Bonfire night and Camp

So...
Bonfire night was great, although in retrospect probably contributed to F coming down with this bug, what with the air being a bit damp and smoky. My brother I and our friend J came over and I cooked up a vat of dahl and we ate that before going out to watch the procession - we'd never seen it go past the end of our road before, as we normally set out too early and do a lot of hanging around (buying chips and LED novelties)! We found a nice spacious viewing point and it was a great show as usual, with fire, samba drumming, fantastic costumes, loud bangs and barrels of flaming tar.
After the procession ended we had some chips and bought our LED novelty - see how flexibly we adjusted there - which this year was a blue light sabre (for home use only, promise!). Then J took F home and I stayed out with I and J (initials do make things a bit nonsensical sometimes don't they?) for the fireworks. The lads were all up for standing on the footbridge over the river but it scares the crap out of me to be standing on that bridge with over a hundred people and someone always starts bouncing it and encouraging everyone to 'jump up and down!' - nuh-uh.
So I persuaded them that we should scurry over the bridge in a non-bouncy fashion and watch the same bonfire society as last time - the show was good but didn't end with the usual outrageous daylight-skying head-popping crescendo sequence for some reason. As we made our way back over the bridge several more shows were viewable as they built to their grand finales.

Back home, J said F had fallen asleep as soon as they sat down, which meant she woke up at 4am and discovered the new game that he had put in her DS, intended for post-procession time!
We watched a little bit of telly (RTS lecture) and then off to bed.

Next morning I and J (the 'guest' I and J, not 'us') went off fairly early and I got packing, finishing in good time for A's arrival at 11ish to take us on holiday.
The hostel was in a beautiful location, up high on the South Downs with views in all directions. We went and settled into our room, where F was at first sure she couldn't go up onto a top bunk, but then managed it after some encouragement and demonstration! She and I (that's 'me' now, the confusing I and J have gone, OK?) played her new game 'MySims' which we've really been enjoying actually - it's simple enough for her to be able to do it but enough interest for me to want to play too. We played a lot of it at camp, especially since she wasn't really well enough to do much livelier stuff.

We did start out on the Autumnal Walk, but turned back fairly early. F did enjoy what we did of it though, lots to chat about and we picked up some sheeps wool off a fence and stroked a pony near the hostel.
Later that day she asked for a glass of water and then apparently took it downstairs and a bit later dropped the glass in the communal washroom, while I was in the loo. It shattered into a thousand tiny shards, one of which she promptly stepped on in bare feet and cut herself. PP was one of the children who arrived on the scene, so I asked her to go and ask A to bring a dustpan/broom. A arrived and rescued us with dustpan, brush and first-aid kit. F's cut wasn't serious and soon stopped bleeding, so we went back to our room, where she then threw a huge wobbly at me for asking her to wear her crocs and not use glassware downstairs. Didn't know she was ill at that point, just thought she was being extremely contrary. After about an hour of various types of discussion, with me contributing varying approaches, ranging from 'OK don't wear them - we will stay in our room all week' to 'it would just be nice if you put them on and we could go and see everyone else up there, but if you don't want to, there's nothing I can do about it, so we won't', and other such joyous interactions, she finally did her thing of 'doing the thing she is being asked to do but pretending she isn't' and at last we were able to go and have some dinner. Which was lovely pasta with a nice garlicky veggie sauce and garlic bread, very much appreciated after the long wait. F didn't eat much.

She went to bed fairly happily, but when I went down at half ten to get something from the room, she was awake with a temperature. I had Calpol with me so administered that and then stayed with her and she was quite poorly, but also very bemused by a message that had come under her door, the meaning of which we had to discuss at length and repetitively for the next couple of hours (it was only a 'you can advertise in this space' notice distributed by 2 of the older children).
The next day, she asked me to help her write an advertisement in response to the notice. She had decided to advertise 'helping people to learn to climb up to the top bunk'! So I spelt out words for her and she wrote in pink crayon very nicely! We gave our advert to the Advertising Directors and had some breakfast. She wasn't very hungry but didn't seem too ill at that point.
However, later everyone else went out to go to the beach and she didn't want to go, so we stayed at the hostel and played games. She had another huge wobbly and shouted at me a lot, in fact she was still shouting and really angry when people started coming back. We went down to our room and she quietened down and eventually we decided that being at home would be the best thing.

A very kindly drove us home and it was definitely the right decision, though I was very upset at the time and could hardly say goodbye properly as I felt like crying. At home, since then, she has slowly got better, but has had high fevers, especially in the night, and generally felt rough. The last 2 days it has been more just a bad cough and snotty cold. She hasn't been shouting at me though, so that's a plus!
Although I was very disappointed, we do have quite a few other nice things coming up (guests/visitors, birthdays and stuff), so I'm going to focus on those.
The time that I did have to chat to people and hang out at camp was really nice, though, so it was lovely to see you all, if all too briefly, and a special big Thank You to Nic for organizing it. You did a great job! Hope we get to do the next one all the way through.