Camping Marathon Over

Last Weekend - Second Camp

So I am searching for the perfect campsite that we can go to every year that has everything one could ever need.
Perfect showers (they don't have those at Wowo and those respiratory issues should be advised to stay well away), campfire approval, good views and nearby attractions (by this I mean some kind of village with museum or foodie joint) and a good camp shop. There must also be room to swing a cat.

I think that this place will be found in Northern France in a few years when the girls are a little older and won't mind a chunk of the day traveling. I will also be thin enough then to carry off cotton slip dresses that take no space in a bag.
In the mean time we are looking for our idle within an hours drive or so.

I thought that I had found this in the Witterings near Chichester so paid a deposit and got my hopes up but it turned out to be a false alarm because all the reviews that I read for the site that I had pinned my hopes on were of condemnation.

Whats a girls to do at the eleventh hour ? Hang the cost - search the internet for an alternative for somewhere different but in the same direction as we were meeting friends......again, but a different set this time.
The man of our companions had recieved a tent for his 30th birthday and had been itching to erect and there was no way that tent wasn't being pegged out this weekend.

A quick call to a farmer who had booked out his pitches till September on the off chance that he had a cancellation secured us a corner at Mellow Farm Adventure near Farnham.
Luckily for us there was to be a 100 campers on a works do with a sportsday on the Saturday but they cancelled the camping and just came for a BBQ in the evening.
Lucky for the farmer they paid so he was easy with the sudden change in our arrangements

So it was us and 3 other tents in the Oxbow and it was perfect.

I love her face even more when she is happy

This year I decided what our tent needed was carpet and it did make a difference

Hours of fun - I couldn't believe it could be this pretty

P couldn't decide if this was a good thing but we all went in at some point

Gas canister refill and ice cream at the garden center. Its a posh cone near Farnham

Playtime before conking out

Always waking up too early. Vintage linens and Cologne&Cotton pillow cases - odd choice

This was T's personal swan

We were in that thicket a bit of a walk to the loo if you are a girl

I can make anything but it doesn't mean that it will last. More fun sending it down river

View from the washing up station.

You can hire these for a fiver!

We will definitely come back here and see what its like when there are more people booked, its reasonably priced you get the most enormous amount of wood for a fiver even if its a bit wet and difficult to burn. The facilities are clean, 50p for a shower but so what and there is plenty of hot water to wash up with.

No camp shop as such but you can buy eggs and sausages from the farmer.

We drove past a place called Frensham Ponds. It could have been the weather and the foliage, misty damp and olive green but the place looked like a dream or somewhere in a Jane Austin novel. There was a wedding going on in the pub the bride was having a pint next to the lake and you can swim in there too. Providing the algae count isn't up!

Would also like to see Farnham which will be on the list for another time.

We had another friend join us on Saturday Eve for dinner and he stayed over. In the morning whilst P slept on the tent floor and we packed away he Sat in the car and read Bramly Hedge to T. I love that when I said to the girls do you want to bring toys they packed books.
Unusual first choice but a good one.

So I think I am happy
The camping stuff is washed aired and in the loft ready to be stowed and there is a toad in the hole in the oven for dinner this eve.

I am off to help a friend sort through her wedding decorations this eve.
All good
CM

Two Campsites in Two Weekends - Imagine That!

Weekend Before Last - First Trip

We went with our friends camping, we have camped with them before and as our children play well together and we seem to keep the same routine it seems to gel. We also do our own thing as well as share the load and it just works well. So off to Waspbourne Manor Farm in Sussex also known as WoWo.

They have the most amazing rope swings and you can really travel some distance on them and it was the highlight of the weekend for my girls. 

The camp site has this dry river bed that runs through it, it's what it is known for, along with soup served in one of the fields on a Saturday night and a barn with table tennis etc for the children should it rain which it did.
We took shelter under the trees.

Our companions suggested a trip to the Bluebell Railway which is just located over the fields but we took the car and took in a pub lunch, I had a ploughmans with cheese, enough cheese to feed a family for a week. Why would you put that much heart attack on a plate.

The railway is wonderful and I think all my brood want another day out there so might explore activities more to see what journeys are available.
In the the engine shed there was a board at the end with drawings that children had sent in and I thought that these were delightful. The engines themselves were huge, the size of houses you can't believe the size of theses things until you are standing next to them.
The Railway Children just doesn't give you the full feeling of how mammoth these things are and it must be like traveling in a rocket when you are up front.

I adore the colour and character in these pictures

Every year after camping we buy a new bit of kit to improve the situation. This year is was waterproofs for the girls. I still just about consider my Birkenstocks acceptable foot wear in the rain.

Next year we are going to get army style stoves that will use the gas more efficiently because it took ages to boil the water for hot water bottles and tea and I am sure that our contraption is getting slower at delivering the gas.

Despite this amazing picture of P the weather was awful and on the Sunday night it poured so hard you couldn't hear yourself talk.

P loves a wellie boot and refuses not to wear them even if they belong to her big sister
They are a death trap in the stairs.
Who am I to stand in the way of physical development.

 

I had cramping pain on the weekend that got worse on the Sunday and my lovely friend took me to the out of hours GP which actually turned out to be A&E. I only managed half hour in the building before I could feel myself loosing it with anxiety clearly the stay in the hospital for the ankle and all the usual health fears that I carry didn't help the situation.

Luckily pain started to improve as soon as we entered the department and we returned to the campsite with a low grade temperature, the all clear and some shrugging shoulders from the triage nurse and the uncomfortable lucky feeling that my number wasn't up that day. 

I think that my fear couldn't decide whether is was my appendix, hernia or a cyst with and evil center.

This week has been dealing with shock really. I have never been happier than I have been this past four weeks really am just satisfied with my lot and one bit of abdo pain raised all the anxiety that I used to carry on my shoulders and rocked my little world slightly.

But we are a week and a half on and we camped again the following weekend and I feel fabulous

Well not really but getting there!

CM

A Quick Trip Out

Try to get out every day and trying not to make that outing a trip to the bakers for gingerbread men everyday. Also want to watch the pennies.

Here is what it looked like this morning. Lovely.

What these don't show is the £1:50 for an hour parking, £2.20 for the smallest pot of home made ice cream and the most amazing tumble and scrapped knee from a scooter. 

Which resulted in IronMama carrying one nearly 5 year old on a hip whilst lean-pulling the toddler on the scooter for quite some distance.

I told T that if she kept her knee bent then she would turn into a flamingo.

Whenever T has fallen and banged something I always give her the biggest set of cuddles and love you could possible imagine but has this stopped the stiff upper lip brave gal she could have grown into?

Its a coin toss over which one you want them to become no half measures.

This year I started to tell her that she would have to start finding her own ways to deal with the hurt because if she stumbles at big school the teachers might not be able to do all the stuff that mummy does to make it better. She seems to be on board maybe she deal with it on the day, probably knowing her.

She said thank you for the carry to the car which made me melt a bit

Its cloudy but still warm might try for some gardening this afternoon

CM

Home! Just over a week ago!

Put some new colour on the blog because the old colour reminded me of the rain in early new year and I wanted something with a bit more summer time in it but actually this orange and grey feels more like a German 1950's tin pencil case, you know utility, engineering........labels.
You never know what you are going to get when you start something and have no idea what you want to do.

I noticed I have a new follower, Hello lucky number 7!

So the French Trip we went to a caravan in Frejus after landing in Nice, no problems with flying out but on my return I did convince myself that there was someone with evil on his mind in the departure lounge much to my horror we were seated behind him on the plane so I tried reading his text messages to determine our outcome but was unsuccessful so kissed my children and told them I loved them and hoped for the best.
I was wrong of course he was probably a brain surgeon and am duly sorry but I haven't learn't any lessons and will probably put my system through similar terror on my next adventure.

In the meantime here are some photos

Our hutch for the week

View from the front - I really liked it

Bit of Pink

Deep in thought

Not too many of these eaten surprisingly

It really was this busy

She's grown so much and I love her in sandals

The heat was uncomfortable at times

She was actually rather happy

Constant exploring - NEVER still

So I came back with a bag full of pine cones and a bit of a soap shower gel face cream collection from the supermache.

It was nice to get away despite one trip to the crazy French Dr Sabine de Flores for a sore ear for T.

I quite like a water park that stays open when the theme park next door is on fire and is being doused with water from helicopters. I have never been to one before I did a couple of mild adventures - probably the best way to describe it.

I only lost the temper once when trying to retrieve a screaming child in the middle of the night who had fallen out of bed and I couldn't navigate the cramped space and slim doorways without scrapping the back of an arm or stubbing a toe and screaming the F bomb and cursing the quarters.

It was really hot I don't know how I feel about it all I know that holidays with small children are not relaxing at all and I am grateful for the input from all the family. I wish you could click your fingers and just be there.

I also know that T is really travel sick and needs a paper bag stolen from the plane on any journey more than twenty minutes.

I quite like self catering on a grand scale. I am crap at applying sun block to myself. When will I learn I never wear my contact lenses when I am away so why take a weeks supply of this and other things I don't need

John Roche was also on our Easy Jet Flight home although I didn't think he was the bomber or did I think for one moment that he too had spent a week at the Holiday Green Caravan Park!

More news another time
CM