The McKenzie’s Blog…

Sleep was very welcome last night. Yesterday was a long day with packing and setting up again. The only complaint about this site is the road noise from a dual carriage way that’s about 300 or so meters away. But it was tolerable, just disrupts the idea of camping.

It was a bit of an early day again today, Lisa woke us by filling her sleeping bag again, rather then getting up to use the bucket we’d put out for just such cases. Oh well, hung everything out to dry on a line for the day.

Today we spent the day in Southwold. parked up at on end of the town and only paid £3.80 for all day parking, brilliant for a tourist trap really. First stop in town was the Pier. This was not like most piers in the UK… It had an arcade but was small and clean, but the pier lacked the usual tat and flashing lights and head pounding noises. It was very clean and tidy with shops selling decent looking products.

After that we headed into town and walked about 2 miles around the streets and looking in shops. We needed to get the girls some swimsuits or shorts so they could play in the surf. Once the new shorts were acquired it was time for food. This proved to be the most difficult task of the day… First it was 1425hrs when we started the quest for food. The first pub stopped serving at 1400, the next place stopped at 1430 (missed it by that much (insert any number of corresponding scene from “Get Smart”)), finally found a place. The timing was perfect, I was preparing to beat several sea gulls to death for a meal.

Fed and watered it was time to get wet. We headed down to the beach. Its a very long and fairly well maintained and clean. It was very windy down on the beach and as a result we all ended up getting several layers of skin sand blasted off haha and people pay big money for that sort of treatment, fools. We spent just over an hour at the water I suppose. The girls had a great time and got well soaked and cold… Warm water my ass but they had fun blue lips and sand in places it shouldn’t be haha

Time to head back to camp, but first a stop at a Tesco first for a few more supplies. Dinner was bbq pork chops, boiled carrots and potatoes and a tossed salad.

Right now as I type this Yuki is in giving the girls a showered to get the sea, sand and stink off them

Next will be a short sit around the neighbours camp fire with them and roast some marshmallows and make some chocolate banana’s in the fire… Then bed time again. We were going to see about staying Friday night too but decided to pack it in tomorrow… The weather is suppose to turn tomorrow night and no point temping fate We’ve had a good run this week, no point pushing our luck.

Its been a great week away. We’ve had some great times and some not so great but all in all it was positive. Being home in my own bed tomorrow night will be very nice indeed. Cleaning all the camping gear wont be much fun but it needs to be done I guess. The gear will be packed away for another year (or in the recent case, two years as we didn’t get out at all last year).

The girls are all in bed now and I’m just finishing off this posting and having a cup of hazelnut hot chocolate, yummy. Then check some emails and off to bed myself. Time sure does fly these past few days… 10pm comes ever so quickly. Normally I’m struggling to stay awake at home this time of night, but not out here… All the fresh air is going to be sadly misses when we get back home…

Right, enough of this babbling, time to close the post, finish my hot chocolate, count some stars and then to bed.

Night all!!!

Oh yeah, once we are back I will be uploading heaps of photos… Got about 400 or 500 to sift though and see what’s useful and get them uploaded.

Posted by Wordmobi

Day four started out very very very early when one of the sproggs sprung a leaked and attempted to float out on the air mattress. Wasn’t nice to deal with at 4am.

Then it was up about 8am or so to get cleaned up, fed and packed up. Breakfast was some left over sausages and a hamburger and some scrambled eggs that were collected by the owners the day before, YUMMY!! By 1115 we’d cleared the camp site and were on the way back to Diss for the laundrette, thankfully it was open.

We arrived at the new site, the Orchard (IP13 0SJ). I assume at one time it was, there are still a couple apple trees around, not eating apples though. While Yuki and I got busy setting up camp the kids went off to play, they quickly acquired their new victims … Err found a couple of kids to befriend that are both sisters and only 6 months difference from our girls. Turns out they just down from north of Peterborough and arrived an hour or so ahead of us, very nice couple they are.

We didn’t feel much like cooking tonight so headed into a town called Woodbridge. We found a very nice pub called The Seal. The bar keep turns out to have schooled at Queen’s Uni in Kingston so had a bit of a chat about that.

Back to the camp site… We finished setting up the tent and all. Then it was over to visit with the folks we’d met earlier. The girls had gone go to theirs and were “helping” with the fire and roasting of marshmallows. stood around for about 90 mins chatting then it was time for the “glow stick shower”. Every Wed and Sat nights after dark they assemble all the kids/teens near the shop and after a very loud count down from 10 they hurled about 100 of the thin flexible glow sticks into the air from a couple different directions. All that can be said about what happened next is… WOW… The kids had a blast collecting what they could. After that was done they handed out the joiners for the glow sticks.

That brings me to the present… 2230hrs and I’m wiped… Again. Blogging this not from my chair under the stars but from bed. Our neighbours have also just returned, not overly concerned the others could be sleeping but never mind.

Time to post this and sign off for the night… No ideas yet for tomorrow… Likely head to Southwold to the beach or something.

Sorry for taking so long to post this tonight tata from Suffolk!

Posted by Wordmobi

We started out a weeks camping by leaving the house about noon on Sunday. The drive to the camp site, Brickyard Farm Camp site (Banham, Norfolk, NR16 2HQ), was only about an hour or so from home. Even at the reduced speed we had to travel at because of towing the trailer. After a stop at Sainsbury in Thetford for a few last minute supplies and lunch as well, we arrived at the camp site at about 1400hrs, plenty of daylight left so we could take our time getting everything set up.

Lisa and Emma immediately found the horses in the fields to go and see plus a swing set to play on as well. I was a bit worried for a while, there were no other kids around. Then, a family came trooping back into camp. They’d been out to the Banham Zoo. It’s about 1/2 mile down the road. Anyhow, Lisa and Emma quickly became acquainted with Hanna, 7yrs old. They spent the next 3 or so hours playing all sorts of games and running around the farm.

The camp site itself is a small family run business. It’s run the brother of our neighbour, very nice folks. They popped around to check on us and see how we were settling in. Quite layed back, they haven’t asked for money as yet. The site is, as I mentioned, small. Only about 6 or so pitches, most with electric. We didn’t bother with that, I’d brought the 120amp battery with us. More then enough power for the week to run a laptop if needed and charge the phones. I brought a 12v florescent lamp as well but likely won’t need it.

The kids are knackered. They’ve had a busy afternoon that’s for sure. Tomorrow we’ll be walking to the zoo and checking out the animals and whatever else they have there.

Well that’s about it from here tonight I think. the big people are knackered too and ready for bed now as well.

Watch this space for the day 2 report. I won’t be posting pics on the blog, but check on facebook, flickr and mobypictures and of course Twitter.com/m1xzg for updates.

Btw, this is all from my phone, there are likely spelling errors, I will fix them later. Don’t think I have a spell check on here.

Posted by Wordmobi

Camping Trip – Day 1

We started out a weeks camping by leaving the house about noon on Sunday.
The drive to the camp site, Brickyard Farm Camp site (Banham, Norfolk,
NR16 2HQ), was only about an hour or so from home. Even at the reduced
speed we had to travel at because of towing the trailer. After a stop at
Sainsbury in Thetford for a few last minute supplies and lunch as well, we
arrived at the camp site at about 1400hrs, plenty of daylight left so we
could take our time getting everything set up.

Lisa and Emma immediately found the horses in the fields to go and see
plus a swing set to play on as well. I was a bit worried for a while,
there were no other kids around. Then, a family came trooping back into
camp. They’d been out to the Banham Zoo. It’s about 1/2 mile down the
road. Anyhow, Lisa and Emma quickly became acquainted with Hanna, 7yrs
old. They spent the next 3 or so hours playing all sorts of games and
running around the farm.

The camp site itself is a small family run business. It’s run the brother
of our neighbour, very nice folks. They popped around to check on us and
see how we were settling in. Quite layed back, they haven’t asked for
money as yet. The site is, as I mentioned, small. Only about 6 or so
pitches, most with electric. We didn’t bother with that, I’d brought the
120amp battery with us. More then enough power for the week to run a
laptop if needed and charge the phones. I brought a 12v florescent lamp as
well but likely won’t need it.

The kids are knackered. They’ve had a busy afternoon that’s for sure.
Tomorrow we’ll be walking to the zoo and checking out the animals and
whatever else they have there.

Well that’s about it from here tonight I think. the big people are
knackered too and ready for bed now as well.

Watch this space for the day 2 report. I won’t be posting pics on the blog,
but check on facebook, flickr and mobypictures and of course
Twitter.com/m1xzg for updates.

Btw, this is all from my phone, there are likely spelling errors, I will
fix them later. Don’t think I have a spell check on here.

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged about anything meaningful. It’s not for the lack of anything to blog about, just more about my lack of ambition really.

In July I attended WordCampUK 2009 held in Caerdydd, Cymru (Cardiff, Wales). I was going to blog about this, but having read the huge number of postings by others that attended the event (A decent search), I figured there was nothing more that I could write to equal or better what others had already said. I will say that it was an awesome weekend though! Met loads of great people and even participated in the #Wordhack – Mobile Kubrick Theme project.

In July I also got a new phone, the Nokia N97. While it’s a very slick phone, it’s far from being without faults and bugs. To be completely honest, I’ve not been surprised by this, Nokia has made it a business mission it seems to release stunning devices that were only half thought out and loosely hacked up and released, clearly done late on a Friday afternoon after everyone had been out for a pub lunch lunch earlier in the day. For it’s flag ship phone it’s a pretty piss poor showing. Think I’m being too hard on it? See here “N97 Sucks”, “N97 Bugs”, “N97 is crap”. To contrast this however, “N97 is great”. Over all I really really love the device and it’s huge potential, but that is overshadowed by Nokia’s classic lackadaisical approach to building phones of late.

What else is new… I blogged recently about Lisa losing her first tooth… well it looks like another one is fixing to fall out soon. This is also the bottom one next to the one that fell out last month. Hehe poor kid will have a big hole in her smile for a while I think. There’s no sign yet of the new tooth showing up either.

Holiday’s… not really planned much this summer due the appalling weather we’ve been having this year. Typically British is the common phrase you’ll hear people mention. Loads of rain and grey/black skies. I have however booked a week off in August and we’re hoping to get out and do at least a couple days of camping. I’ve found a place in Suffolk that looks nice. Loads of woods to go walking through and they allow camp fire, which is very rare here. That would be nice for the kids to sit by the fire and we’ll take some marshmallows for them to roast over the fire too. We’ve done that before but it was over the BBQ, lets face it, there’s no competition between marshmallows over a BBQ or a camp fire!.

Not really much else to blog about right now. I’ll close off this posting for the time being. I hope to do more frequent blog postings, but then I’ve said that several times in the past and #failed at it

From the looks of the weather we’ve had it should be a good summer for camping … at least I sure hope so anyhow. Need to get the tent dug out and setup in the garden for to check it for any damage and such .. it’s been put away for 2 years since we last used it .. there was no camping last year.

I’ve been looking at some camp sites and one that has stuck out as looking like a fun place to go (for the kids too) …

River Dart Country Park – http://www.riverdart.co.uk/ Check out the pics of the place on the site.

Also found this place http://www.woodovis.com/cmx/content/view/2/4/ seems all right. Will have to check them out more.

It’s still a bit early and not all of the details are available as yet .. but I’m waiting with bated breath for all the details.. I’ve actually already booked my hotel room.. didn’t want that to be the primary reason I couldn’t get there.

I’ve been using WordPress now for what.. nearly 3 years I think.. maybe only 2, can’t remember. But I’m dead impressed with it… I’ve been watching all of the WordCamp events around the world and waiting for one to come up here.. I know they had a 2008 one in the UK, however I missed that completely for some reason..

Check out the WordCamp UK website:

http://wiki.wordcampuk.tonyscott.org.uk/Main_Page

And follow them on Twitter too: http://twitter.com/wordcampuk

I hope to meet loads of people there.. sounds like it should be great fun!

#wordcampuk