The ramblings of Keane Ingram

We've been back from holiday for a long while now, but life has been pretty busy in the meantime so I'm only getting around to writing it up now.

We'd been hoping for a week of playing on the beach at Brean, but the wet weather put paid to that and there was a definite wet and muddy theme to the week - hopefully not a precursor to Glastonbury!

The week started off badly when the car overheated on the M5 just outside Bristol - the traffic was abysmal and the stop/starts coupled with towing the caravan meant we were stranded several times - I would get around a minute of drive before the engine would cut out. I eventually nursed it into Clevedon and found a shop selling water - many, many thanks must go to the two random people walking past who helped and advised us of a Tesco around the corner where we could get free water! There were no leaks or steam anywhere, and the only suspect we have is an airlock, caused by a previous issue with the cooling system, as since topping it up there have been no further issues.

We finally got to the campsite, which was Warren Farm. Our pitch was quite waterlogged, which meant we had to put several layers down in the awning to try and stay dry, and even that didn't help in certain patches. However, apart from that, Warren Farm was a great campsite, and one we will definitely return to - there was lots for the kids to do, even with the bad weather, and we always received good service from the staff there.

The kids loved the Pirates Cove, which is the family venue - the two ladies running it were always enthusiastic and fun and were definitely a highlight of the weekend for the kids, especially Nicky and Kitty who won several prizes in the various competitions (including Nicky coming second in a competition for being noisy!) There was lots of dancing where Nicky was in his element, and Rory was happy rampaging around the dance floor (when he wasn't trying to climb up on the stage, that is!)

One of the main reasons for coming to Brean was to see the home of Sooty at Fun City, and thankfully we had a good dry day for that. The rides were good value, and there is a daily free Sooty show (but not with Richard). My highlight was taking Nicky in a twin-seater kart - he was very excited and insisted we try to overtake everyone, not always easy when the single-seaters were quicker but on our first go we 'won' and on the second go were hampered by some people crashing in front of us.

We visited Glastonbury again, after visiting family in the area, and Nicky was excited about seeing the Abbey again (he's very cultured for a 5 year old!) Rory was more excited about the ducks (or duck-ducks).

Longleat was next up, and it was very enjoyable despite the weather. Rory found a new favourite animal (penguins), Nicky, Kitty and I made it to the centre of the maze in 15 minutes (with Nicky leading) and we saw lots of monkeys attempting to destroy lots of cars (much to the amusement of the bus driver who took photos of them on his camera!)

We didn't have any plans for the final day but Nicky ended up winning a free ticket to Wookey Hole, so we went there on the last day. We thought that the kids may be a little scared in the caves but it didn't bother them at all, and they enjoyed playing in the soft play areas and seeing the dinosaurs. Rory especially loved the mirror maze, which took him a long time to negotiate as he would approach his reflection and kiss it in every single mirror!

Overall it was a nice week, although very tiring! Back to work for a few weeks now before packing up again and heading to Glastonbury...

Here is a link to some photos of our holiday.