Kessingland

OK I have been remiss. Here we go.
Friday before holiday - went to visit E from MMs and her family A, L and T in Brighton. Highlights for F included painting masking-tape pictures and jumping off L's bed onto various cushiony items, as well as playing with various daleks and cybermen. We really enjoyed the visit - E and I managed quite a bit of chat between and around the children.
It was a good way to spend the last day before the holiday.

Saturday - we set off at an early but civilized hour, were at the station by 10ish I think, and the train journey went really smoothly. The London Bus ride was fun, passing through various parts of the tourist trail and F seemed more interested in various landmarks than before. We stopped in Lowestoft for a while to buy a few necessaries and then caught the bus.
F had a Dora backpack containing quite a few of her things - DS, books, Fuzzy Mog, camera and a few bits and bobs. She also carried Dozy Mog intermittently. I had Sparkle strapped to my rucksack and F's clothes were mostly in J's rucksack.
We arrived late afternoon and unpacked a bit and wandered to the shop I think to get teabags etc. And we went down to the sea for a quick paddle and shiver under a cloudyish sky.
I popped down to the field to see N and get our 2 heavier bags (towels, laptop, soya milk, vegan ice-cream, nut burgers and books) so that I could have a proper cuppa.
It was a bit soggy down there but not as wet as it was going to get. The site felt nice and familiar with it being our second year.
The trouble with the 3-bed statics is that the bedrooms are a bit tighter and not so comfy for big people. The living-room/kitchen was good though, fairly spacious.


Sunday - N took me to the supermarket to stock up for the week. Was nice to have a good chat and catch up with her 'camp so far' stories as she had had a fairly eventful time!
It would have been beach picnic and sandcastle day but alas, the weather spoke up firmly against that. Can't remember much of what we did, think F might have spent a long time in the little soft play bit and J and I played air hockey some of the time! She also went on the zip wire near our static quite a bit.
In the evening, we headed over to the entertainment centre for a bit of SKC, establishing a precedent that continued nearly till the end of our stay - highlights were seeing H getting mummified and various MPers doing various dances, though I missed seeing N get her much-deserved medal - lowlights were Sparky's New Clothes being the show again - although F was quite happy to sit through the same show as last year. This year, F seemed less keen to take part, preferring to watch most of the time, although she did have a brief dance with K's A, encouraged by shiny purple pom-poms one evening. And somehow J ended up with a Sparky strapped to his rucksack on the way back, matching my Sparkle nicely.

Monday - morning I took F down to the field to do a bit of samba drumming led by E, which seemed to go down OK, after an uncertain start. I managed to get a bit of hanging out time, visiting Merry's tent briefly and helping very minimally to move C and H's tent and stuff. F and N's D and I had bananas together at some point and chatted a bit.
In the afternoon, my friend from a few online forums came over, as she lives in Diss, not too far away. J took F off to play in the playground and soft play again, while she and I had a good old natter and some snackage for a couple of hours, which was very enjoyable.

Tuesday - morning I think was when I had a really long lie-in - bliss. Generally over the week I spent a lot of time reading, which was lovely. We also played Peggle on my laptop quite a bit, and I watched Big Brother highlights shows a few times. Also watched news and the all-important weather forecasts. And the music prog on Saturday which included The Pixies, very briefly.
Tuesday afternoon was Tie-Dying, which I loved last year and loved even more this year. Thank you so much to K and A (hope I've got that right) who provided the session. The sun shone kindly and it felt just like last year for an hour or so and there was a very sociable atmosphere. F disappeared at one point, predictably, but it turned out she had made a bid to go to the toilet on her own - fine, but tell us next time love (*rolls eyes*). She's never very visibly interested in the tie-dying, but she does seem to have taken in what you do as she was able to describe it quite well to someone recently. I love it and was very happy with our items, especially my shirt. Now we just need warm weather to wear them.

Wednesday - we got up early to allow time to walk up to Africa Alive (about 40 mins with F) to get there for 10am. I got a bit twitchy as none of the car contingent appeared for 15 mins but then we were in by 20 past and had a lovely day. Last year we had to rush back to see my friend which was a bit tricky. This time we had plenty of time to wander. F enjoyed the train ride and the playground equipment best (*rolls eyes again*). It was a really good day. I love seeing the rhinos and giraffes. J managed to see the aardvarks this time too. F was keen to see bats for some reason, so she did. Oh we saw a chimp using a stick to pull a piece of fruit into his enclosure. I enjoyed stroking Sylvester the snake again too. The staff are lovely there, one of the keepers chatted with F a bit just before we left and went in to demist the windows of some smaller exhibits so that we could see properly. At one point we let F go off to the playground while we sat in the cafe watching, getting used to a longer distance and more independence, gradually. She did really well with it, waving back at us a lot and checking we were still there and even managing to come back to go to the toilet in time.
We got the bus back (goes halfway down lane) as we were all fairly tired. I actually got a little bit sunburnt at the bus-stop.

On Thursday afternoon we took the bus over to Lowestoft, had pizza and pasta and saw Shrek the Third at a small cinema there. Another good afternoon. Then, as the next bus wasn't for nearly 2 hours and it was a lovely evening - we decided to walk back! Most of the walk back was lovely, but there was a truly hair-raising section along the top of a cliff on narrow neglected dirt footpath with brambles and nettles and other hazardousness. Not my favourite, thanks! When we got to the end of that section there was a big sign saying something on the lines of 'Danger: Clifftop path eroded. Keep off' - might have been an idea to put an identical sign at the other end, where we got onto the path. Also there was a wire fence stopping us coming off the path. So we went back down a steep path onto the beach and were quite glad not to have any more adventures.
We got back just as the light had nearly faded, all completely knackered!
I popped down to the field to find out whether N and A still had room in their car for our heavy stuff and stayed for a short while by the campfire.

Friday - like many others we left one day early. N's D came up and hung out with F for a bit, while we were packing and choosing which stuff to throw away that we couldn't carry. Our journey went pretty smoothly, although slightly disrupted by the bomb scare in London, but not bad, compared with last year's.

Overall it was a nice break, but we had all really (stooopidly) assumed that there would be more sunshine and therefore more beach time, picnics and swimming. Still, F had a good time on the whole and I really enjoyed tie-dying, Africa Alive and Thursday out in Lowestoft and (most of) the walk back.

Thanks Nic for taking our stuff and bringing it back and for the supermarket run.