the crap veggie peelers that are to be found in hostels. I think Helmsley takes the prize for most comical array of kitchen utensils actually, there were no less than 7 can openers, only one of which was fit for opening cans, nothing suitable for levering cakes out of cake tins and not a single wooden spoon with a long enough handle to stir things in the huge catering vats for cooking things in. The ovens were of usual youth hostel quality (ie crap) and of the two toasters only one was really worth attempting to toast anything in. Can openers than don’t open cans and toasters that don’t toast really don’t pull off either use nor ornament but they do seem to gather in the kitchen of Helmsley Youth Hostel to hang out with each other and maybe sit round talking about the good old days and getting high on mulled wine leftovers when all the hostellers have gone to bed or something ;).

Ady had gone off for a solo wander around Helmsley earlier to take pictures of scenic stuff in the snow so I decided to have a walk round too. Davies couldn’t be persuaded out of the DS playing flock of kids but Scarlett happily found coat and shoes and came off with me. As the two most clumsy people in our family we probably weren’t the best duo to be out walking around together in the snow but we managed to stay upright on the ice and had a lovely hour or so together. We discovered a wool shop with amazingly cheap wool so I got a couple of pairs of needles and the beginnings of my very own wool stash. As commented elsewhere I learnt how to knit a scarf and was seen for the rest of the week every evening clicking away. I do like to have busy fingers and in the absense of a laptop keyboard needles did a fine job – otherwise I would have sat and twirled my hair and there is rather less of it for twirling these days! We also found a pen with dogs on it for Tarly and then wandered back to the hostel, stopping to go down a footpath that still had untrodden in snow on it and take some photos.

Back at the hostel there was a showing of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer happening with lots of children watching and some further crafting going on. I partook of some mince pie making (wine glasses as pastry cutters, wine bottle as rolling pin – they were’nt elegant but they tasted nice :)) and then Tarly and I made up the dumplings. We were joined by Rachael and Isabelle – the next generation of dumpling tossers for the traditional NicCamps stew dumpling tossing. Pictures of tossing and icky fingers over on Em’s photostream :). One of the highlights of camp was seeing that next lot of children (Rachael, Libby, Alys and Isabelle) coming up behind the older ones and forming their own little friendships and spending time together playing :).

Stew was consumed and then as an early night was required by many children (certainly not least my own two who were already the wrong end of 3 late nights) we had NicCamps Christmas Eve and assembled them in pjs to listen to Twas The Night Before Christmas and a suitably festive story that Davies, Scarlett and I had enjoyed a few weeks ago called ‘where teddy bears come from’. some more pics of that to be found on various photo streams. My favourite is one of Davies looking enthralled (he managed not to call out the whole story line in advance ;)) – Scarlett is less keen on me reading to the masses rather than a private audience of just her so she chose to sit with Ady and do some colouring. We finished with a sing song of Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer just to really make me feel I was at work doing Storytime and then off they all went to bed. I’m not at all sure any of them managed an early night (I took my kids DSs off them at about 1030 :rolls:) but at least they weren’t inflicting their tired grumpiness on us 😆

I think that was the evening Helen had her haircut too :).

Wednesday was ‘Christmas’ and we still had snow on the ground making it a white one :). We were joined for the day and night by Jan, Catie, Megan and Jasper and Kirsty, Marcus and Alex all of whom stayed until the following afternoon :).

Ady was up early to get our chickens roasting as we were worried about the ovens not being up to the job of Christmas dinner for 37 people and had to cook the various things in shifts. We had roast and mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, mashed swede, mashed parsnips, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, veggie option. I didn’t do enough stuffing, or carrots or indeed (and believe me I can’t believe I’m saying this!) vegetables – peas would have been nice. Yorkshire puddings would have been good and I’d have like to have roasted the parsnips rather than mashing them but we did what we could with what we had and I have to say I was pretty proud with our efforts. Chris did a very well recieved veggie thing, Bob did good mashing, Katy distracted the troups with festive singing, Ady did carving and gravy making, various people stood one side of the metal trolley handing out dinners as I plated them up and Helen led a rousing ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow’ which made me quite teary when we were all sitting down. I looked down the very long table at all the lovely people sitting down eating wearing their Christmas hats with snow on the ground outside and felt very proud of having been instrumental in making it all happen :). Thanks everyone xxx

Dinner over and cleared away by the people who always seemed to sweep in and do such (Matt and Katy owned that dishwasher and Mich was rarely away from the big sinks ;)) we had failed to get Christmas pudding and a bit of a ‘not bought enough butter for all the baking and toast spreading’ error on my part meant I’d not had enough to make more pastry for more mince pies so there was no afters although we had plenty of cake to make up for it. Then it was time for Secret Santa. We’d had a home made / recycled / very small budget if purchased guide for it which resulted in a real collection of lovely handmade, thoughtful, often funny and touching gifts. Davies had painted a picture and framed it for Ben and received a lovely pottery Christmas decoration from Rei – he hung it up in the hostel bedroom above is bed and it will be on our tree when it goes up next weekend. Scarlett chose a soft toy cat for Alex from a charity shop and was given a fimo chick badge and some bath stuff – which matched what she was given for her birthday from one of the Raines, I had made a rag rug for Elinor and was given a beautifully decorated wine glass from Helen, which I have been putting to good use ever since ;). Ady had given Kit a planter kit ‘as seen on TV’ with soil and seeds (soil wasn’t such a good idea to wrap without a bag – it ended up on the floor as it was opened!)and was given a camping pan with some pretend food in it from Mich. There were various other gifts of similar nature and it was all very lovely and special.

Davies got upset and he and I spent some time crying together in our room when his gift wasn’t as delightedly received as he’d hoped it might have been. I’m not great at lightening an atmosphere and cheering him up so I did my ‘thing’ of talking it through with him lots, discussing how we can own our own feelings but not those of others and we get to choose how to frame a situation and feel about it and then Ady came up and did his thing of being perky and making Davies laugh until he forgot about his tears. I think between us we cover all bases even if neither of us is perfect individually ;).

There was another film showing before bed – this time of Ratatouille which most of the children chose to sit and watch. Katy and her troop of girls made something chocolatey which was consumed while they watched. I was in the kitchen fighting with the rubbish oven and unsuitable baking trays and utensils making a PINK birthday cake for Tarly and was joined by many of the other adults so we happily drank mulled wine, inhaled baking fumes and plotted and planned for the next Christmas camp and other camps for 2009. I’ll do a post about that later and we’ll get cracking on some of the things we chatted about.

Thanks to flashes of inspiration by various people, Kirsty collecting it on her way and the equipment of an anonymous attendee ( 😉 ) we had a showing of the singalong version of Mama Mia. I wouldn’t consider myself a huge Abba fan and it is a much over hyped film with a fairly lame storyline but it was lovely to sit surrounded by mates singing along, laughing (and crying at that song about daughters) and enjoying alcohol and baked goods.


We carried on with the singing, chatting and consumption of alcohol til fairly late and whilst I can at least partly blame the wide variety of alcohol, the no real food since 3pm, the relief of the Christmas dinner etc all being pulled off okay I think it was mostly the excessive volume of alcohol which had me slipping off to bed and feeling very delicate the next day 😳 – from what I recall it was a very interesting conversation I left in the middle of and I very much hope that combination of people will be around to carry it on another time :).

Thursday morning saw loads more snow having fallen in the night and as we had the addition of Kirty, Marcus and Alex sleeping in our room there was little chance of sleeping off my hangover in peace ;). Davies was also feeling on the fragile side so he and I cuddled in bed for a while and then I got up and had a shower to try and wake myself up.

Downstairs it was the day we’d called Scarlett’s camp birthday so she sat around and gifts were bestowed on her throughout the day :). She got some fab presents from friends including a hand decorated box stuffed full of beads, fabric pens and T shirt and other treasures from Wednesday Friends, a windchime kit from Alys (which we sat and made straight away), a hand decorated chest of drawers from Eve, a pair of jodpurs from Rei, bath stuff from The Raines, make up from Kirsty and Co, a hot wheat bag giraffe from Mich and Clo, a make finger puppets kit from (I think) the Fish family, various other very gratefully recieved bits from others and the star of the show which was a rainbow jumper from Elinor. She put it straight on, wore if for the next 4 days and has demanded it be washed and dried today so it is ready to wear again tomorrow :). I think it’s safe to say she loves it!

I was feeling fairly rough so after doing a bit of craft with Tarly and some rather half hearted pizza dough making Ady and I decided to head off for a walk with Davies and Scarlett. Much as I love seeing my children in the thick of playing with friends I also really miss their company during camps. I spend pretty much all day every day with Davies and Scarlett and although there are times that all three of us probably welcome a break from each other it does feel odd not to have spent any time at all with them. They are my favourite people after all! Davies was looking very ‘day 4 at camp’ too so we thought some fresh air might well do him good. Ady was also keen to capture an updated version of this photo from Halloween Camp 2006

so as the recorders and violins tuned up we put on coats and boots and headed off for some family time. I was sorry to have missed the musical stuff (although we’d have only been contributing voices and audience rather than instrumental participation) but it was lovely to have a couple of hours just the four of us and catch up on chatting and updating each other on our week so far. All four of us agreed it was the best camp ever (so far). I have to say that while I love both the planning and the attending the camps myself, Ady and I get a lot out of them and it is lovely to spend time with our friends the real intended recipients of them is Davies and Scarlett. I spend a lot of my time planning what childhood memories they are going to hold and a Christmas sit down dinner surrounded by all their mates seemed like a good one to add. They have both previously expressed wistful dreams of a white Christmas too and while it was by no means something I can claim to have made happen (I’m thinking maybe the high ratio of Christians might have helped at camp though ;)) it was there on my wish list of possibles in Yorkshire in December too. So their positive feedback was very lovely to hear and bask in for a while :).

We had a good wander all round Helmsley including getting that photo (I’ve just happily looked back through the whole set from Halloween camp and been smiliing at how much the children have changed in 2 years – and how different the weather is just 6 weeks later in the year),

made some snowangels

and tried to get a shot of our four sets of footprints in otherwise virgin snow but it didn’t look like I’d pictured it on the camera.

We managed to wave Wednesday Helen off on her way home and have a snowball fight over the hedge with Chris which had me feeling very inept at chucking until I realised his height advantage with the hostel garden a good 4 foot above the level of the pavement outside!

Back to the hostel for some lunch – Ady had made soup with the leftover chicken and we picked up some nice bread from one of the several bakers shops in Helmsley. Perfect hangover food that had me feeling much more human again. Cake decoration and further half hearted vegetable chopping for pizzas. Kirsty and I had a walk to the wool shop which had been closed earlier, found open by Katy and then obviously closed again about ten minutes later as we found it shut again :(. Exercise probably did us good although Kirsty could have done with more suitable footwear ;).

I finally finished what must surely have been my most faffing attempt at pizza cooking and managed by trying to be sensible about not preparing meat and vegetarian ones together get all the veggie ones cooked first and then eaten by starving children rather than the adults they were intended for 😳 I was in a slightly stroppy mood by then and didn’t have much tolerance for children being picky about what colour smarties they had on their slice of birthday cake so Ady shuffled me off after we’d sung happy birthday and he put the kids to bed and I sat and mostly watched while other people took down the Christmas decorations and tidied the kitchen :).

It was a nice peaceful last evening, with the last few of us chatting about various things and finally heading off to bed with Ady and I having arranged to head off fairly early to get back for Tarly’s Rainbows party and leave the final clear up to others.

Friday 9am was never really going to happen despite me setting an alarm for 8am and actually getting up when it went off. Just getting Davies and Scarlett to eat and get dressed took bloody ages. Ady loaded up the car while I packed up the room and hoovered it and then worked round the hostel saying goodbye. I’m fairly sure I missed a proper goodbye to a few people so sorry about that and thank you so much for those who stayed behind for the final tidy and handover to the jolly hostel manager :).

We swung by the finally opened wool shop where Tarly and I chose a few more balls of wool (I’m planning a twirly scarf as a present for my Mum) and explained to the wool shop lady why she’d had a run on needles and wool from families with children ‘not in school today?’ 😆 Aside from a stop to fill up on petrol we got home in one go – thankfully both children are of the strong-bladdered variety and we rarely if ever need to stop for loo breaks. Ady had packed up some sandwiches for us to eat on the way and aside from it being long and tedious the journey home was uneventful. Odd to leave the last of the pretty snow behind and be away from it within half an hour, coming back to Sussex where there had been none at all.

We got home just in time for Tarly and I to get into my car and head off to her party while Ady and Davies unloaded Ady’s car, put stuff away, Davies had dinner and a bath. Her party was everything you would expect 18 small girls at a soft play place to be. Loud, shrieky and fairly high up the list of places I’d rather not be actually that I spent most of the 2 hours compiling in my head. Several of the mums hung about but they stayed in their gaggles bitching about school and other mums who weren’t there. Possibly if I’d tried to join in they’d have let me but I was more inclined to sit with my head in a book instead. Scarlett did the equivalent and ignored the small factions of girls who were comparing HSM outfits with each other (she was in the ripped jeans and Elinor-jumper she’d travelled home in) and played on her own quite happily. Her self containment and uncaringness of what others are up to is one of the things I love the most about Scarlett. I think I share that with her to a point now but it took me many unhappy childhood years to get there, I hope she always retains it. The only person she has any reliance on and is sad if she gets ignored by is Davies.

They had 45 minutes in the soft play (I did find somewhere in the centre to sell me a cup of tea fortunately) and then another 45 minutes in a ‘party room’ eating party food of sandwiches, crisps, cakes and cookies followed by jelly babies. They were all given a wrapped barbie-style doll as a present and then it was home time. There is a disco with the Brownies and a Panto trip planned, neither of which Tarly wanted to go to so that is the end of Rainbows for this year.

I’d offered to drop Rebecca home as Richard was ill so we despatched her home, called into CoOp for some supplies and got home for Tarly to have a bath. They watched The Simpsons and I brushed a weeks worth of tangles out of Tarly’s hair before bedtime. Davies took cardmaking materials to bed. We had a curry, watched Gavin and Stacey, wrapped a few pressies and I made a very feeble attempt at catching up online… too many blogs, too many flickrstreams, too many emails…

I think I agree with Davies and Scarlett, I was my favourite NicCamp so far too. There was noone there who annoyed me or who I felt didn’t contribute in some way to the success of the week. There were some slightly sad bits – I felt so sorry for Davies when he was upset and I was personally a little wistful to see the divide of the boys and the girls in their playing but minor things aside it was just a magical and wonderful week. You know it’s been a good camp when by Wednesday we’re already planning to do the same thing next year :). Thankyou so much to all who came, each and every one of you made it what it was :).