A little camping break

 I am so pleased that we managed to get away this year, and with my sisters too. It was a really nice break which involved lots of laughter, walking and eating together.

We went to the Peak District and stayed on a dairy farm in Pomeroy. There was a little shop onsite, a petting zoo with goats and from the part of the field we were pitched in we got to see the dairy cows go out every morning and back in again in the evening. The children were fascinated by this as the cows just wandered through to the correct field.

We had a real mixed bag of weather whilst we were there but still managed some exploring. 

This pub was found wandering along the High Peak trail straight out of the campsite.

This was at a park in Buxton, Pup was most confused by this statue HAHA. Think he thought it was real, he stood staring for a while.

This is walking along the river in Bakewell.

View from the top of the hill at Cavedale in Castleton. I love the rainbow across the water.

It was so nice to go as a group as it meant; company for me, company for teengirl as her cousins of a similar age were there, and the younger cousins had each other too. This meant so few tantrums/silks from all invovled. It was a very relaxing week. I stuck within the budget I had set for the week, and even came home with big change!

Teengirl and I had planned to see if we could stay on for a couple of extra nights as we were enjoying it so much. However, we went out on the Friday for lunch with my sister and her family and when we got back the tent had broken. Several sections of three of the long poles had shattered. It was a very windy week and the poor tent just couldn't stand up anymore.

So instead of a few extra days we ended up driving home that evening and having two less days than we had planned. I was a little disappointed then I realised that actually given the current situation around with Covid-19 we were very lucky to have managed to get away at all. So turned that round and have concentrated on how much fun we have had instead.

Now to start saving for next year as we all want to go again. I also need to find out where I can get my tent poles repaired...

Camping

Stephanie, Smudge and I are off camping for a week on Sunday. Dylan and his girlfriend are staying home to look after the house and the rabbit. This is a week away on a budget. I have saved for the last couple of months for this, as it has been planned for a while. My sisters and their families are coming with us. We have a stay in the Peak District booked, I can't wait. I planned out the meals and things we will be eating today, based on what is easy to cook on a camping cooker and what we have int he cupboards already.

 This is what I have come up with:

The main items on this list are in my cupboard and just needed packing. The BBQ food will be taken from my freezer and pack in the cool box with ice packs to keep it fresh as will take us 4 hours or so to get there. We then will need to unpack the car, put up the tent etc etc before we eat. BBQs on the first night are always fun, especially when you meet others there as they are fun social meals allowing us time to catch up as we share.

Excuse the dog's nose- food is around so he's not far away! HAHA

I shopped through the cupboards for the meals on the plan. Then headed to the fridge:

This bits are fruit and veg that we can use for either snacks, or to enhance our meals. Not enough for the week, but once we are settled we will head to local shops/farms to buy the bits we need as we go. we won't have a fridge whilst we camp so we will buy fresh bit as needed.

This is how I keep costs down when we go away.What things do you do to keep the costs down?

Devon snaps

Just to share a few pictures from our holiday. We had such a great time that I had Stephanie sad face sat next to me all the way home as she didn't want to leave! LOL

 

Some of the stunning views from various hills in Ilfrascombe. Lot's of do we have to climb up there mum, but they enjoyed the views as much as I did once we were at the top lol

These are some shots of the Ilfrascombe aquarium, it is a small aquarium that shows only fish native to the area. The staff were very friendly and answered Stephanie's questions and explained lots of different things to her. It cost £10 in total for the 3 of us to go in.

 

At Exmoor zoo, it was a little bit of a rainy day so coats on hoods up! Off we went. you can get really close to the animals here, it was a fantastic little zoo.

 

At the Linton and Barnstaple railway. This little railway is trying to fix up the line so that I t runs further. At the moment it is a 2 mile round trip. We got off at the other end and had a short wander around. The line has potential once it is completed but currently is in the early stages. There wasn't a huge amount at the other end to occupy the children so really you are just going for a 2 mile round trip. We wandered along some country lanes and across fields but still didn't find much- other than cow pat and the resulting discussion surrounding this lol.

This has turned into a longer blog post than I had intended already. I shall leave it there and post some more pictures etc later. There are a couple more things from our holiday I want to share :-)

 

 

 

Camping

We have been away again on a camping holiday this week. I love to go camping and enjoy the simplistic life that it brings. This time we have been to Devon, a little site just outside of Barnstaple.

The site is a small site with basic facilities; showers, toilets, washing up area, washing machine, tumbles dryer and a small climbing frame for children.

The site is up a hill overlooking the town- the view was stunning. The owners of the site were very friendly and chatty- always nice to be greeted by a smily face. The site is called brightlycott barton. I would recommend it to anyone who would like a small place to stay and is not looking for the bright lights/ evening entertainment that you get at some sites. The toilets were clean, the washing up area was in an actual room! Anyone who camps a lot will know what a rare treat that is! The washing machine was free to use, and the tumble dryer was £1 for 30 mins of drying. I used both- well when your daughter is travel sick and you drive around Exmoor without a tablet they are muchly needed! (Ooops!)

We arrived on the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend and the site had several families but not too many. Most people left by the middle of the week leaving just three families onsite for a couple of days. Then Friday night several more groups arrived. There were 3 showers in the ladies and I believe the same in the men's and we never queued once. There was another toilet block with showers, in an old outhouse building which we affectionately named the 'spider toilets' they had a lot of spider webs in them and both Stephanie and I were too scared to use these because of this. That said the main toilet blocks weren't too far away and were clean/ almost web free so we were happy to use those. The showers are the worst thing about the site- they just were not warm enough. The first 2 showers I had were freezing! I learnt to go down as soon as I got up at 6.30 and get the first shower as then they were almost warm.


We have had a fantastic week. I will show you some of the places we visited another day as it has been a long day and I am tired! It took us 7 hours to get home, not that there was traffic it's just the site is almost 300 miles from home, we needed to collect something from a shop before we left Devon and then we had 3 stops along the way.

Oh and we are planning on coming back in the summer :-)

The New forest

Last week the children and I went off on a camping adventure to the New forest. We have had an amazing time. We have explored all sorts of little places near where we camped. We have crossed off several items on my bucket list. I want to show you it all! But that would make a very long blog post, so I am going to start with showing you where we stayed.
We didn't book our campsite until Monday, we went to the New Forest Tuesday morning. We didn't have long to pack, but the only thing we managed to forget was our pillows!

We stayed at the Roundhill campsite. It is a lovely campsite in the forest. You can pitch up where you are happiest. There were field areas and little hedged areas. We chose to pitch in a little hedged area.

We parked up the car and were amazed by how close the ponies come.

You can see what a glorious dry summer we have had this year by the casualties of putting up the tent!

This rather friendly ponie gave us a quick lesson in why the campsite ask you not to keep food in your tent, she checked out the boot of the car whilst we hammered in tent pegs.

And then the tent! A good advert for the spaciousness of our tent- it can fit a pony in it!

This is the pond on site.

A view of the campsite. Once we were pitched up we went to explore the site. It is a lot larger than it seems. The trees and hedges seem to hide a lot of the site, its not until you go off and explore you realise just how big it is. There were several large toilet blocks, which meant we never queued, which also helps the feel of the site being small and not crowded as some do, particularly in the school holidays.

As the site is in a wooded area, the forestry commission bans the use of wood fires. So after we barbecued our sausages for dinner we attempted to toast marshmallows on the charcoals, not quite the same as on a wood fire, but fun all the same.

 

I will show you some of the places we explored later, but for now I need to go and get a start on the mammoth to-do list- I'm back at school tomorrow and have lots to do first!

 

I wonder how much of this I can get done today?

Bank holiday

When the children found out last Monday was a bank holiday they straight away asked if we could go camping. We sat together and decided on where we would go we decided on staying at a farm in Pett. It was a fantastic escape from it all site, it was a field set in the woods. The bits I was most impressed with were the composting toilets and that we were allowed to have proper camp fires. Here are some of the pictures from our stay;

It was a Fantastic site, we are hoping to go back again in the next half term. It worked out at £15.50 per night. I took food from the cupboards for us to eat while we were away, all I bought whilst we were there was some wood for the fires and some eggs from the farm- £1 for 6 fresh free range eggs such a bargain that I bought a dozen to bring home with us.