Well, We’ve been back nearly a week and in typical fashion I have again failed to find time to blog! Ah well nothing surprising about that but this time at least I have an excuse….washing and bloody mountains of it. You know how it is when you return from holiday ESPECIALLY a muddy one. 7 days camping in a field dodging the sudden downpours with a couple of hundred kids running around churning up the ground I’m surprised I didn’t end come home with more dirty stuff than I did . I suppose the blonde kid regressing to a near cave man state running around bare foot and insisting on wearing his new HESFES t-shirt and jeans everyday kept it to a minimum.
this image was originally posted to moblog.co.uk by user James
Actually I can’t blame the washing for not blogging I had it all done within 2 days of getting home but I have had a busy busy week….honest! But really, HESFES……Despite the rain, which in all honesty only came for probably 20 minutes a day but was bloody heavy when it fell causing the pathways to turn into mud slides and the wind which was pretty much constant, it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!
WE arrived FRIDAY evening after an arduous journey that included traffic jams , toilet breaks, coffee breaks, food breaks, downpours AND nearly SEVEN hours on the road, just in time a for a nice respite in the clouds that lasted plenty long enough to put our tents up and set up camp “Clarke”…which is easier said than done when you have 2 cars and a trailer full of gear to distribute and assemble and 4 adults 2 teenagers and an over excited 7 year old to contend with. We had everything done by about 8:30 which gave us enough time to prepare food before it got dark and to meet the “neighbors”.
We’d arranged to camp on the same plot as James parents as they have pretty much EVERYTHING you’d ever need to camp with and we had…well we had a tent and bedding, who in turn had arranged to camp with the same families that they always camp with at these events.
On one side the Bunkers, Julie and Adrian, who arrived with an ARMY of relations ranging from the eldest son Jim who is 30(ish) to their youngest daughter Hettie who is 14 (and has an amazing singing voice) and 4 other children Abi, Anne, Heather and Rory of various ages AND grandchildren (little)Kai and Tabby who were 6 and 3 respectively.
On the other side the “Evans” Tribe who consisted of Penny and her 7 year old son (big) Kai and her friend Hayley and son Michael. So in all with the 10 “Bunkers” 7 “Clarkes” and 4 “Evans” we had a merry camp of about 21…and thats not counting the teenagers that periodically dropped by wanting to borrow towels or shampoo or feeding or just to say “Hi” or Adults that came by the discuss various matters from the L.A. to the consultation on Home Education, to which parent had upset who at the last camp to the weather and shopping.
It was a pleasant evening in which both the Kai’s (who’d met before) and the blonde kid made acquaintance and formed friendships that lasted all week. Jordan and big Kai went exploring our part of the camp site with torches until nearly midnight, little Kai who was more a little more timid than his boisterous peers stuck closer to the tents.
SATURDAY was a bit of a wash out we rose quite early ate breakfast and consulted the program to see what activities were planned for the day and Jordan decided that he’d quite like to see th Tipis, take part in the green woodwork workshop and maybe have a go on the bouncy castle and see what would be playing in the groovy movies marquee (a huge solar powered cinema screen in a tent GENIUS), so we trekked up to the field where all the marquees were set up to find that the Tipis and the movie marquee had not yet arrived as they’d been to Glastonbury the weekend before and were stuck in the mud, the bouncy castle wouldn’t be happening on that day as the field was just too wet and the man running the woodwork workshop had yet to go into Colchester and fetch supplies so was delaying the activity until the next day, Jordan was not happy, he had to settle for having his face painted and drinking hot chocolate in the worlds most expensive cafe – which was surprising considering it was a tent in the middle of a very muddy field. And then going back to paint his own face again as the rain destroyed what the lovely lady had done for him first time around.
The day wasn’t a complete wash out, we managed to get down to the beach where the tide was right the way out and had left plenty of “things” for us to “discover” including dead crabs, small rock pools live crabs and shells most of which Jordan insisted on taking back to the tent with us – luckily we convinced him the live crabs would be much happier left with their friends on the beach.
The rest of the week was much more of a success, we figured from first day experience that the best way to go was to plan NOTHING and completely disregard what the programme said was happening and then just show up and see what was going on for ourselves. In this way the blonde kid managed to take part in metal workshops where he made me a beautiful copper bowl and a green woodwork shop where he made a lovely tea light holder which he etched with “my mom loves me”. He had his face painted and made masks, played with various groups of children of various ages took part in or watched numerous music workshops, made a stage in the craft marquee to “dance” on. He watched a magic science show and saw various broadcasts in the groovy movie marquee once it arrived from Glastonbury. In addition we also saw many live acts in the main marquee over the course of the week including “Fishing for Eyelashes” which was Hettie, one of the Bunkers, band. And we managed to get back to the beach a couple more times in between the showers and watched the windsurfers performing all sorts of jobs and acrobatics out in the estuary.
We only actually left the camp site for one day, and much to Jordan’s disgust as he wanted to stay and see what was going on in the entertainment field, although once out he enjoyed himself. We went for a drive around the island and visited the Cudmore Country Park in East Mersea where we showed Jordan the WW2 pill boxes and sea defenses and then over to West Mersea to the port where he looked at all boats and visited the harbour fish shop where the fishermen’s wives sell their husbands daily catch – REAL FRESH FISH!!!
So now were home and I miss it, There is something about waking up in an albeit muddy field and cooking breakfast for the masses on a single gas burner knowing that there was NOTHING planned for the whole day, away from the daily grind of nine – five with nobody expecting anything anything from you except maybe feeding at some point that is a great stress reliever! All in all we had a fantastic time, Jordan relished the freedom, being able to take himself off to the activities and take part in whatever took his fancy really and other than when we dragged him back to the tent for food or bed we hardly saw him, It was great for me as I got to meet so many interesting people with so many diverse points of view on so many different things conversation never ran dry, and it was great for James in my opinion mainly because I showed him camping ain’t all that bad and we’ve convinced him to go back next year…
….Roll on HESFES 2008.
this image was originally posted to moblog.co.uk by user James