June - the rest of it!

This month has gone by so quickly that this posting is being hurriedly made to ensure that there is a posting for the rest of June!

Having done that, I can now write the rest (at the start of July).  Having not had time all month to write anything I now find, looking back, that we didn't do very many things to write about.  The month was busy due to work.  Ben and Beccy both had exams.  Ben had his AS exams in biology, physics, PE and history.  Beccy had some GCSEs, English and biology, and some creative and media diploma coursework.  Brian is still trying to sort out cash flow problems.  He needs to get enough money coming in to create a surplus but it comes in too slowly and he is always too busy to look at how to improve things.  I had loads and loads of marking and have been working overtime.  Although it is nice to have the extra money, I am now not getting a day off and am often not home when the children come home from school.  Even though they are old enough to cope with this, I don't feel comfortable with it.  I will quite likely work five days again next year but will try to ensure that each day finishes early enough for me to beat them home from school.  At least then I will feel that I have an evening.

Beccy's main events this month were a dance presentation evening at school where she was in charge of the sound production and a win at another football tournament.  This is the second production that she has been involved in and it looks like it will become a regular thing.  She is really keen to be involved in all school productions but not in the limelight.  Aylesford Girls Under 15s won the Castle Colts tournament on the 5th June and she brought home yet another trophy.

Dan, Helen and Alexander came to visit on the 20th, Father's Day.  We had lunch, which I cooked on the griddle of my new(ish) cooker, then played in the garden for a while before going for a walk.  Alexander ran around in the garden having a whale of a time.  Dan would spin him round a couple of times and he would try to walk, staggering from side to side.  He made us all laugh.  Ben and Beccy played ball with him and Beccy fished a newt out of the pond for him to see (he wasn't impressed and didn't even try to touch it - he wanted to get back to running).  Dan had cooked Brian some delicious custard cream biscuits as a present, really tasty (obviously he wasn't allowed to keep them to himself).  After lunch we went for a short, local walk and found a thatched house in a residential street not far from home.  It was quite an unusual sight for us.  Dan and Helen have many thatched cottages in their area.   Many are very old.  This one was quite strange for three reasons: one, because there are very few, if any, thatched houses in this area; two, because the house was relatively new; and three, because most of the roof was obviously a replacement for a tiled roof (some was covering a new extension)!  The house was named 'The Thatched House', presumably it had been renamed.

On the 27th Dan, Helen and Ben ran the Stansted 10k.  It was incredibly hot, which made it really difficult to run, but Ben and Dan ran it not too much slower than other 10k races they have done and Helen managed an impressive hour and a quarter.  There were, apparently, a number of casualties from the heat.  A few days before this, Ben competed in the Kent Indoor Rowing Championships and came third in his race.

 

 

After the race, and lunch, we went for a short walk to the local park.  Alexander showed us how he can slide, ride the roundabout and swing (with a push, of course)!  Then he showed us his climbing skills, climbing the frame to the top with little difficulty and without using his knees.  Impressive stuff!

 

For Ben, I think the highlight of the month (or possibly the year) was a trip to Wimbledon with Jeni. They travelled there by train, leaving Chatham only after Jeni's final A level exam finished at 4pm. This meant that it was nearly 6pm by the time they got there. They bought evening admission tickets, which let you wander around the courts and, presumably, get a seat in the outside courts where there is one available. They were quite happy to do this but shortly after they got into the complex, an older couple came out of centre court and asked Ben and Jeni if they would like their seats as they had to go. Obviously they said 'yes, please' and they got their seats in time to see the final set of Andy Murray's quarter final match, which he won. They must have been so pleased with themselves. Ben rarely phones home when he is out but he phoned specifically to tell me where he was. That was how important is was! Many thanks to the couple who were kind enough to think about those who can't afford the extortionate cost of centre court seats.

 Indoor rowing championships.

We have had to pull out of the flat purchase, which I am really upset about.  There was outstanding work from the conversion (6 years ago) which means that there is no Building Regulations certificate and some of the mortgage was withheld until the work has been completed.  Unfortunately, to get the work completed it seemed that the property management company would be charging all the leaseholders, so it would be unsurprising if they said 'get lost we're not paying, charge the development company, whoever they are' and the work didn't get done, which could cause some problems for us, and them, when it comes to selling on.  As the mortgage offer will soon run out and we wouldn't then be able to apply for another mortgage until the work was done, we couldn't do anything but pull out.  I felt really sorry for the lady who was selling it, she had waited such a long time already while we got all the information and now she could have problems selling it at all.  From our point of view, we know at least one property management company to avoid in the future!

Glastonbudget and half term

We had bought tickets for Tonefest, a small music festival that we went to last year and enjoyed very much. Unfortunately, the festival had to be cancelled due to poor ticket sales.  As we had been looking forward to a festival on Bank Holiday weekend, we decided to find another festival on the same weekend.  We found Glastonbudget, held in Wymeswold in Leicestershire.  This was a festival of tribute bands with a just a few new bands in the line up.  In normal circumstances we wouldn't probably have considered going to a tribute band festival but it was great to find an alternative festival on the right weekend, which had tickets at a late stage.  As it turned out, it was a really good weekend.

On the day before we left for the festival, Chloe's dad, Steve, rang and offered to swap cars for the weekend.  He had a Multipla which seats 6 comfortably.  I wasn't sure at first as it was likely to use more fuel than my Clio, but the extra room was an attractive proposition so we agreed to swap.  Steve picked me up from work on Friday, when we were leaving and, having taken me home, he took my car and left me with his.  I drove it round to the local shop to get cat food and to make sure I was comfortable before taking any young people up north.

Brian had left with Ben and his friend Ben at lunchtime with the tent and all the other camping equipment.  I left with Beccy, her friend Shannon, and Ben's friends Chloe and Jeni at around 3.45pm.  Brian rang while we were on the way to say that they weren't letting gas bottles onto the campsite.  We decided that he should try to smuggle the gas bottle in, otherwise we wouldn't be able to cook or heat water for washing and washing up.  He managed it and we used it with no problem for the weekend.  The girls and I arrived at around 8.30pm.  We unloaded our stuff and went into the arena to watch 'Four Fighters' and for Brian and I to have a beer and relax.  At 9am I was at work in Gillingham having taken the bus to get there.  At 9pm we were in a field in Wymeswold, drinking beer and standing in front of the stage.

The night was cold but we all slept OK.  On Saturday morning we drove into Loughborough, drove into the university campus to have a quick look, then went into town to get something to eat.  Ben, Ben, Chloe and Jeni visited the Bath Store and picked up 36 rubber ducks, which they brought to them with the cafe.

We found a place to eat called 'The Cafe' next to the Rushes shopping centre.  As there were 8 of us and we couldn't all eat at the same table, we divided into 3 tables.  As the children were taking ages to make their minds up about what they wanted to eat, Brian and I ordered and paid for our food first, then ordered and paid for Beccy and Shannon, then Ben and his friends.  As we had ordered separately, this made it easier for the cafe to deal with it and the lady we assumed was the owner offered Brian and me a portion of cake each free to say thank you for spending so much and making the orders easier to deal with.  The food we had was good and the cake, although difficult to manage as we had eaten so much already.

We shopped for supplies in a supermarket, then returned to the festival site.  In the arena we watched The Splitters, a new band who were really entertaining.  They were very good to watch but were asked to cut their set short to make the stage available for the next act.  Shame, as we were enjoying watching them.  They were followed, after a long gap, by Mercury, a Queen tribute band.   They were very good and kept the audience singing and dancing.  They did a good rendition of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.  I had forgotten about the head-banging bit in the middle and when it happened, Brian and I were knocked from side to side.  Just before this, Beccy and Shannon had been near the front of the crowd and we could only see them every now and then.  Afterwards they were not far in front of us.  I think they had been 'bounced' back by the crowd!

There were many people in fancy dress, we saw scooby-doo, a group dressed as a hot dog with ketchup and mustard, superman, batman, the Blues Brothers and many more.  We came across a group of adults and children dressed as Where's Wally.  We wondered if this was a strategy for making sure they didn't lose the children, they could spot them in the crowd as you find Wally.  However, every time we passed through the part of the arena where we had seen them, they were still there.  You don't have to find many of a group that never moves!

In the evening Brian and I watched Duran Tribute and then Money for Nothing.  Each was OK but neither was a tribute to any group we would have watched originally.  We had managed to cook a meal for all 8 of us and had left Ben and his friends to do the washing up.

When we arrived we were quite worried about the number of toilets available for use on the campsite.  There must have been more than 500 people on the family camping site and there were 8 toilets!  There were more toilets at the arena and it was only a 5 minute walk to get there (which avoided the queue).  We had visions of the toilets being disgusting after a short while.  However, the toilets were cleaned at least three times a day and, due to the open urinals provided for the men, they remained pretty clean throughout the weekend.

On Sunday morning, I walked to the arena toilets as the queue at the campsite was too long.  On the way back I saw two men trying to smuggle a gas cooker onto the campsite (we had already smuggled ours in simply by carrying it to the tent in a bag).  They had one man in the car park and one in the site and between them there were two fences each around six feet high and both about 10 feet apart.  The man in the car park threw the cooker over the fence.  Unfortunately, it didn't make it over the second fence and crashed to the ground, smashing into pieces.  At the same time, it attracted the attention of the security guards who gave them a good grilling but probably didn't take any action as the cooker was beyond repair anyway!

From lunchtime onwards we watched bands.   We watched Green Date then went back to the tent to have some very quick lunch before going back to the arena to see Cold Place, then Blings of Leon and One Step Behind.  After this band, they announced the winners of the fancy dress competition and we realised why so many people had been dressed up (we thought they were just doing it for fun - there were a large number of men dressed in women's clothes).  The competition was won by Jesus (who had a real crown of thorns worn all weekend) followed by the 118 team and the Rainbow Builders.  While we had been watching Cold Place, I had turned round to find Dangermouse standing behind me.

Later in the evening we watched the Stereotonics and ex-Simple Minds.  The first band were really good.  We didn't know any of the Simple Minds tracks but the crowd invented a dance involving clapping up and right, then left, then down left and right.  It started with a small group of people in the middle of the crowd, then it was picked up by the people behind them, then by the people to either side, until at least 70% of the crowd was doing this dance.  There had been a number of mass congas earlier in the day and many people who got their picture taken with dressed up people.  There was a real feeling of  camaraderie among the crowd, that I'm sure you get at many festivals.

On Monday, we drove home.  Brian took Ben and Jeni, along with much of the camping stuff, earlier in the morning as Ben had a tennis match and Jeni needed to get back for her sister's birthday.  The rest of us took the tent and travelled home later in the morning.  It was a really good weekend.  The children were able to fluctuate between arena and campsite as they wanted to and Brian and I could do the same. We spent a lot of time just the two of us and even had a little time to ourselves in the tent!

Once we got home, we swapped the cars back and spent Tuesday recovering and washing.

On Wednesday, we took Alexander to Colchester Zoo.  We had a lovely day, the sun was shining, Alexander wanted to walk everywhere and we covered the whole zoo.  He is not old enough to be able to recognise or get excited by animals for the sake of it, but he managed to find things to move around and to shout at.  We took him to the play area and he played in the ball pit and with the soft equipment.