Christmas Camp 2010

Can't remember what we did on the Friday before heading off, apart from making a vegan date and cardamom cake and doing lots of washing and making a list. Also having curry in the evening.

Saturday 27th

F and I headed off to the station, her with her case on wheels and me with rucksack and two bags, comfortably distributed. Had to take my laptop as there was a chance that a big contract would be confirmed midweek - of course it wasn't in the end. But must admit I quite liked having laptop with me anyway and the weight wasn't too bad at all.

Our journey to Exeter was very smooth, with comfortable seats, F reading Harry Potter (first one), playing DS and chatting, both of us looking at the scenery rolling past, all very nice. At Exeter we went straight to the B&B, which was quite a nice one, though not pleased that the price quoted online was not applied in practice. It had an outdoor swimming pool, which looked lovely from our window, all frozen over and blue.

We had chips and watched Saturday night telly, and both had baths and read a bit - F finished Harry Potter. Am really glad she has read that, as she hasn't had an author or series of books she has been into for a good few months and I was wondering if she would find one again. Up till recently she only ever wanted to read things with hardly any sad or scary bits in at all. Even if they ended happily, she didn't want to read through the trauma. This seems to have changed now (due to, or not unrelated to, having lived through various traumas this year I suspect) and she's giving books with sad or scary events a chance. She didn't get to sleep until really ridiculously late, 2am or later!

Sunday

began with B&B breakfast - I had veggie sausage and mushrooms - the quality was great, delicious food, but I think she had chopped a total of 2 mushrooms for me! Still, plenty of toast, and F had 2 yoghurts.

We packed up (should have checked the beds better as we left F's games case) and headed out to the station to leave our luggage at the taxi place, so that we could walk unimpeded around the city.

We wandered from the station into the centre, via a park, where F went on lots of freezing cold playground equipment and I gradually warmed up in the sunshine but couldn't sit on the frosty benches.

Next stop was a cafe for hot chocolate/cappuccino and a sit down in the warm.

Then we went to the cinema and saw 'Despicable Me', which we very much enjoyed. Had the screen almost to ourselves and sat at the front munching popcorn.

On the way back from the cinema to the station we bought F another book (she saw a Jacqueline Wilson she liked the look of!) and some gloves and bumped into 'the angry birds lady' - I thought we might when we heard violins in the street...

We retrieved our luggage and caught the bus over to Okehampton - was a nice bus journey, with snow apparent on the moors as we went on and a beautiful sunset.

We were 4th or 5th to arrive and went and settled in to our room, accompanied initially by SB and A and a random few other children popping in and out.

In the end it took F a couple of days to really settle in, partly due to a slightly different dynamic, partly due to her own changes and partly due to her needing to cling to me and be cross with me for the difficult year we have had - she is dealing with all of the following: mummy can't fix everything; people die; nice people die; young people die; grandma is different now; people hurt other people and lie to them deliberately (neighbours' kids in street); too much time away from mummy this year; too much time away from daddy this year; hormones; awareness of her own physical limitations and the balance of desire for independence with fear of things going wrong. Such a lot going on in there. 

Sunday night, after baked potatoes, I stayed with her and we went to bed early as we'd gone very late the night before and were both quite exhausted.

Monday

F went for a walk with the geocache gang, without me, and had a nice time I think. She fell over but was OK. She is falling and knocking things over quite a lot at the moment again, of course ice doesn't help! She's still more stable than me on slippery surfaces though.

We did some Hama beading but only in a rather random way, taking it in turns to read the Jacqueline Wilson book while the other person did beading.

We had curry for dinner, F had the meat one! She really likes camp curry. And Sarah-The-Angry-Birds-Lady brought F's games case over, when she visited from Exeter. Big relief, thank you Sarah x.
And the 4 birthday girls had Happy Birthday sung to them and were surprised with cakes, including 13 that spelt out 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' (ours was the D), and 2 photo canvases for the big birthday girls.

I did stay up Monday night, played Pandemic I think, with Helen and Kirsty, really enjoyed it, though didn't entirely know what I was doing, especially at the start.

On Tuesday F and I did some craft as part of a History etc. Roadshow, a bit of tie-dyeing, bead-threading and fimo-fiddling. F went out for a walk again with a group, without me. 

We also had a huge row in our room that afternoon. F wanted a physical fight with me, for all the complicated reasons listed above. It was horrible. In the end we had a big cuddle and a cry together about all the things we can't change in the world, and all the awfulness of people not being kind to each other. Think we both felt quite a bit better after that, on some level.

My friend B, who lives in Tavistock, came over in the evening and we went out for a meal at the pub up the road, which was lovely. I had mushroom stroganoff, was extremely good. F had fish fingers and chips. F got very very chatty! The pub was cosy and it was a lovely evening out.

Back at the hostel, B came in for a coffee and we had a chance for a proper chat about our lives and all that. Have known each other for 15 years or so I think. Lots to catch up on, mainly introspective stuff, how we see our lives now, decisions made, etc. B is great, she can seem like she is taking herself very seriously one minute then suddenly turn it round and laugh at herself instantly. She gets better and better actually.

F was much more relaxed on Tuesday night, I read her a few chapters of her book, then I went and hung out with the grown-ups again and had a nice chatty evening, if I remember rightly.

Wednesday was Pennywell nativity day. Alison of the Portico very kindly gave F and me a lift. We had an ongoing rhino joke that F kept resuscitating every time we thought it was neatly terminated. It started when Alison was explaining what there was at Pennywell and making dismissive hand gestures about small mammals and it seemed amusing to pretend to be a toddler missing the point and ask 'is there a rhino?'

There was a freezing strong wind over there and we started our visit, after gathering as the 'Goddard Home Educators', in a barn with the nicely counterpointed attractions of animals that you were allowed to touch and a bouncy castle with slide. There was general clustering of larger people around the hot air thingy, and some snacking.

Then it was the turn of our party to go to do the nativity, which was quite fun, with plenty of singing, children being resolutely children on the whole, despite being dressed as various other things, a real donkey for Mary and Joseph to walk with, more singing, various characters wandering backwards and forwards representing long journeys, a bit more singing and 'Best of all the Baby Jesus'! (Which was my favourite line, due to sounding a bit like something in a Tesco advert for some kind of Christmas 'bundle' - "Three Wise Men, a dozen mince pies, a tub of brandy butter, an Angel Gabriel and best of all the Baby Jesus! Just £9.99!")

F was an angel, with a prophetically slipping halo, which, also prophetically, she stopped trying to replace after the 20th time it fell down around her neck. Tricky things though, haloes.

After that, there were unfeasibly huge shire horses, a visit to Santa and some very welcome warm mulled wine.

We then went to the House of Marbles, which was really good, beautiful marble runs there, we spent ages watching them, cheering when the balls went over to the side with the steps, which happened only every not-sure-what-numberth ball. Was very watchable. Lots of lovely things in the shop too, wish I'd noted down the manufacturer of a light we saw there, think F would like it and it's not on the online shop site.

Interesting to watch the glass work from the gallery too.

F had kept the rhino joke going all day, drip-feeding it long past any reasonable extension of its natural life. And what should we see, as we came out of the House of Marbles? Only just under a grand's worth of life-size resin rhino accompanied by various dinosaurs and other figures. And did F think that was funny or extraordinary? Nope! Oblivious to the strangely serendipitous rhino of destiny was she. Alison and I cracked up though.

Back at the hostel, I did a bit of work on my Secret Santa gift and did a bit of kitchen help - we had pasta for dinner with garlic bread I think. F was integrated into the play-rehearsing group by that point, so she was off doing that mainly. After dinner, I did some sprout preparation for next day, with Scarlett beside me peeling them (that Ady is a tyrant about old-fashioned veg. prep.) and telling me about times she had met hedgehogs and possible career options with animals that would or would not suit her.

Stayed up far too late I seem to remember.

Thursday was 'Christmas Day' and there was a fresh fall of snow! 

I can't remember much about the early part of the day except for battling with finishing my Secret Santa, having a couple of good chats with Layla, Em, Merry in various combinations. Christmas dinner was very tasty, delicious nut roast! Very difficult logistics to get dinner to everyone and it all felt a bit noisy and big and schooly, though better once I had a glass of wine afterwards, so that was clearly the key!

Then there was Secret Santa gift-giving - my sticker came off, so I had to reveal my identity to the recipient. Both F's and my gifts seemed well received. I loved (and indeed am still loving) my chocolate green man, and F has a very funky and unique decorated top.

Loved seeing everyone opening theirs.

Then it was carols/music, which F and I both enjoyed. F doesn't know the carols really but she can read the words and has enough familiarity from telly or me singing them around the house to pick up the tunes quite well usually.

There was also the play, which was less meandering this year, with a fairly well-presented plot. I thought A the narrator did a good, clear job, also SB putting 100% into it. Merry's F did well to keep it all moving and get it all together and in general, everyone did their bit, including fairly efficient set changes. Very Christmassy 'message' too.

I didn't stay up very late that night, though long enough to see Nic fall asleep, after trying to keep herself awake during the film with a snorty pig keyring. Also witnessed Alison's self-drinking goat portrayal. Niiice.

Friday F and I were off early (which proved just as well as we still got home after 5pm), with a lift to Exeter station kindly provided by Simon. The first half of our journey was all very smooth and comfortable, but the London to Brighton bit was slow and crowded and we didn't get a seat till after Gatwick. Nice atmosphere though with everyone chatting and helping each other, exchanging stories of where they were going, etc. Brighton to Lewes was OK and F and I walked from the station this end, me not liking the slippery bits at all. F did her bit by carrying 2 bags, which helped a lot, thank goodness. Am crap with ice, hate it.

Had a quiet post-camp weekend, still processing laundry slowly as it takes forever to dry in this cold. Watched various things to catch up with, plus F watched films with J on Sunday. We got our Christmas tree up, it proved a bit frantic in terms of LED light colour changes, so we moved it out of our direct eyeline from sofa!

Today we went to Monday group, but I have a sore throat and cough and aches and pains and am a bit 'grouped out' so I sat on the edge a bit, keeping fairly quiet.

All in all it was a good Christmas Camp, after a slightly rocky start for F I think. Lovely that we had snow and I particularly enjoyed the carols. Very much liked playing Pandemic too. Excellent company, though did miss notable absentees. I felt very at ease with the group of adults on the whole. I wish F had felt more able to launch herself into the children's groups a bit earlier, but it was fine after Tuesday. Still need to debrief with her and find out what she feels now about it all, what she enjoyed most, etc.