I started to type up notes at Melrose so that I’d have a nice complete blog when I got home. I didn’t get very far. It was far more interesting to sit and chat and crochet or loom, play games, drink wine or tea or help with cooking. It was even OK to do washing up, or go outside and play in the snow:) I only turned the netbook on once and that was to check the pictures I was taking with Tim’s camera – I found the camera to be OK, but the screen on it not nearly so good.
So let’s see, how did it go? Got away a little later than I’d hoped, but even with a stop at the metrocentre for lunch, arrived only shortly after 4 o’clock at Melrose. Not having Brightkite turned to phone, I didn’t know that ppl had been turned away, and I’d thought we were let in from 4, so I banged on the door and got let in 🙂 Not a bad start, being first into the hostel!
Children were quickly happy to run off and play, although Big had a wobble on the first night after other children got their DSs out. She’d brought Barbies, including the new set she’d been given for her birthday, specifically to share, and she wept copiously that everyone else was needing screen time. Helen and Michelle were quick off the mark to resolve this and she was soon happy again, though her behaviour later in the week when she was atrociously rude to several ppl made me think that if she cries for being left out again, I’m going to point out that ppl might just be avoiding being screamed at 🙁 Still overall, she played well with everyone except me, so I think it can still be counted as a good week for her – she was particularly daring outside, and did loads of sledging, which somewhat surprised me as she doesn’t usually go in for death defying stunts 😉
Small was his usual mainly adorable self, with only a couple of incidents. It bemuses me that he could find very little structure at a Montessori school so ludicrously stressful and then just muck in for a week at a youth hostel with next to no problems. But he did, and that was good. He also found time to ask questions like “what was the first food? When did the first man appear and where from?” and my personal favourite in relation to us moving into Tim’s dad’s house “but what if he’s reborn?” Um. Well, if he is, he can’t come back as the same person as he wouldn’t be old enough to be Daddy’s daddy, so the best he could be is Daddy’s son, which gives me all sorts of ew moments 😆
Game playing evenings without children were mainly spectator sports for me, I couldn’t get to grips with things like Pandemic
at all. I did manage a game of Blokus
with Michelle and tried out Colors
with Merry, which I actually quite enjoyed.
My other achievements of the week were in finishing items – I finished the scarf that’s been on the scarf loom for I don’t know how long, and finished the item on the circle loom, turning it into a teddy bear for Small as we’d managed to come without any cuddlies for him (bad mummy 🙁 ). I even bought a ball of red wool and made a matching cloak so that we were treated to small boy and small bear flying around the hostel for the rest of our time there. Of course I then had to go on to make a bear for Big although I haven’t done a cloak for her yet, despite Merry and Helen managing to bring back a pretty good match in purple wool. I do need to find and finish the library book, The Ropemaker
, that I started reading, as that was really rather good, and I’m looking forward to finding out how it goes, watch out for a review soon 🙂
Managed to be one of the last out of the hostel on the last morning, though I have to say it was our least stressful exit – the planned list of things that needed doing and rapid departure for more heavily children laden families meant that we were done and asking for a checkover just after 10.30, even though we waffled around for most of an hour after that. The warden was very impressed with us, and I got the impression that she’s going to miss us next year, I guess there probably aren’t that many families that she gets to see year after year coming back.
Journey home was fine if a little slow for the last 50 miles or so, though again without brightkite switched to phone, I missed all the drama (we were probably still wandering around the metrocentre anyway!). Missing you all already – definitely time to start planning a summer camp.
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