Well, we got back yesterday, tired, happy and mucky!! This camp was brilliant, we had about ten families join us and we had gorgeous hot weather. I'll give a quick run down otherwise I'll go on forever!!

Monday

Dave went early with the kids and when I arrived the caravan was all set up (Great!) Everyone arrived gradually and the kids found the rope swing on the tree and spent most of the afternoon playing on that. Eilidh and one of her little friends also found the farms pony and disappeared for about an hour 'feeding' it. Kids went to bed really late and we spent the evening sitting around the camp fire chatting and drinking coffee.

Tuesday

We packed up our rucksacks and set off for a walk up the hill we could see from the campsite. Everyone joined in, kids, mums, dads and dogs. Everyone made it to the top although Ben was doing the last steep bit on his hands and knees! Had lunch on the top until we got too chilly and headed back down. Kids carried on playing until bedtime (bit earlier today!) and we spent another night in front of a blazing fire!

Wednesday

Today we decided to walk to Sedbergh thinking it would take about an hour and not be too strenuous! I think we ended up walking for about an hour and half alongside the river across fields and through woods! We were all glad to see Sedbergh and split up to have a look around this little town for a couple of hours before we headed back to camp. We managed to find some birthday cakes for Eilidh and then realised we would have to walk back with them! The walk back seemed much quicker and the kids bounded off with their endless energy to play while we all collapsed with a mug of coffee!! Got the camp fire going again for our evening chats!

Thursday

Eilidhs Birthday!!! While Dave took the kids off to get washed I quickly blew up balloons, rescued her presents from several hiding places and put them in the awning for her to find. Then being really mean parents made her eat her breakfast before being allowed to open any!! She was so excited and managed to rip through her presents in no time, Ben had a little one to open and didn't really understand why he didn't have as many as Eilidh!! She had lots of pony things, dolls, pink spacehopper, wordsearch books(she loves these and educational!!), and a bracelet and necklace and painting kit off Ben (chosen by him as well!!) Of course this attracted all the girlies to come over and play ponies so we ended up with an awning full of bodies playing happily together. Just before lunch we all took a little walk down the river to a beach bit where the kids spent a happy hour playing in the river, building dams, making mud pies and mixing soup in Bens bucket! The weather was absolutely lovely, really hot and sunny.

Later on in the afternoon Eilidh had a surprise visit from 'Little Grandma' and Aunty Barbara and Uncle Alan with even more presents and a gorgeous homemade Barbie birthday cake. And Kate, Dennis and Florence (our friends from Kendal) turned up as well with more cakes and presents! (So the cakes we had lugged back from Sedbergh didn't get a look in and ended up going mouldy in the awning as it was so hot!) We got the paddling pool out for the kids to cool down in and all of Eilidhs new ponies and dolls got a good scrub! We then had Birthday tea for everyone, sausages in baguettes, baked bananas with chocolate inside, and toasted marshmallows (all Eilidh's choice). Ben was desperatley tired and started getting a bit bolshy so went to bed and crashed out straight away and Eilidh had a bit of time to play with her friends before bed.

Friday

I had to leave earlier to go and do one of our cottage cleans, so left Dave and the kids to pack up at their leisure. It was another scorching day so they spent the whole day there and appeared back at tea-time. The rest of the group had left except one that was staying on for the weekend so their dad took the kids off for ice-cream while Dave packed up. They arrived back absolutely filthy and tired, Ben had fallen asleep in the car so I managed to get him into his pyjamas and he slept all night! Eilidh managed to eat tea and then collapsed into bed as well.

It has been a really great week, perfect weather, great company, no real squabbles and fights with all the kids happily joining in everything. Great walks, great scenery, great weather, great company, great fires....what more could we have asked for!!

We never did get to go round the farm but everyone was so busy enjoying themselves! Maybe next time??