This time Maria and Jeremy from work joined me the OH, Helen and Lisa. So of to Exmoor again where we would also meet up with Mum and some of the camping group.
On Thursday evening we went to Tesco to stock up on supplies - we had learnt out lesson this time and more cake and more wine were purchased.
Despite the OH's concerns we loaded up the trolley with enough alcohol to stock a pub - you know you've bought to much when the conveyor belt breaks - oops!!!
We also tried to convince Helen to buy a green lantern children's outfit for a fiver - although she's tiny it did seem a little small....hahaha!!
We had a little play with the blue car and the red car - didn't buy them though as Lisa was annoyed the red car was far superior...
...this is the head of security, Peter....
Who turned out to be very friendly...and a bit of a pain in the arse running around the car and stopping us going in.
We finally passed all the security checks and made it into reception where we found hand drawn maps of all the fields showing the blocked out areas where it was waterlogged. As we wanted to have a fire we were limited to the 4th field, and just the top bit of that - so we all camped in a long line and the Mr Men tents were united for the first time.
Brendon and the camper van got on fine too.
The site was really pretty and lambs baaaa'd and jumped around just by us.
The first night we heated up our homemade curry and some rice and sat around the camp fire chatting - well until the rain came and forced us all inside :-(
The next morning we cooked our obligatory fry up...
....only this time under a watchful eye....
Lisa felt the pressure of being observed and turned to self harm whilst the OH decided to concentrate much harder on buttering those rolls.
After all that pressure the food was finally cooked about three hours later...
...which is why my bread roll was half eaten.
We headed into Minehead at lunch time, had a sword fight, found the local brothel and some huge flowers and then tried in vain to win some Mr Men from the machine.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in the pub, relaxing and then headed back to the site. After having a little nap it was time to make dinner.
Which was ready by the time it got dark - I really need to invest in a new cooker!
Again we sat around the camp fire and tried to avoid the rain. We managed to fit in a few games of the alphabet. First off countries, errr Asia, not a good start. But we made it to U - Ukraine, well actually we were still on E, those wine stores were rapidly depleting.
When the rain came we headed inside to play a bit of Uno. Lisa was convinced I had turned into the devil and was trying to sabotage her game on every turn, so after being heckled for a couple of hours we all headed to bed and listened to the baaaaa's and the 'gentle' pitter patter of rain.
But the next day we woke up to bright blue skys (real ones this time, not Maria seeing the tent through the camper van window) so we went off into Dunster to see the castle.
Me and Mum looking cool in our matching hoodies.
...playing the piano and gong....
and a cheeky game of snooker....
Lisa eventually poured a bath and got changed into the local attire...
They did offer me a bed for the night but I didn't think much of their quilt, after all the effort I put into making the Mr Men one theirs seemed a little unfinished.
and played in the adventure playground....
before going for a scenic walk...
Jeremy thought he had found his own adventure playground in the giant leaves...
After all this playing around and walking up the hills me and the other half had a rest half way across this bridge....
...turns out it was Lovers bridge - urggg!!!! If only we had have walked across from the other side!
By the watermill (or windmill if you're Helen) we stopped off to have some lunch.
And after watching all the children playing we thought it was only right to have a go ourselves.
Me Mum and Helen went for doing the crab...
...well at least trying to ;-)
and then Lisa joined Mum rolling down the hills - much to the horror of the parents who soon left the garden.
Afterwards we had a little look around Dunster...
and tried to figure out what they were selling in the shops...
Lisa guessed it was a cat toy (not sure how the hell she thought that up) After much umming and aaarring we finally found out it was a napkin holder - makes a better cat toy if you ask me ;-)
Afterwards we headed back to the campsite and Gumball had put up a tarp to keep the pesky rain away. However it wasn't big enough so we spent about half an hour debating the best way to extend it....
Finally we could escape the rain...if it came...
So we sat around playing games of guess the hum and chatting general rubbish. Helen went off to bed when she couldn't string a sentence together any longer and the OH continued to drink too much mulled wine. He befriended the gnomes before going on to talk about conspiracy theories and politics with Lisa!
Despite my attempts to get the conversation light hearted again (which colour marshmallow do you prefer, white or pink?) they carried on so it was time for bed for the rest of us.
Woke up in the morning to the OH asking me where he went for a walk last night?!?!?! No idea! Hopefully it wasn't down to the river again - (I recently discovered the socks he soaked that night tucked away in the bathroom - Urggghhhh!!)
Needless to say it didn't rain when we were sitting under the tarp, but when we were all tucked up in bed it hammered it down just to make the tents soaking wet before we packed away.
By some miracle the sun came out and we escaped an early morning drenching - the tent mostly dried out in the end so it's not in the living room this time.
Must be a sign I can go camping next weekend :-)
