Last weekend, my family held a party. Not just any little party: 400 people descended on my parents’ home in the South Hams, with about 200 of them camping. It was spectacularly fun, but as you can probably imagine it took just a little bit of organising. There were ten of us in the organising committee – my parents, me and Leigh, my three brothers and their partners. Emails have been flying between us for months to make sure everything was in place, but still as the weekend approached there was lots that had to be done on the ground.

We moved over there a few days before to help set up – in the house for a couple of days then migrating to our bell tent as other guests arrived. I had a few moments of rising panic as I realised I was never going to manage to keep up with the blog as well as everything else – internet access was sporadic, and there just wasn’t any spare time! And then I paused, took a breath, and reminded myself that this is my blog, and I’m writing on my terms. The world wouldn’t fall apart if I didn’t post for a while, and people wouldn’t hold it against me if I missed a few linkies.

So for a while I focused on just living life instead of documenting it (I only just managed to remember to take a few photos…) But now that things are getting back to normal I thought you might like to know what we’ve been up to!

We had a bit of a mission making sure the camping area was all set up and ready for people to arrive, and were glad for the sunshine as we traipsed up the hills and through the woodland, Arthur in the sling or running free.

We set up our little camp down by the estuary, and Arthur got very excited about the new house we were building.

He had so much fun playing in the open air – the weather was perfect, and a sense of magic began to pervade the air.

We set up a kids activity tent (our priorities for camping parties are a little different than they used to be…) where everyone got throughly covered in glitter.

 

By Saturday evening, we were well and truly ready to party. The tutus came out, the wings went on, and anticipation was building.

Arthur seemed to love his costume, and was in his element with so many other people to play with!

He was most excited when the music started though. In fact I think everyone was – my brother had managed to get the awesome Rubblebucket to come and party with us. Their set was amazing, and it was more than a little bit surreal watching the scene unfold in my parents’ courtyard.

The festivities continued well into the night, and the next day we had Arthur’s naming ceremony, a delicious spread of Sri Lankan curry, and lots more chatting and playing and catching up.

Come Sunday evening, those of us who remained were exhausted but happy, and we had a lovely few hours chilling down by the tents.

Arthur was truly in his element with so many people to talk to and play with, and it was truly lovely for us to have some quality time to hang out with friends we don’t get to see so often any more.

I think after six months of increasingly intense blogging with all its associated social media exploits I really needed a bit of a break where my only communication device was a walkie talkie. I have a feeling there might be a few more spells like that this summer too – after all, if real life wants to get in the way of the internet for a while I’d be churlish to stop it.