Mud, mud, glorious mud!

http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/

So I'm back from my first Greenbelt experience with kids!  We made it and both kids had a brilliant time.  M can't understand why Daddy didn't come, as camping is the best!  We're all missing it today, and we definitely found so much richness in having less around us.

There is something so wonderful about camping (even in the mad wind and rain that we had!).  Living outdoors, breakfast on the grass, cooking on a small stove, friends within peg throwing distance, small spaces in the vast outside space!  It's been quite hard coming back.  A hot shower was good, although it did feel quite strange to be that clean (I can see why people in the past weren't convinced it was the way forward), there's quite a comfort in being a little bit dirty.  And my soft bed seemed obscenely comfy, and I really missed being snuggled between my two gorgeous children all night.  I'm also not convinced that our electic kettle boils any faster than our gas stove kettle.  And I can't just open the tent flap and let the kids out....they'd be squashed by a car too quickly!

We also had such great shared experiences during the days there.  An amazing show of 'The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark' by the Blunderbus Theatre Company; Duggie Dug Dug; Playsongs Plus (I highly recommend their CDs for pre-school kids); Weapons of Sound (including lots of dancing in mad rain!); drumming workshops; circus skills; Shane Claiborne; Ruth Valerio; an amazing Sunday Communion gathering with everyone on site (actually in the sunshine!); The Imagined Village; and finally the mammoth task of packing up, as no cars were allowed on site due to the mud, so everything had to be walked off site!  Great community spirit, smiles, help and hard graft!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-19397826

We caught up with old friends; the Elliots, Clare Helmsley, Steve Howarth and had a great time with our local buddies; Reeves, Jacobs & Matt.

An amazing time of richness, and M didn't want to leave, wanted to go back today, or for her birthday (would be a pretty cold weekend in November!).

Finding richness in less blogging time?

Image from: http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2010/04/26/what-does-blogging-mean-to-you/

So it's almost a month since my last blog post, and ironically there has been more to write about in the past month than in the whole of the past year.  However, it's a watch this space on most of it, all will be revealed before the end of this mad year!

But the last few weeks have definitely been rich.  The sun and the olympics came to Britain, and the summer holidays have meant that regular kids groups all get cancelled, so I've been finding more creative ways to occupy the kids.

A few months back I mentioned the National Trust's '50 things to do before you're 11 and 3/4', and we haven't even started on that list yet, but I've had a great time with the kids:

• at the Men's Modern Pentathlon and going on four trains
• finding beasties in Creech Wood
• swimming in the sea
• painting beach huts (with water)
• meeting farm yard animals
• balloon modelling in the library
• spotting amazing butterflies in the Butterfly house
• bouncing on a bouncy castle 
• seeing how high we can really go on the swings in our local park
• eating more meals outside than inside
• planning this week's Greenbelt adventure!

And with the exception of the Olympics and Greenbelt, they've been free activities and all done with lovely friends.

Our lives are very rich and we are blessed by living in an amazing city...wouldn't want to be anywhere else!