Back from the tent!

My rose 'Welcome Home' wasn't out when we left to go camping last week, so it was a real surprise to see it welcoming us back when we got home!

I love camping, I really do. I like only having the bare essentials with us (the kitchen sink won't fit in the roof box!), I love the feeling of being cut off from everything, it is lovely to snuggle up in bed with the children first thing in the morning and listen to the birds and to really take notice of little things like how the weather changes from hour to hour!

But, for me, the absolute best bit of the whole camping experience is coming home again. Once the washing machine is on and the equipment is beginning to disappear, I begin to appreciate our home: the electric lights, the warmth, the (dreaded) TV and radio and most of all my bed!

So what have we been up to? We stayed in a lovely little campsite down a tiny country road about 400 yards outside the small village of Marazion. The only downside was that we were woken up most mornings at 4:40am by a huge crowd of crows (and their babies) who lived in the trees above our tent! I thought you might like a quick whistle stop tour of the southern tip of Cornwall, so here's our tent:


We went to Falmouth with the friends who came camping with us:


The two men body boarded at Praa Sands:



We waited for the tide to go out and then walked across the causeway to St Michael's Mount. Little Man couldn't wait for the tide to receded completely, so he and I took our shoes and socks off and waded (ankle deep)across the last bit. As Little man held my hand, he said "Mummy, is this what explorers do?", my heart melted! Here's St Michael's Mount before the tide went out:

Then as it went out:

The following day we went to Mousehole (pronounced mousle), which is an absolutely beautiful little Cornish fishing village:



Then the men and the Little Lady went back to Praa Sands, while the mummies shopped in St Ives:

The next day we drove up to St Ives and took the single track (most of the way) coast road down to Sennen Cove again, where we met our friends for the afternoon. The coast road was truly beautiful. The Little People loved playing in the water:

We even made a sand speedboat!


Finally, on Saturday we were on the 6:30am (yes really!) boat bound for the Scilly Isles. We thought we were lucky to see one basking shark, but then we saw four more and a pod of twenty dolphins! I don't think Little Miss appreciated how lucky we were, because on the way back she asked "Mummy, where are all the animals?". Once we got to the Scillys we took a smaller boat from St Mary's to Tresco and walked round the stunning gardens:

The weather was beautiful until we decided to have lunch on the beach, when it started to drizzle.
Sunday was spent taking a wet tent down, packing the car, driving all the way home and then unpacking everything. We were exhausted and it was work the next day, roll on the weekend!!!
It all seems like a distant memory now!

My first attempt at crochet...

Well, the night spent in the (new) tent in our back garden was not a success. At 3am I decided I'd had enough of being cold and hauling Little Man back onto his inflatable mattress, so we wandered back to our own (warm) beds. My conclusion was that I need a MUCH warmer sleeping bag, not the 15 year old, thin, warn out one my darling husband assured me would be fine!

While I was lying awake, shivering, I realised the crochet blanket I'd brought with me was keeping me warmer than the said sleeping bag. I am inordinately proud of my crochet blanket, it is a bit lopsided and the colours aren't the ones I would usually choose, but it is my first completed crochet project and I taught myself. Well, that isn't strictly true, there's this wonderful lady, Theresa, who has spent huge amounts of time recording short, really easy to follow, crochet tutorials on You Tube. I sat with my laptop on my lap, a sturdy pair of headphones clamped to my ears, my crochet needle and wool at the ready and Theresa taught me some basic crochet.

Once I'd got the hang of (very basic) crochet, I decided I wanted to make a blanket. The trouble is that I have no patience and I always want to see results fast, so granny squares weren't really going to fit the bill. I went to the wool shop in town and bought the thickest wool and thickest crochet needle I could find. Then I set to with double crocheting my blanket, after a week, spending about two hours a night, I made this:

If you're interested in learning to crochet, or you can't remember a stitch Theresa has her own blog, 'The Art of Crochet' that you can link to it here. She is amazing!

So I have achieved one of my life's ambitions and learnt to crochet, and now I'm doing a twirly whirly scarf for someone's Christmas present this year. I'll post a picture when I finish it.

Tent Blogging

I am blogging from a tent this evening. It all started this morning when we put our new tent up in the back garden, in order to avoid jeering and heckling from other campers on holiday at the end of August. After about 45 minutes of tension fuelled team work we stood back to admire our handy work, and little man decided we were going to spend the night in it. My quick-witted husband told him that 'yes, mummy would love to spend the night in the tent with you', little man looked at me with his big blue eyes and here I am. It's cold, I've got bed socks on, I'm wrapped in a sleeping bag and a blanket and I'm going to be up at the crack of dawn, yea!
On a more positive note, we all had a great day with my brother and his partner, we had lunch at Pizza Express and then spent the afternoon flying kites at Whittenham Clumps, I love it up there. I'll post some photos tomorrow.
We've got friends coming for lunch tomorrow, so I should try and get some sleep...

Busy bees

The kids and I on holiday, so I'll be going back to work for a rest on Tuesday (I work four days a week)! My two little people haven't stopped all day. They watched a thunder storm in the morning and we all made our pizzas for lunch. Then we went into the garden and found a mouse Wicket (our cat) thought we might like, so we held a burial, a lot of time was spent 'decorating' the grave (you can just make out the cross little man made with sticks):

The somber mood and tears were soon forgotten as they blew bubbles in the garden and made a blueberry tart:

Then they wrote, they painted and they made a mess...

Tomorrow will be another wow of a day. My brother and his partner (the kids' two favourite people) are coming over, and then we're probably sleeping in the garden tomorrow night. We're going camping at the end of August with friends, so we've bought a tent and we need to practice putting it up. I can't wait.