Tuesday 8th to Friday 11th May, was the Kent Home Ed Camp at Kingsdown International Campsite, and it was blumming marvelous! We were a select few that braved the weather and were rewarded with warm, mostly dry weather. A couple of the adults even caught the sun a bit too much!
Tuesday, dawned fair and dry. My rather odd looking set up. Trust me though, that shelter was brilliant! Stopped rain from running into the teepee when the doors were unzipped, and provided a excellent porch area for storing stuff...
Tuesday evening, sharing a pot luck super, really lovely, even if it did take forever to cook, while we got use to the mechanics of making a fire suitable for cooking over. TIP: plonking a HUGE piece of wood on the firepit is not the way. Oooh I did love cooking over the campfire though; it was well christianed!
Bless the boy! Lugging a 15litre water container back from the water standpipe; he had only half filled it, but still heavy for a 5yr old. Took him a while but he showed real grit and determination!
The kids went exploring in the woods surrounding the campsite and F came back with all these.
Very exciting watching the various boats and ships sale past. We couldn't work out what this one was, very odd shape and hung around for ages.
Short walk down to the shingle beach for some pebble throwing and beach combing. The kids found all sorts of amazing things; one of the girls found what looked like a skeleton of a turtle!
Hehehe, amazing house on the beach front, myself a couple of friends began plotting knocking off one friend's husband, and then us girls living there with the kids ;-) Ahhhh campfire discussions eh!
Finding shells.
Obligatory marshmellow toasting session. We really had a wonderful time. There were two camps; on the other side of the field a few families camped together with the teens; who from the sound of it, had a wonderful time too - and made good use of the HUGE fire circle surrounded by trees.
The younger kids for the most part got on really well and loved having so much freedom and space to run and roll about.
Yes, I took the gas heater - just in case. Actually I only had it twice. Thankfully it really had warmed up, so it didn't really feel cold at all.
Ooh dear, Thursday night the heavens opened and deluge of rain, and the wind! Inside the tent it sounded like a fierce storm, and it was bad enough to destroy the gazebo - see it just there on the floor, it was all bent and mangled. In reality the rain and wind wasn't that bad; I simply hadn't tightened the guyropes on the shelter over the teepee properly, so it slapped and flapped against the teepee making a gawd awful noise!
Face painting! I organised a few activities and my friend, Cassie brought some great stuff with her too; face paints, streamers, bubbles, kites, large roll of paper and pens etc.
The kids looked great, dinosaurs, pretty flower paintings, skull faces and of course clown.
Meals became a community affair, we ended up pooling our food. Here M and Liz are making an utterly delicious vegetable and sausage tomato sauce for pasta. I had some marinated steak too for the adults (yum!), What this photo does not show, is that it was raining! Shame the gazebo got blown down!
One of the activities I organised was a green man clay workshop. Just as we started the heavens opened, so some of the families legged it, but a few hardy kids hung around and we had fun with the clay.
We also made mandelas. These were very popular.
The view from my tent. Waking up to that each morning was stunning.
The wonderful Cassie, also brought glow bangles too and the kids loved racing around in the dark with them.
And after we packed up on Friday, and everyone else had pretty much left, Cassie and me took our kids down to the beach for a picnic and ice cream, and then home.... perfect end to a wonderful camp.
7 comments:
Oh wow Jacqui. It looks totally fab. And good on you and Rye for giving it a go in the rain.
Actually some of our happiest camping memories are of the times we went in the rain. It somehow seems more of an adventure!
The glow bangle photos are amazing.
What a fantastic time! How did your joints fair with the low level living and damp weather?
Hugs to you for planning such an event.
San xx
LOL just organised another for the 6th to 10th September. Although I might only be able to do the weekend, unless I can find cover for my mindie.
And yeah, the weight loss from juicing (and juicing itself seems to help with the swelling and pain too!), I found getting up and down ok initially, after a few days it began to take it's toll and my knees protested a lot, even sitting in my moon chair was uncomfortable and sometimes it felt llike I wouldn't be able to get back up again.
The pain did become so bad I did take a double whammy of painkillers in the end. Daft as it sounds tho, the pain didn't bother me overly, somehow being out in the fresh air, seeing how happy my boy was.. made it worth it and bareable. Plus my camping mat is pretty darn comfy - Vango delux self inflating foam mat.. so slept pretty well.
Camping again in 3 weeks for the GP camp, so back on the juices come Monday to try and get a bit more off before then, so hopefully be even more mobile.
Oh and the walking down and back to the beach didn't help with the knees... although I did find it fairly easy... not especially steep, a gentle gradient.. but still slopes put extra pressure on my knees, as do the steps.. so yeah the next day I was grunting and groaning a lot.
Tell ya, so looking forward to hitting that weightloss point, when I realise my knees do not hurt!
Oh my word that looks fantastic! Have you noticed how mud and rain make everything so much more exciting to a child, looks like Rye had a ball!!
It looks like you had so much fun! :)
Looking forward to seeing you at the GP camp! x
Looks like you had a fabulous time, glad the weather was kinder than it has been.
James says that ship looks like a dry cargo ship, the sticky up bits are cranes.
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