Our camping trip. Or proof that lists are a force for good

We're back from our latest trip to Wales which was both exhausting and relaxing in equal measure. Choosing the busiest weekend of the summer holidays was probably our first mistake. Camping always catches me out in that it seems like such a laid back and easy way to holiday. In reality, it takes a fair amount of organising to do it well and forgetting this was definitely our second mistake.

We left everything to the last minute. The morning before we left, Dan dropped Alessi off at nursery before heading off to work, leaving me at home to get everything together. If we had put together a list first, this point of the process would have been very straight forward. Instead it was basically me running around the house, remembering things as I went along and hoping I didn't forget anything. Which of course I did.

I have no idea why we were so rubbish this time around. I can only think it's because we've been juggling other things at home too. DIY and an attic clear out have left the house (and our thoughts) in a bit of a muddle. I guess trying to organise anything when our minds were so jumbled was always going to be a struggle.

All that said, we were back home surrounded by trees, hills and sea so in between the odd pocket of stress, we both had moments where we were able to breathe it all in.

And looking on the bright side, as I said to Dan, each time you go camping, you learn something new which will make future trips easier. This time our lesson has been to plan well in advance! Actually, you can add avoiding bank holidays, meal planning and if you value your sanity at all, remembering to bring along toys to keep kids entertained, to the list of things we learnt from this trip.

But oh, Wales. 

I wouldn't have thought it possible to feel so connected to a place if I didn't feel it myself. It’s home and I miss it. Unfortunately though I can't see us moving back any time soon.  Dan and I are very different people in terms of what we need. I like the quiet life and countryside. He likes people, stuff to do and reliable internet access. To be fair, I'm with him on that last one. And of course there's Alessi and what is ultimately best for her. 

Who knows, maybe one day we'll return to the motherland, but for now at least there will be more trips like this one (well, not too much like this one I hope), and more posts with pictures like these..

The tent is now lying in the garden drying. And so endeth the camping spam. 

Farmfest

This weekend we all packed ourselves in to the car and headed down to Bruton for Farmfest. It's a small, budget event and we thought something like this would be perfect for Alessi's first festival. Cheap enough to make it affordable even for the likes of us skintoes and local enough that we wouldn't face a mammoth drive home if it all went tits up.

And did it all go tits up? No. Although I'd be lying if I said it was all plain sailing, but I'll come back to that.

We rocked up on the Friday morning and found a great spot in the family camping field. I was a bit worried about pitching the tent. As it was new it was also the first time we'd attempted it. Turns out it was just as easy as our previous tent and it is AMAZING. Seriously I am out of my mind in love with this tent. She's a bit of a beast, but the perfect size for us and our needs. She will now be known as Bertha. Bertha with the big gertha. 

Anyway, we put Bertha up, made friends with the family behind us who were also pitching their tent for the first time and admired the view. As we were camped at the end of the field, we were spoiled rotten by the view. Seriously it was beyond beautiful and the weather was glorious too. We couldn't have asked for more.

The only thing I would do differently in future is to make sure we brought something to keep Alessi entertained while we sorted the tent out. As she informed me later, "putting up the tent is very boring mummy." Sorry kiddo.

Then we went exploring. The first thing I always do after pitching the tent is familiarise myself with the nearest loos, sinks and coffee tent. The coffee tent had the fantastic business sense to pitch himself as close to the family camping field as he could. Smart man. Smart, wonderful, beautiful man. I have to take my hat off to Farmfest for their loos too. They were compost loos so very environmentally friendly and no, not wiffy either. Well ok, they did start to get a bit wiffy towards the end, but it was a festival after all. Also I think it had more to do with people not using them properly while being a bit hammered. That said, a damned sight nicer to use than other long drops I've experienced in the past so as far as poop buckets go, thumbs up.

The site itself if very small. It's one field, but they do pack a lot in to that! Alessi's favourite things by far were the kids tent and Cake Henge (a cake themed installation in the middle of the field to celebrate Farmfest's 10th birthday).

Kids loved to play on these and there was one that was triangle shaped. Alessi watched in awe as the bigger kids scrabbled up one side and slid down the other. She got very cross on more than one occasion that she couldn't do it herself. Having us hovering over her asking if she need our help cramped her style it seemed.

Obviously bedtime routines don't exist at festivals and her face when I told her she didn't have to go to bed until she wanted too will remain one of my favourite memories for as long as my brain holds out. Pure joy.

Which brings me to the trolley. This gets a special mention as it was worth every penny we paid for it and then some. Not only was it a god send to transport our stuff from the car to the camping field (which took several trips), but as the night drew on, Alessi was clearly getting more and more tired.

We made the inside all cosy with an old sleeping bag, pillow and blankets and she was content to just lie down and watch the world go by as we ferried her about. Yup, the trolley was a hit and it got a lot of compliments. It was a bit of an investment price wise, but if you have a lot of heavy camping gear to cart around I can't recommend it enough. And the fact that you can also ferry tired children around in them is an added bonus!

She didn't actually sleep in it though. We had brought her ear defenders with us, but she refused to put them on. She just found everything too interesting and didn't want to miss a thing. This was cute as heck, but as the night drew on I could see she needed to sleep so we went back to the tent, put her to bed and she was out like a light.

Which turned out to be a bloody good thing because this is where things got a little rubbish. 

We were knackered by this point too and having seen all the bands we wanted to see, decided to go to bed too. The noise from the dance tent was mental and made the air bed vibrate, but we just figured that it would calm down a bit as the other stages shut down and stopped competing to be heard over one another. Oh how wrong we were.

All other stages stopped around 11pm, the dance tent however didn't stop until 4am, so we knew it was going to be a noisy one. 

Don't get me wrong, we've been to our fair share of festivals before so we weren't dumb enough to expect it to be blissfully quiet. But this level of noise was a first for both of us, the bass was so loud that our tent roof was jumping along with it! 

And it didn't stop. In fact around 2.30am (yes I was still awake) the noise actually increased, as if it had been turned up a notch. This was confirmed when we spoke to other festival goers the next morning.  

This is where Alessi staying up late came in so handy. She slept pretty soundly through the whole night. How I have no idea, but I am so grateful that she did. Dan put her ear defenders on at some point so was able to get some sleep. I didn't manage too until after the dance stage shut down. I lay awake for a little while, listening to the tractors and cows, it was milking time down on the farm I guessed. Then I finally fell asleep. Alessi was woke up just after 7am.

If anyone was wondering what three hours sleep at a festival looks like, it's something like this.

I got through Saturday only with the help of coffee, nutella pancakes and more coffee.

So Farmfest, I'm all for noise and believe it or not, I can actually sleep pretty well with the sounds of a loud stage in the background, but that level of noise was extreme, even for a festival and the reason why we did not stick around for the second and final night. 

It also had an impact on how much we took in on the Saturday. Alessi was buzzing having recharged her batteries and was ready for more. Dan and I however were flagging. So armed with coffee and the aforementioned nutella pancakes, we headed to the kids tent for yoga and a spot of morning crafting. She was like a pig in mud. Gluey, glittery mud.

The plan had been to stick around until the evening, watch the last few bands we came to see then head home. Unfortunately we didn't last that long.

We mooched about, ate some more yummy food, put on silly hats, had our photos taken in a photo booth and dipped in and out of sets at the various stages. Then we climbed back in the car and headed home.

Yup. That's Alessi under the reindeer mask. 

All in all it was a great little festival and I needn't have worried, Alessi loved the whole thing. In fact she told me that she wants to go to a festival again tomorrow. That's my girl!

An Impromptu Holiday

Last Tuesday night, I was sat on the sofa eating ice cream and watching Mad Men when Dan got home. Only it wasn't Dan who walked in through the door. It was my dear friend Lona! She stood there with a giant grin on her face and said "I brought pizza!"

Cue lots of tears and swearing.

Lona lives in Amsterdam so we don't get to see each other very often. She and Dan have been planning this surprise trip for the past two months. The wonderful scheming bastards.

The first day Dan was working so Lona and I mooched around Bath. There was shopping, dancing next to the Abbey, pigeon chasing and just generally arsing about. Alessi fell in love with her Aunty Loops all over again. Which is easily done.

Then as if having this special lady visiting wasn't surprise enough, we all went camping!

And to my favourite camping spot too no less. This was our pitch which was all ours for the duration of our stay. It was so peaceful (except for the resident owl) and the weather was perfect. 

This was the view from our pitch. Not too shabby. There were leaves falling almost constantly from the trees we camped under, like autumnal confetti and in the evenings the sun turned everything golden. For two days, I stopped caring about all those little nags and worries that I usually carry around with me.

My clothes still smell like camp fire smoke. I don't want to wash them.

We went exploring in the woods, played hide and seek and collected pine cones.

We visited the sea, ate chips, bought rock, collected shells and eyed up the lifeguards. Well Lona did you understand. I was too busy eyeing up their quad bike (want one).

Look at that face. This woman is one of the funniest, smartest, strongest and most talented people I've ever met. I want to be her when I grow up.

Here's to you ho bag. Thank you for coming to play!

XOXOXOX

Monday musings and conker collecting

 

We've had a lovely weekend. I caught up on all the sleep I've missed lately (please Alessi be kind to me this week!) we went on a woodland walk on the hunt for conkers and I even managed to make a start on the dining room table. And in between there was good food  (Dan's been cooking), plenty of sunshine and a fair bit of lounging around. All ingredients for a happy weekend.

Now I'm looking at the week ahead and wondering where to start. I want to experiment with some fabric flowers and I'd like to try my hand at some embroidery too. As well as that I'd like to keep things moving project-wise so I guess they'll be more sanding at some point. And probably some pinning for upcycling inspiration..ha! Like I need an excuse to spend more time on Pinterest!

And then there's the usual office days, cooking, cleaning and toddler entertaining to juggle.

Well no one likes to be bored do they?

Guerrilla Gardening - Seed Bombs

On Mother's Day, me and Pip got a little seed happy and potted up some flowers for the garden. We had plenty of seeds left so I decided to make some seed bombs. Of course Pip helped. Anything which allows her to play with mud is right up her street!

Hollyhock and sunflower seed bombs ready for launch, chocks away!

And here's the target. This is the view from a parking spot I regularly use. It's left to its own devices at this time of year so providing little critters don't eat the seeds first, they stand a good chance of germinating.

Will it work? Stay tuned..

Gone To The Dogs

This weekend we once again threw a bunch of stuff in the car and drove down the motorway to visit family. This time it was the turn of Dan's folks, most specifically his mum who was celebrating her birthday with a big family get together at the dog tracks.

I've never been before so I wasn't sure what to expect and if I'm honest I'm a little disappointed we didn't see any Del Trotter types in flat caps and sheep skin jackets.
If anything I saw a lot of bright young things who wouldn't have looked out of place in a John Newman video and a bunch of very fast dogs.

I didn't put any actual bets on. I just played along which was just as well really. The first dog I chose (merely because his name was Sparkle Bluebell) came in last. And it didn't get much better after that.

On this particular race, I went with King Lenny. Who lost. Also, I have no idea what 'tricast' means.

I have to confess I don't really get gambling and if it weren't for the chips, cider and friends, I may have been pretty bored after a race or two.

But there were a lot of people there to talk to and the races were fun if you didn't take them too seriously. To the nutter in the corner who screamed bloody murder while everyone else slowly backed away...I'm looking at you.

It's Wales baby!

Many of you will know already (because I wouldn't shut up about it), that I went home to Wales last week for a long overdue break. We also nipped up to the Lake District for a wedding beforehand so there was a lot of driving involved. By the time we got home I was sick of being stuck in the car, sick of motorways and sick of listening to Baby Jack on loop to keep Alessi entertained. It was all worth it though.

The weather was a nice surprise. The sun shone the entire time so we were able to do so much more than I'd hoped. I even managed to tick off a few things from my Summer Bucket List.

We went for a ride on the Aberystwyth steam train which runs past my Dad's house. It was lovely to see the valley from a different perspective and Alessi absolutely loved it! You know when dogs hang out of car windows? Well that.

 I see you

 See what I mean? Dog out of a car window. :)

We had chips by the sea. Lots of salt and vinegar of course.

 Apart from having to chuck water to scare off all the pigeons, our chippy lunch was uninterrupted and lovely.

I got to play with Alessi on the beach. Dan hates what passes for sand on Aberystwyth beach, but my gravel loving daughter was like a pig in mud. So 'nuh nuh' to you Mr Bliss.

And my mum took a photo of the three of us so we have a family picture now. Too bad I hate it. This is our take on the awkward family portrait.

But we also got to do some unplanned things too. Dad took me up in a very pink helicopter which I had a good laugh at. It was pretty cloudy, but the view was still breathtaking and the freedom of being able to say "let's go over there...oooh what's that? Let's go have a look" was pretty amazing. Dan kept his feet firmly on the ground with Alessi and before I got in the helicopter, asked if it was ok to marry again if I died.

 The higher we went, the flatter everything looked until it all started to resemble a big, green, patchwork quilt.

 Taking a sneaky picture of me and Dad. He was very amused.

On our last day at Dad's we went down to the 'pebble beach' where we spent a happy hour chucking stones in to the river until it got too hot. Alessi absolutely loved it and cried when we had to leave.

A nappy, wellies, some stones and a river makes for a very happy Pip

The whole weekend was well needed. It made me realise what a country girl I am at heart. As soon as we arrive and I'm allowed to wander about again I start to feel less anxious and more 'me'.

Growing up in this place probably hasn't helped my hermit style ways, but at this point in my life I'm past caring about how outgoing I am - or not as the case may be.

And it was so wonderful to see just how much Alessi loved being outside too. She got upset each time she had to stop playing and come back into the house and hated leaving the river.

That's my girl.