Reading this thread makes me feel better. Realise that whist my kids are on the wbole well behaved, they are not the only ones that have those moments where you could cheerfully throttle them,
If we are on a big site my 7 yo goes skip surfing - looking in the bins for discarded windbreaks and flysheets to build dens out of on site. Last year he came back with a complete windbreak - on questioning him we discovered it hadn't come from a bin but had been left rolled up next to someone's tent
He returned it before they came back luckily.
My daughter keeps forgetting her shoes. She leaves them outside someone's tent when she goes in to play, comes home barefoot and forgets which tent she left them in. We've actually lost 2 pairs of shoes completley like this.
Last camping trip the 7yo burnt the tops of his fingers on one hand. We had put the fire out a couple of hours before but he picked up one of the bricks that were around it. One nice set of blistered fingertips later and he won't be doing that again.
------------- 2011
37 nights in my tent
2012 booked
Swiss farm, henley (2)
La garangeoire (7)
Houlgate la vallee (2)
Dernwood farm (2)
Mellow farm (2)
Hole station (4 child free!)
Camping guyonierre (17 woohoo!)
When Andy was about 9, we were at a fair while on holiday in Wales.He came up to us triumphantly waving a water-filled plastic bag with a goldfish in it, he had won it by throwing ping-pong balls into jam jars!We made him take it back. The stall-holder gave him a soft toy instead but he was less than impressed. He saw no problem with keeping a fish in a bag in a wooden chalet (not camping exactly, I know, I know) or with holding it on his knee for a 5 hr car journey home! Needless to say he ended up with a goldfish tank in his room when we got home!
Had our first trip this week end with 22 month old granddaughter. She slept like a log but she too had a thing about being naked and took her clothes off. She loved all the textures of the tent and rolling about best fun to her was when we were trying to put it up and later on when we took it down. She couldn't quite understand why we needed to get her to stop rolling on it.
I was worried about her making a lot of noise but she didn't so obviuosly a natural camper.
------------- Lyn xxx
Harbury Fields March
Moreton in the Marsh March/April
Hawthorn Cottage April
Lamb Cottage April
Somers Wood May
Maxstoke Hall June
Houghton Mill June
Lamb Cottage August
Somers Wood September
The Meadows, October
wasnt the kids but i once hired a caravan off a friend of a friend, i got driven there with 2 children my son and neice then left to my own devices. key worked in the door but it was stiff and i had to push really hard to open door. entered alarm code given, but ten minutes later a security guard came saying alarm was going off, he couldnt switch it off so he put a sock over the sensor. unpacked and went out for evening.next day took kids swimming but lifeguard told me i had to be accompanied by an adult. i was 22!!. went back for lunch and nap. a lady knocked on the door and was rather irrate.she was a cleaner for the owner and she never hired her van out. id got the wrong van and broken in and slept there. after finding right van and moving stuff halfway across park i was bushed so went to supermarket for a bottle of wine and something nice for supper. they wouldnt serve me and i had no id. what a week.!!
Camping in France about 5 years ago we were sitting outside the bar playing chess with my daughter and my son, then aged 5, was playing in the play area with a little boy in full view of us. After about 10 mins looked up and my son had disappeared so we asked the little boy if he knew where he'd gone but he didn't know, took me about 15 seconds to start panicking, we were running round shouting him and soon virtually the whole campsite were on bikes and running round searching for him, especially worried as there was a largish pond on the campsite. When he finally turned up about half an hour later, which seemed like hours, he explained that another boy had asked him if he wanted to watch a dvd in his caravan, my son couldn't resist that offer so off he went without telling anyone, even though he'd been told never to do this. Apparently the volume of the TV was so loud no-one in the caravan had heard all the shouting! Could have strangled him!