I don’t know what I had expected, but that wasn’t it. Despite that, I enjoyed it, and like I said before I’m feeling curiously flat now. I’ve cleaned the tent though 
Let’s see. Kirsty called to see if I was ready on Saturday morning - cue hollow laughter. So she came over and was soothing while I ran around panicking - worst moment was realising that I could not find my ticket. Ended up ringing Andy, who assured me that I would be on the database, and it wouldn’t be a problem. So we set off.
Journey was fine, so I’ll skip it. Arrived and was kept hanging around at the gate despite the previous phone call - poor dd went into meltdown at this point. They gave up on verifying me in the end and let us in after taking a note of my name and where I was camping ?! Which was thankfully close. So I parked the car, released the children, and started bumbling around the tent. Which was when it became apparent that the camping in the circle thing was going to be fab - instead of the feared putting up tent on own scenario, everyone joined in. Tent up in record time, complete with multitudes of guyropes, interesting buckle arrangements for groundsheet, colour matched bedroom linkages and all.
Nice one.
After that, the days kind of run together a bit. Dd spent an inordinate amount of time in the playground. It was very hot. There was a litter problem - notably of glass bottles in aforementioned playground. This annoyed me rather a lot - I gathered up all the litter into a bucket and after taking the morning to calm down, took it up to the main marquee. I had some idea that I was going to ask to get up on stage and make a little speech about how if the litter wasn’t acceptable there, it wasn’t acceptable in the playground - this idea was rather deflated (if ideas can be deflated?) by the comment by one of the “crew” that they took that much out of the marquee after every speech. Looking around though, I didn’t see any bins, which wasn’t going to help.
Anyway, the woman I’d chosen to talk to suggested running a workshop to build a rubbish sculpture. ?! Words failed me for a moment, understandably I feel. But I felt I had to make the effort to do things the way things were done, so I found myself in the craft tent, making a banner…see Kirsty’s blog for a picture. I was extremely ably assisted throughout by Joyce’s Hannah, and my own dd.
Dd had a bit of a thing going for Hannah, and to borrow a phrase - who wouldn’t? Lovely girl, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend a bit of time with her when Joyce popped off to pick up her parcel.
Highlights of the week? Getting to spend time with all these virtual friends who really don’t seem like strangers due to the blogring. Katy - get a blog! Reading all about everyone’s worst and best times really seems to break down the barriers - I struggle hugely with meeting ppl - as no doubt you’ve all noticed I possess an uncanny ability to stick even my virtual feet in my mouth. And yet I felt utterly comfortable and relaxed amongst the muddlepuddle circle, despite the fact that we do undeniably have differences.
The low points? The teenagers! One of the things about home ed that I’d considered a strength was that I hoped my children wouldn’t be subject to peer pressure to conform to a look, or a behaviour, and yet here were these hordes of would be vampires wandering the place (some of them even had fake blood around their mouths…) Aargh! I want a T shirt that says “I want to be different like everyone else”. And at night they came out in droves and populated the playground, and were noisy…I’d also hoped that my children might have a bit of thought for other ppl, which was sadly lacking at three in the morning. We took in it turns going out to tell them to clear off, but it didn’t work desperately well, until Merry and Sarah went and found Andy, who was apparently well unimpressed, came down at midnight and chased them off, then came back at one to make sure they were still gone. I did try to call him the following night (after I’d been out three times myself), but his phone went straight to voicemail 
However, this does highlight a number of positives. I had been affected by negative chat on UKHE list about the unresponsiveness of the organisers of Hesfes - the pervading attitude was supposed to be that if you didn’t enjoy it, somehow it was your own fault. I didn’t feel this at all during my time there - although it wasn’t the best organised event I’ve ever attended (and I have been to other stuff organised by volunteers), the overall feel was of an enjoyable holiday to say the least. I didn’t manage to get to many of the talks - dd resented being dragged away from her playground! - so I can’t really comment on them, but it did feel to me that if you wanted to get involved and help out, you’d probably be welcomed. And the other point about the teenagers, which is actually positive - despite the fact that they were being noisy and anti-social, at no point did I feel scared of them. Can’t imagine I’d walk up to the group that frequents the corner of the village street and tell them to clear off!
I’m sure there was something else I wanted to say. Oh yes, specially for Chris. Dd managed to fall over outside the main tent at one point, and quite badly skin her knees. Real bloodshed and all. A woman ran out immediately clutching a first aid kit (got to be the first time I’ve gone anywhere without a first aid kit in I don’t know how long - I carry one in the change bag, which was, wait for it, in the tent!) and it was a homeopathic first aid kit! Hypercal cream, apparently, good for scrapes and so on. While thanking her profusely, a small part of me did want to run off down the track having mild hysterics…
The final day, with only a few of us left and finally only me and Alison left, was peculiarly enjoyable. We both spent the whole day packing up, keeping an eye on each others offspring throughout. Then we had pasta together, produced on Alison’s stove, the final remaining bit of her tent home (kind of like the cheshire cat leaving his smile behind, the tent disappeared leaving its kitchen…) Dd spent hours in the playground, Small bumbled about on the floor (although he did spend quite a bit of time with Sarah in the morning - thank you for that!) and it felt comfortable.
And I guess that’s the feeling I’m missing now.
