A weekend away for a family celebration.

This afternoon we got back from a weekend away in the Peak District, organised by my sister-in-law, P as a surprise for my brother's 40th birthday.  As well as us, my brother, S, & P and of course Megan, the girls' first cousin (along with my other brother's fish, the only one left as it ate all of the others!) there were various friends of S & P, families, couples and a single.  There were 17 of us in the bunkhouse, 11 adults and 6 children from a tiny 5 month old (very tiny - she was 9 weeks prem), to a nearly 11 year old.

We stayed in a bunkhouse (converted barns, self catering with some rooms for the families and bigger ones for the rest) on a farm near Hathersage.  We arrived on Friday evening and the children didn't take long to get friendly and disappeared off to play in a field. 

There was a guitar and singing for those so inclined in the evening, which was great.  It's something that I grew up with, as my Dad's side of the family is very musical and particularly if we had one of my uncle's visiting the guitar would come out for a singsong, mostly the Irish folks songs that their Dad used to sing.  Although I play the guitar (self taught strummy chords), I'm not very good and it's much more fun to do in a group and I certainly don't have the repertoire that we sang here, so it's something that I do miss.

While we were 'poisoning ourselves' (as K & M would and indeed did put it), also known as having a drink and singing, the children played together outside and inside, the younger ones went to bed about 10 o'clock, but K & M and R, the nearly 11 year old, finally fell asleep (all in our room up a ladder in a space with two mattresses between the three of them) at well gone 1 o'clock in the morning!

Despite the ridiculously late night, we all got up and went for a walk on Saturday morning, fortunately not as blazing hot as it had been, across stepping stones and through some spectacular countryside. 

Having been informed that there was a stepping stone river crossing, I had suggested that the girls wear their crocs, which meant that they didn't use the stepping stones, but very much enjoyed paddling across.  They weren't the only ones to end up with wet feet though as two other children ended up in the water and one adult did too.



Crossing the River Derwent.

Cousin Megan, by K.

A different sort of water crossing.

It was a fairly leisurely walk, so we got to chat to various people.  I had a lovely talk in particular to J, who 'took her hat off to me' for HEing.  Conversation revealed that her idea of home education came from her mother home education two of her siblings for a few years, in the 50s in Africa using resources provided by the UK government, which was very interesting. 

 

The view across the valley to the farm we were staying on.

Having read recently a link that a friend posted on Facebook, about many families having very few photos of the mothers, I am trying to make an effort to rectify this, as it's very definitely true in our case.


Me giving M a piggy back, taken by K.

The walk ended in Hathersage at a tea shop where we had lunch before walking back up to the farm by about 3 o'clock.  There had been talk earlier in the day of possibly going to the Lido in Hathersage, but given the tiredness of children and the cooler weather we didn't end up doing that.  The disappointment wasn't too great and the rather large ice-creams we bought when we got back to the farm certainly helped.  More playing the field followed, including British Bulldog, introduced by one of the dads and subsequently anybody the children could persuade to play with them.  There was one major ruckus between two of the children (one of them mine), but after some mediation it was settled and given how late they'd been to sleep the night before it would have been more surprising if there hadn't been one quite frankly!  On Saturday evening we had a barbeque, along with more 'poison' and singing, with the much earlier bedtime of about 10.30pm for the older children.

Sunday meant clearing up and out of the bunkhouse and some people headed off home, while the rest of us went for a very nice Sunday lunch at a pub on the edge of Hathersage, joined by another family who hadn't been able to come for the weekend.  The food was very good but the rather slow service meant that it was about 3 o'clock by the time we left, so it was time to come home from a lovely, but quite tiring weekend.  I fell asleep in the car on the way home, as is normal for any longish journey, but so did M, which is very unusual indeed these days, so hopefully she'll have caught up at least a bit on her sleep.