The campsite at Appuldurcombe has a number of advantages over the other sites – showers, washing up room, flushing toilets and above all a swimming pool.  This was our last camp of the year and we loved the fact that we were just relaxing with a couple of friends and just chilling out!

At the swimming pool this year:

And then here are some photos from the same campsite last time we were there (at Little camp) in 2005:

We managed to camp right by the lovely tree that the children had sheltered under when we were last there.

And here is Jonathan under the same tree 5 years ago.

Martin cooking and warming himself on the BBQ 2010

And here he is long ago BBQing with Russell.

General camping shots now:

Ruth and Livvy being sociable as usual:

Elaine and Nick’s lovely tent (with the tree behind) which outed us all as potential home educators – some HErs from the mainland were camped beside us (with another bell tent!!)

Becca munching brownies

And here are a few shots from 2005

Rebekah celebrating her birthday

And Bran

Think this is Livvy and Freya teaching us the amazing bumble bee song (sang around camp fires ever since).

General sitting about

And I even found one pic from the 2004 camp – not very flattering but it has Jonathan in our beloved sling so i’ll pop it in any way.

Yesterday my sister paid us an impromptu visit.  This was largely so the two Jonathan’s could visit the tank museum – thank goodness someone else wanted to take him I would have had to have worked really hard to summon up any enthusiasm!

Ruth suggested that we went to a beach.  We thought about Steephill cove – the most well known secret beach – but opted to go to a less well known one.

So on a sunny August afternoon there is only one other family on the beach – just goes to show that even on the Isle of Wight in August you can find quiet beaches if you know where to look.

Rebekah said I wasn’t allowed to tell you where it is though in case everyone heads there.

The others all went swimming and Ruth built a tower.

The vicar greeted us at the entrance and told us about the local family and some of the history about the royalists and parliamentarians  and then gave us an introduction to the Lord and Lady of the manor.

Despite the pedlar trying to cheat Jonathan, Jonathan still won the game and one a lovely feather (from a Norwegian Blue according to Nick!!!! ) .

Freya only managed to draw and she only received a couple of inches of ribbon.

I felt sorry for the actors needing to eat in front of the public, even if we were all foreigners!

Rebekah and Jonathan had a go at being pikemen – they even rather worryingly gave Rebekah a sword.

The others were either rather amused by it all or bored stiff!

We were also able to explore the lovely grounds.

There was a tree house.

Bridges across the stream.

A rope swing.

Not to mention a crocodile.

Things to hunt for

Things to find.

More rope swings.

And stepping stones.

We had a good day and we may go back – if we feel like it we’re not making plans this week after all.

So here are a few piccies from then to whet your appetite for the show.

This shows the Train scene and also the musicians and parents and extra cast members watching.

Here we have a couple of the lighting team and Ratty and Badger.

A couple of rabbits waiting patiently to go onto stage and Ruth singing her first solo in the courtroom scene.

Some of the backstage hard work and the flappers on stage.

Nearly finished.

I love the mix of costumes and normal clothes mixed in in these pics particularly in the train scene which was at the tech part and we have a mix of full costume and make up, partial costume, make up and normal clothes and just normal clothes.

Think it’s going to be fabulous – thought things were going worrying well in the first part of the dress rehearsal (you know if you have a bad dress rehearsal the actual performance is usually brilliant and vice versa) but the second act allayed my fears on that score!!!!

So if you are on the IoW come and see it’ll be a great show.

A lazy morning was in order to begin with, late start and a cooked breakfast, yummy.  Then, unfortunately, I had to pop into work to get some past papers photocopied – something that definitely wouldn’t be allowed on a proper Sunday – but we were going past the office so it seemed to make sense.

The afternoon was filled with playing at the wonderful new park at Puckpool.  Finally a park on the Island that is suitable for a really wide age range.  We met up with some lovely zonies.

The complicated spider thing (although as Andrea pointed out it does only have 6 legs not has some musical electronic game.  Lara and I spent ages trying unsuccessfully to figure it out and decided that we must just be too old to do it.  We were very pleased that rebekah and Anna couldn’t figure it out either!  And don’t be deceived by the speed Ruth seems to be doing on the swing thing, a couple of minutes earlier she had been almost parallel to the ground.

We headed home via the LZ resources where we managed to acquire a number of very interesting chemicals – screaming jelly babies later this week

Next activity was for the kids to do some baking while I sat in the garden with a book and a cuppa.

Then there was lots of gardening to be done:

Jonathan wanted to do an experiment with an old drinks carton, he wondered if we screwed the lid on it and he jumped on it if it would go bang.  it didn’t but it did hiss loudly.

By this time the moon that we had been able to see all afternoon was very visible.  I pointed out you could see the dark shadows on the moon better with sunglasses on so Jonathan had a go.

We decided that we would be able to see the moon even clearer through Martin’s zoom lens on his camera, and it was.

Love this autonomous education lark!
And that was our day off!

In the midst of this we had this lovely Saturday evening at our friends’ beach hut and then slept over in another beach hut.  So we woke up on Sunday morning to fantastic view over fields and the sea.

Being us we didn’t have the whole morning to ourselves, Martin was going off to work at the Wolverton Manor Show and we were going to join him later.  But we didn’t have to rush to get up and the kids all stayed asleep and we experienced a moment of peace and tranquillity that had a profound effect on me.  Why didn’t I have more mornings when I felt like this, why were we always rushing about on a Sunday instead of relaxing and feeling peaceful and having enough time to enjoy each other company?

The peace and tranquillity is obviously enhanced by cups of tea

So having established that this was my best Sunday morning for months (even if after these pics Martin went off to WMS and I was left cleaning the tent that a load of smelly teenagers had been sleeping in for a week) did we do anything to change our lives?  No of course we didn’t we carried on regardless.

Stress carried on building up.

Then shortly afterwards I read an article in the New Wine magazine (I don’t usually read it as I find it too charisimaticly evangelical for my tastes these days, but it was free so hey!) while sitting on the loo (all the best reading goes on there.  I usually even read Martin’s Third Sector magazine which is seriously boring – although this month pictured an almost nude picture of Mark Forster who used to swim at Copthall where I used to teach swimming – and the BBC focus Magazine is the overall preferred magazine by most people in the house).

I picked out an article by Michele Guinness who is really interesting.  She was writing about the sabbatical that she was having in France with her husband and how they were going to do up a house in France.  The content of the article was mostly focused on the fact that they had decided to not work on the house on Sundays but to have a day of rest instead. She wasn’t happy with this decision at first as she felt it was just shirking on the DIY but says that as Sundays were spent cycling through countryside and having leisurely meals she came round to the idea very quickly.

Now I know it’s not rocket science but it suddenly struck me that this was just what we needed.  One day a week to be a day for resting, for playing , for fun and not for work.  A day to be different than the rest.  You’d think as a Christian with the heritage of  a Sabbath day I could have twigged a bit earlier.  So I pointed Martin in the direction of the magazine article and he agreed.

So how were we going to keep Sunday’s different?

Well they needed to be fun – when the girls were younger we wanted to make Sunday’s the best day in the week and we used to have gisbit day (biscuit day -but Rebekah couldn’t say it), when we could have tea and biscuits for breakfast before church – now we go to a fabulous church that has tea (and rather nice filter coffee) and biscuits (or cakes, sausage rolls, bacon rolls etc – depending on who is doing the teas) before church  so we don’t need to do that any more.

Also we had memories of friends who hadn’t been allowed to play with anything other than a Noah’s Ark toy on a Sunday which all sounded a bit grim.

So we decided to ban the computer (with an exception for the iPlayer if we are watching together and music) mostly to stop me and Martin from disappearing into facebook land and to make it time when we could all do what we wanted but with a focus generally on being together.  No DIY or general housework (cooking and dished excepting).  No Work!  But always remembering that “the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath”.  So these are not rules but guidelines to help us to have a proper day of rest

So what have we done since deciding this?

We’ve gone on a fungal foray with friends, where we surprised ourselves by actually finding something other than little brown jobbies.

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We’ve gone on walks, long and short and all together and in smaller groups.

We have watched videos and played games.

We’ve napped in bed and on the slouch (mostly that’s just me).

But mostly we just have a proper day off, we don’t go shopping and we don’t work and we do spend time doing what we feel like doing and doing things together.  Last week we all gardened except Rebekah who made scones instead – everyone was happy.  Then she went off to a recorder concert while I napped and read chick-lit on the sofa and martin and Jonathan played carcassone.   Oh and we usually watch Top Gear when it’s on too!

I can’t begin to describe what a difference this simple change has made in our lives, I look forward to Sundays hugely now – sometimes things don’t work out perfectly, when we are on some sort of duty at church we don’t have quite such a relaxed start  (I can be known to be yelling at everyone to find every pair of scissors in the house and the packet of  split-pins which surely must be in the blue box in the cupboard as I haven’t fully prepared for Sunday funday), but not starting church until 11am means we don’t have to rush too much – but overall everyone looks forward to Sundays and it seems to  give everyone permission to just chill out and have a day off.

We think Sundays are super

]]> http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/2010/03/our-super-sundays/feed/ 2 http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/2010/02/woodland-skills/ http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/2010/02/woodland-skills/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:26:39 +0000 Susan http://wightweirdos.co.uk/ww/?p=677 The girls are definitely turning native, they enjoy countryside pursuits these days, you wouldn’t think they had a Londoner for a mother.

When we moved to the isle of Wight we were amused by some of the activities here.  We were very sarcastic about the enjoyment to be had at a Hedge laying competition.

Last year we were a little more interested as we had a friend who entered and whose team came 3rd in the team class.

But this years the girls are positively upset that we are going to be on the mainland while this rural extravaganza takes place.

Throughout the winter on almost invariably wet Tuesday’s they have  been doing a woodland skills course with Rick and Nick the rangers at various copses around the island.  They have been coppicing, loppering, thinning, clearing brambles and making lots of fires. For the last few weeks they have been having a go at Hedge-laying at Golden Hill Fort.

They have been cutting  pleachers

And  learning about hethering.

And still using lots of sharp tools.

using a bow saw

they love loppers

So here we have Jonathan leaping between the staw bale sofas and being a very sucessful volunteer collector for Gift to Nature.

Don’t Adam and Holly look beeeautiful

Bee graffiti