One word? When seven would do…

It was our sixth camping trip at The Sustainability Centre and once again it didn’t disappoint. We really missed absent friends, specifically those who had been before and made it a place of special memories of times spent with them; LovelyEm, Marcus & Michelle, Katy B, Ros, Chris & Helen, Ali and indeed those who had hoped to make it and not managed to do so for various reasons. But it was fab to share it with Kirsty and James, The Babs and offspring and find they too love it as much as we do. 🙂

Sunday Davies and I were obviously already there and Ady and Scarlett joined us around 10am. We had a walk round the whole place showing them what we’d done and where we’d done it. The camping field had filled up during the course of Saturday, having been totally empty first thing in the morning so I was hoping everyone would sod off away again and leave us to it. We eventually wandered up to the hostel to check in and found someone to check in with – Ash, the temporary campsite overseer – and moved our booking, along with Babs and Kirsty to the main campsite rather than the individual bays as aside from a couple of tipi bookings the main site would be empty.

Back down to the campsite in both cars we were about to start setting up in our usual spot when one of the blokes from a trailer tent set up in Marcus and Michelle’s spot came over saying he remembered us from last year and were we here for a whole week again this time? Neither of us remembered him (he wasn’t Fun Dad) but chatted for a while. He said they were off soon so if we wanted to wait for their pitch we could. Knowing we had the canopy with us which makes us en elongated cross shape and therefore quite long we decided we’d take M&M’s spot this year leaving our usual spot and what had been Katy’s spot last year for Kirsty & Babs. So we waited. And we waited. And then we waited a bit more. From being there at 10am ready to go it crept past midday at which point I decided to go to the supermarket for food as I was getting really hungry and we needed to get a roast dinner on too if we were having that. No one else wanted to come so I headed to Mythical Morrisons all alone, sleep deprived, rather stinky and in very ripped jeans for sausage rolls to scoff there and then and roast dinner ingredients for later. When I got back we were still waiting and Ady and I got increasingly bitchy in our whispers to each other about the two families camping together, their parenting and how very bloody long they were taking. We’d thought they were on the cusp of leaving otherwise we’d have set up in our usual spot and now we’d hung it out this long we were determined to go the distance.

Eventually they finally did roll off about 4pm, after a lengthy pasta lunch and very slow packing up. We pulled into their space and it started spitting – the woman wound her window down to say goodbye and said ‘oh look, you should have set up earlier, it was lovely and sunny then…’ grrr.

The plastic knuckle on the porch pole that had broken at Wicksteed and we thought had been sufficiently mended with tape proved to not be mended enough to get the tent pitched and tempers were very frayed indeed as I simply couldn’t work out how to get all the tension right to get the tent pitched square. A petty squabble between Davies and Scarlett at that point resulted in them both being sent to sit in seperate cars having been shrieked at and told to sort themselves out otherwise we’d be going straight back home again. What made it worse was both of them had seperately been pining for the other one for the previous 24 hours with Davies mentioning Scarlett loads on the Sleepout and saying how she’d like bits of it, making a wand for her when he was doing whittling and saying how strange it felt without her that morning to me while Scarlett was bending Ady’s ear about missing Davies at home.

Everyone was saved by Kirsty and James arriving so while Ady guided them in I gave D&S another pep talk and released them from the cars to greet Marcus and Alex. The tent was not so safe and when I tugged rather crossly at the knuckle to try and right it I managed to snap the other one which resulted in several swear words, me ripping the whole pole part out of the tent and flinging it across the field, shearing off one of the pins in the process. I was *very* tried 😳

That out of my system I deduced that the fact both were broken and one was not now compromised by the other might mean it worked better. Whether that actually was the case or whether the flinging restored my sense of rationality I don’t know but we did then manage to get the tent up just fine :). Fortunately my show of temper paled into insignificance in the face of Babs later in the evening ;).

Once we were all installed (and possibly after cars had been returned to the carpark and cider o’clock called) Kirsty, James, Marcus and Alex told us all about their fab time at River Cottage and presented us with what is probably one my top gifts ever in terms of usefulness, thoughtfulness and touchingness. I almost cried :). They had got us the River Cottage diary for 2011 and had it signed with a message from Hugh saying ‘Good luck to the Goddards’ having told him about our planned adventures for next year. So we’ll be off feeling we have the blessing of our of our heroes along with a diary to record all our hosts details in and loads of recipes, tips and seasonal stuff which will all be so very relevant to us along the way. I can’t overstate how much it meant and how touched we are by it xxxx thanks guys 🙂 🙂

A mother, father and daughter arrived to stay in the tipi. The daughter, Ruby was 4 and starting proper school on Tuesday so they’d brought her for a couple of nights away first. I think they were from London somewhere. We had a brief chat with them before they went out somewhere for dinner, arriving back when it was already dark and going straight to their tipi.

I’ve lost track of whether our dinner was ready or Babs arrived first but both happened and our chicken, potatoes, carrots, stuffing, sweetcorn and gravy was delicious :). It was getting dark by 8pm all week which made for easier putting to bed of kids as by 9pm they already felt they’d had loads of after dark time and were happy to head to the tent. I was exhausted so called it an early night around 10ish to recharge ready for the rest of the week.

Monday As with most days involved sitting around drinking tea and chatting while children played as all the best holidays do. We did go for a walk round the site to show Kirsty, James and Babs and left all the children behind on the camping field playing.

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Our tipi neighbours came out asking when the cafe opened and looking very crestfallen when we said 10am (it was barely after 9am) so we donated teas and coffees to them and Ruby joined our kids playing for a while before they headed off to the zoo for the day. Home Ed inevitably came up, as did the question of how we all knew each other. It seems quite strange to think we all met online and at specifically organised camps now and I was struck once again by how incredibly fortunate we all are to be in this amazing circle of friends. Conversations over the week turned to most of the people within our group at some point or another and the connections, affection and support and just how well we all know each other touches me every time.

We were able to do the classic point and laugh response when Ruby’s dad asked how the kids socialise as they were all together in a big group having set up an imaginary shop to play with behind a log. He seemed to know a little about Home Ed and was of the opinion that it was better academically btu I don’t think he’d met any real actual living people doing it before 😆

Ages ago we bought what we thought was a Chris French style tarp for some bargain price at TKMAXX but we’ve never managed to get round to putting it up. We bought it out to have a look at it and see what we could do with it and realised it wasn’t a tarp at all but a canopy for attaching to the front of a tent, very much like the one we already have, but without sides. It was possible to errect it as a standalone so with Kirsty and James’ help we set it up. I had another bout of heavyhandedness (this time not anger induced) and managed to rip the fabric when tightening one of the straps. It was very funny – all four of us were standing at a pole and Kirsty and James both looked utterly horrified then ducked behind a pole presumably to hide their smirks. Ady remained horrified, I just laughed! 😆 It didn’t seem to have any great compromising effect and we taped it up.

In the end the canopy became a bit of a lifesaver as we were able to store all the chairs under it at night, retreat beneath it when it rained and with a real sense of fortuitous timing the night it began raining at about 5pm and didn’t stop until about 11pm which would have made for a miserable evening had we not had the canopy to eat, drink, cook and sit under. We also grabbed a fire basket and managed to retain a campfire even in the rain under it too :).

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Ady and James went off to do the supermarket run as we’d decided to have pizzas that night cooked on the smoke n grill so they headed off with shopping lists. In the end all of our rather comical cobbled together tentage was invaluable that night as Babs cooked her tea under our kitchen porch and Kirsty and I assembled pizzas in the kitchen before cooking them on the Smoke n Grill.

Ruby’s family arrived back from the zoo in the driving rain and said they were not staying after all as it was just so wet. It was sad to see them go, Ruby’s little school dress hanging up inside the car, which was packed with things like sky lanterns and other fun outside stuff. I felt a bit humbled actually, I know I have a private tendancy to feel smug in the face of school using parents and these two were clearly just as child focussed and keen to give their daughter a great childhood as we are. We all chorused goodbye and wished Ruby well starting school (but I don’t think her Dad believed us 😉 ).

As they pulled away we raided the tipi for their remaining firewood and sent the kids in to eat their tea and shelter from the rain, so it wasn’t all bad 😆

After set in rain for several hours our tent decided to take it’s revenge for my stroppiness and the should have been convex but was actually slightly concave flat bit on the porch started to fill with water. Ady realised when he bumped his head walking into the tent that something wasn’t right 😆 It had gathered a HUGE puddle, literally gallons of water so I’m glad it was spotted before it went really wrong. With careful use of a wooden pole topped with a towel to stop the tent ripping and another to stop the groundsheet tearing we created an integral pole for dancing and keeping the ceiling up inside the tent. We had a pillar! 😆 The addition of a pair of plastic wine goblets in the void between the tent roof and the porch roof to keep that proud meant the tent coped well even with the downpours of rain we had.

It became a singing sort of evening, trigged by the children who came out to show us a little snippet of Born Free they’d been working on, with a slight lyric change to include Trevor the toad, the first of many toads found by Scarlett that week, cooed over and held before being returned to the wild. Toadtasic.
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Thanks to James’ ipod and Ady’s phone we had a great selection of music to sing along to, with increasing volume and possibly decreasing talent as the night wore on. 😉 We were confident we had the site to ourselves so wouldn’t be disturbing anyone though. We also had some marshmallow toasting as we’d gone stick gathering and stripped bark off and sharpened the ends as Davies and I had been shown during the sleepout.

Tuesday I was quite horrified on my way to the shower to spot a man in the bay directly behind us on my way to the showers meaning we may well have not been alone on the site after all the night before 😳 I called ‘Good morning’ to him and got a ‘good morning’ back so asssumed we’d not been too rowdy. Kirsty bumped into him at the washing up and learnt his plight – he was walking the 100 miles of the South Downs Way in four 25 mile days and had completed the first quarter leg, ending in that pouring rain from the night before, realised he had no waterproof trousers and on starting to put up his tent also realised he had no torch either. Pretty much everything he had with him was soaked with the exception of his sleeping bag and he was pretty miserable. Kirsty invited him to come and have a cup of tea with us and he arrived as we were settling down for our daily routine of PopMaster at 1030am.

Ian quickly abandoned his plan to carry on and decided to postpone his South Downs Way walk for a couple of weeks time, returning with full and proper kit next time aand ended up staying for another 48 hours with us :). He told us all about being a motorbike paramedic in London and aside from a slightly surreal moment when a newsflash about a man on the run came on the radio and made us all wonder at the wisdom of inviting a complete stranger to share our food, drink and hospitality, particularly with such close proximity to an axe he slotted in really well :). Ady ran him to the station on Thursday morning and he said meeting all of us had really opened his eyes and might well have set him on a life changing path. I think the friendliness of strangers, the group camaraderie and alternative approach to education had really enlightened him about different lifestyles. He was a nice bloke, I hope our paths cross again someday.

Tuesday was mostly dry although it was a bit changable with sunshine and clouds. We wandered up to the hostel and paid, they are so laid back there you almost need to chase them to pay up. The big shock news of the week for everyone who has been there before is that Hazel isnt’ there anymore 🙁 I got the impression there is some sort of back story behind this as she isn’t working at all and Ash alluded to not ‘struggling to cope with it’ which seemed strange given the laid back feeling of the place. Apparently she does the odd shift in the cafe to help out still but I didn’t spot her over the course of the week :(. There is something of a ‘winds of change’ feel about the place which slightly disturbed me. I know it is essentially a business alonside being a place about permaculture and sustainability but at this years Green Fair we felt a commercial edge beginning to creep in and there seem to be lots of the old familiar faces either gone or about to go (a couple who live in one of the yurts are moving to Canada, the green woodworking lad who Davies really likes is leaving to go and work on a farm (ironically one on our short list for WWOOFing so we may well catch up with him again), Sean who we’ve met there several times no longer does the Campcraft stuff and Hazel has gone too.) and lots of people talking about plans and changes and so on. There was even some speculation that the campsite will be split into designated pitches and full payment will need to be made upfront when booking. I’m kind of glad our last definite stay there happened before all of that took place.

Julie rang me during the course of the day to say they would be coming up for the day tomorrow which we had semi arranged last week. We spent lots of time trying to persuade Babs to stay longer but didn’t quite manage to get her passed Wednesday but we did have the pleasure of an evening visit from Stella and co which was lovely :). Plenty of wood whittling and chalk carving from the children along with playing on the rope swing and creating a Woodlice World.
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We also first met J, or ‘little red boy’ as Scarlett called him due solely to his bright red t shirt. He was 5 and on a week long holiday with his parents, half at The Sustainability Centre and half at a sword festival in Cornwall. They came from the Borders where schools had already been back for 2 weeks. His Mum, Alex came over to say hello and chatted with us for a while. She seemed really nice but J was a very challenging little boy, prone to violence and threatening behaviour even to all our much bigger children and I think he was a bit underparented really with him dashing off to hassle our kids as soon as they arrived at the site with no real supervision from his parents.

Wednesday morning Kirsty and I did the supermarket run and I gathered some stuff to make Davies a birthday cake. When we got back Julie and co had arrived.

Babs, Kirsty and I had a look in the shop, which I’ve never actually been in before. It is the home of Permanent Publications which puts out Permaculture Magazine and various other printed titles so had a very comprehensive and interesting book selection in a very small space. They also had some solar powered and wind up energy gadgets, some knives and other tools and various other bits and pieces. I didn’t buy anything but added several books to my list of things to order from the library and am now seriously coveting a spoon carving set like they sell there.

Back at the campsite I started making cake batter. As with last year I’d bought just-add-eggs mixture so Davies helped me mix it up.
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Retrospectively I should have split the mix between two pans as it rose so quickly we lost at least a third over the sides of pan and finally the top actually caught fire 😆 Some cutting, trimming and splitting and plenty of icing soon had it looking good and tasting edible though 🙂

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So we gathered round and did some Happy Birthday-ing to Davies before scoffing the lot 🙂
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Julie and co left, having decided to maybe come back the following day with her Mum and their trailer tent for the last night, Babs and co also left and the rest of us had another lovely evening round the campfire, stargazing and chatting.

Kirsty and James took the kids up to the wildlife pond for a nature walk and batwatch and Scarlett returned with yet another toad. No bats were spotted so we took a walk in the opposite direction hoping to see some but didn’t find any there either. Ash told us there had been bats all around the hostel at about 745pm so we pledged to try being there that time tomorrow instead.

Thursday

Ady and I celebrated 11 years of being married 🙂

Kirsty, James, Marcus and Alex went off to a local attraction. We’d be considering going with them but neither of the children were that fussed, Ady had been before several times (both of us went to the local Portsmouth attractions on school trips countless times as kids) and it wasn’t my thing anyway so we declined and decided to have a quieter day hanging out at the campsite instead.

Ady took Ian off to the station and to get some food, Davies and Scarlett were reconnecting after having been around such a big group and I was enjoying the sunshine (at last!) and reading my book. Julie and her Mum arrived along with their trailer tent ready to stay the last night too. Part of me was a little worried about this, Julie’s mum can be a bit of a liability (she wasn’t too bad but did wander up to the cafe at one point and finding no one about just made herself a drink and wandered off again, sat around asking for hot water constantly and is just one of lifes takers) and I was worried that Jack and Maisie being there would mean Marcus and Alex, Davies and Scarlett wouldn’t get a chance to have a nice last night together as they can be quite demanding of Davies in particular. In the event it all seemed to work out okay and the six children seemed to get on just fine. I was also a bit worried about how early Julie goes to bed and whether that would mean we’d disturb her or feel obliged to be really whisperingly quiet on our last night.

Several of us went for a walk round the woods and I tried to recreate the straddling John with a beard had done of the shelter to show it’s strength. It held me just fine but my legs are a lot shorter than John’s so when it came to getting off again I had to bear weight on one side unequally and the whole thing slowly and gracefully collapsed under me 😆
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Scarlett found loads of toads all week but she also found a slow worm and a newt that day, bringing both back to show everyone and let everyone who wanted to have a hold. Most people declined the handling session offer ;).

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she also found pretty fungi
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a hawkmoth caterpillar
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and took pictures of a dragonfly she spotted
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Marcus was keen to light the fire that night so I took the boys off with penknives to gather some birch bark and they collected sticks and wood chips too. We had some sticks for kindling and the plan was to lay a fire in the fire pit and all create sparks to make a mini fire to contribute to lighting it so we had a communal fire. The birch bark wasn’t really happening for Davies or Jack although Marcus did a great job and got his lit 🙂
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I was also struggling so we bought out the cotton wool and Davies, Jack and I lit ours using that, with Marcus joining in with more cotton wool too.
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We enjoyed a roaring fire that night and the boys were really proud of their part in getting it going 🙂 It was still burning enough the following morning to cook my muffins on it 🙂
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Ady and I managed to be spectacularly bad at getting our dinner sorted, partially due to me consuming the best part of a bottle of pink fizz, partially due to it going on the smoke n grill so late and partially due to Kirsty, James and I taking Scarlett, Alex and Maisie on a bat walk and being gone ages so it was pitch dark by the time we served up dinner; poor Davies and Scarlett had already watched everyone else eat marshmallows and had to eat their dinner wearing headtorches 🙁 it was very delicious though so worth the wait.

The bat walk was good, we did see bats, along with another toad (caught by Scarlett) and did lots of walking slowly and quietly in the dark listening to the sounds of crickets and grasshoppers and hearing the toad before we actually spotted it. I took everyone to the spot Davies and I had slept at the weekend and showed them how dark it had been.

The kids went to bed, folllowed by Julie and Kirsty, James, Ady and I sat up. We had been planning a full night under the stars in our four very reclining chairs, thinking we could bring our sleeping bags out and sleep out properly. It was specifically to enjoy the stars though and while we had a good hour of stargazing it eventually clouded over around midnight and by the time we were ready for going to sleep it was totally cloudy so we did sleep in tents in the end. Definitely a plan for next camping trip though, I think it would be lovely.

We had a great last night, missing those who had already gone home or didn’t make it this time, enjoying all the many in jokes and catch phrases of the week – it feels strange to say ‘ideal’ or ‘to be fair’ or ‘isn’t X….’ and not get a chorus of replies or joining in. It felt like a very communal holiday with loads of sharing, group cooking, supermarket shopping together and so on. We also missed sky lanterns so created our own eco friendly one where the tallest person (James) holds a torch inside a plastic sack that did contain logs and lifts it up high. It certainly has the initial wow factor although doesn’t quite work when you let it go 😆
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Friday The last day 🙁

The weather was a bit threatening so we didn’t hang around quite as long as we’d intended to. I’d also wanted to have one last walk round just the four of us but the kids were really worn out and Davies felt it would be too sad to walk round saying goodbye (we definitely won’t be coming next year and who know’s what our circumstances will be by 2012) so we didn’t in the end.

We’d got everyone to sign our canopy (which by now had a second taped repair covering a hole made by sparks the night we’d had a fire under it) which we think we might take WWOOFing with us and get others to sign whenever we put it up and we put the tent away with the distinct feeling we may have used it for the last time. The kids did some more of their Bug World creation which on and off all of them had worked on all week using bits they’d collected from the wood. It been the source of some squabbles along with the harmony but was quite an impressive creation by the end of the week:
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We had time for a couple of self timer shots by the tipi before Kirsty and James headed off to battle the M25

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and then it was home time all round really. Davies came with me, Scarlett went with Ady and once again we really appreciated being just an hour from home as we were back and bathed and fed all by a very respectable time. I can’t say it was our best time there as we missed people not there too much but it was lovely to file away that memory of sharing it with Kirsty, James, Babs, Stella and Julie and all assorted children, of course including Ian as another chapter in our catalogue of fantastic times camping there. I love it there very much :).