Grizedale Camp

I know, it's been ages since the last blog. We have just come back from a few days camping with our Home Ed group up at a farm and riding centre in Grizedale Forest. It was great, weather was good, no rain and now we are all exhausted!! This was our first camp this year and we had six families there. The site was lovely and the kids spent loads of time playing in the woods, in the beck and going to see all the animals (lambs, cows, ponies). It's kind of relaxing in a strange way as although the kids ages range from 2 - 15 they all join in together and keep an eye on each other. Of course the adults all look out for each others kids so it gives us a break as well from constantly being with our own kids 24/7. As much as we love them, sometimes we need a little bit of a break!!!

One day we took the younger group up to the Visitors Centre in Grizedale where there is a huge adventure playground, loads of walks, cycle trails, Go Ape and of course ice-cream! We all had a walk along a sculpture trail while the older boys stayed at camp with Dave collecting walking sticks and whittling, cutting, carving and decorating them. Some of them ended up looking really good and will probably be treasured for a few years. The younger ones spent some time decorting some and making crepe paper banners and proceeded to dance around the field with them!

Some of the kids, including Eilidh decided they desperately wanted to go riding so we organised for them to go on a small pony trek which they all loved. Eilidh has been looking forward to this for ages and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately riding lessons are SOOOOOO expensive, although I know she would love them but hey, we can't do it all. As Ben was too young to go on a trek they gave him a short ride up and down the long farm track. I thought he would bottle out when he actually got to get on the horse but he got up and refused to have me hold his hand and off he went. In fact he was so happy and confident he was chatting away to the farmer while boasting he could do it one handed!!! Oh, she of little faith!!! Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera up but hopefully I will get some pictures off one of the other mums to put on here soon.

Each night was spent in front of the camp-fire drinking coffee and chatting so it was brilliant to catch up and be back camping after a long winter! Although I was dreading lugging down all the camping gear from the loft, it was worth it! Roll on next month, as we organise these camps we have just got to decide where we are going.......