It rained. A lot.

As such, we have a new plan. A plan that involves a caravan (ooo, that rhymes).

A plan that involves hard-standings, less puddles, less mud, central heating and extra indoor space for the kids to sit that isn’t right next to us.

A plan that lets us go away when it’s sunny and dry but really cold at night. A plan that doesn’t involve 2 hours set up before we can relax.

First step: sell the current car and folding camper.

A very interesting presentation on the realities of business in the social media age. I wonder how accurate the statistics quoted are…

Via TheNextWeb.com

As you may have guessed by the tumbleweed blowing across this blog lately, we’ve been away – camping at a small campsite called Cei Bach Country Club, which is not far from New Quay on the West coast of Wales.

Previous camping trips have seen us being incredibly lucky with the weather – even the year of the floods, we managed to pick a week that gave us bright sunshine most days, with only a few showers and one truly wet day. This time, however, our luck deserted us and it was pretty much a wash out (photos for this review were taken on the only sunny day of the week).

However, I shall try very hard to not let my annoyance at the weather colour my thoughts on the site and surrounding area – after all, it’s hardly their fault that the clouds didn’t co-operate!

And Cei Bach is a very nicely run site. It’s greatest strength is its size (or rather lack thereof) and despite the rather intimidating list of rules given to you on arrival, the staff came across as overwhelmingly friendly, warm and helpful. While the site itself is small, the pitch sizes are generous – certainly the largest we’ve come across outside The Camping and Caravanning Club sites.

The wash-block facilities were average, but (most importantly) cleaned regularly. One of the big draws for us was the onsite pub, however it did have its drawbacks. Special entertainment events can be fun for families with older children, but I would recommend a pitch further away from it if you like an early night’s sleep. There were only a couple during our week’s stay though, so not too much of an inconvenience.

Home-cooked food is available at a reasonable price, but we did find that their descriptions of the dishes sounded rather grand on paper but a little uninspiring in reality! However, again the staff were cheerful and welcoming, which makes all the difference.

The one thing the kids had been really looking forward to with this camping trip was access to the sea.

The site plan available implied that the site was right next to the beach, but in reality the beach is much lower and only accessible by an off-site path that winds down to sea level. This only took about five minutes at a relaxed pace, but not quite as immediate as we’d hoped, and too far to be lulled to sleep by the lovely sounds of the ocean at night.

On the plus side, the beach was clean and didn’t seem to be too heavily populated (although the poor weather could well have been a factor in the latter).

Overall, Cei-Bach Country Club is a pleasant campsite on a very picturesque part of the Welsh coast. I just wish we could have visited it in more favourable meteorological circumstances!

When I was a kid, my dad was often unemployed so a budget family day out whatever the weather was to make up a packed lunch, jump in the car and go and explore all the tiny lanes in the area, generally as impassable as possible. Bonus points for an “unsuitable for motor vehicles” route.

In retrospect, this wasn’t the most environmentally friendly of activities but it was cheap, practical in the most typical of British summers and had a certain spirit of adventure going off the beaten track. It is probably telling that my father used to rally drive in his youth.

It occurred to me, while going down an ever narrowing track (which according to Tom Tom was the fastest route – the map manufacturer probably didn’t factor in the cow crossing) that these days we recapture that simple childhood joy with our sat nav devices.

While on holiday on the west coast of Wales, I don’t think we’ve been taken the same route twice and the sat nav has been taking perverse delight in sending us the most insane way possible. Our best so far has been a side-trip through a “ford” which after 3 days of solid rain more resembled a fast flowing river. The Almera coped, fortunately.

Still, it’s lots of fun and we’re finding some really pretty little places we’d never have known about if we were navigating sensibly with a proper map. We do need a “be f-ing serious, Tom Tom” button for when we’re towing, though!

Today we have:

• gone to the supermarket and bought magazines for us all (Toxic and a Star Wars magazine for the boys, New Scientist for me) and then they spent some of their pocket money on an Indiana Jones toy that was in the sale.
• made a list of all the activities we’d like to do or try in the holidays (okay, most of it is wishful thinking, but if you can’t make grand plans on the first day of the holidays, when can you?).
• practised basic handwriting skills for five minutes (Akra Jr is keen to earn his pen license next school year, but his letter formation is terrible for an 8 year old, so we’ve bought some handwriting exercise books and Li’l Bhaji is joining in too).
• watched Akra Jr learn about home keys on Dance Mat Typing.
• spent time outside with Li’l Bhaji attempting to teach him to ride his bike without stabilisers.
• only had to listen to one major squabble which I refused to referee.

I get a medal for all that, right? RIGHT?

Kid safe. So safe, they demanded I replay it. Lots.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a selection of NÖM Naturally yoghurts for review. (For the record, I always like to be sent free stuff – especially if that free stuff is edible!)

Unfortunately, the week they arrived I was still recovering from a nasty cold with an evil sore throat and completely deactivated taste-buds, so in the interests of a fair taste testing this blog post has been delayed somewhat. My apologies.

If you’re anything like me (a completely brand-oblivious person who spends most of their time in the supermarket in a zombie-like state) you’ll be wondering who NÖM are. Apparently, they are an Austrian dairy who have a UK dairy based in Shropshire. They are committed to using natural ingredients in all their products and have recently launched two new product ranges to the UK market: ‘Naturally Creamy’ – a split pot yoghurt similar to Müller’s Corner, and ‘Naturally Good’ – multipack yoghurts in smooth and layered varieties.

The first thing I noticed was how sophisticated the flavours seemed to be. In the ‘Naturally Creamy’ selection I was sent Senga Strawberry, Alphonso Mango & Passionfruit, Morello Cherry, Granola and Granola with Belgian Choc Chip. I assumed I would love the Morello Cherry and I wasn’t disappointed – a lovely rich yet natural cherry topping. The Mango & Passionfruit was equally delicious – both tart and sweet at the same time.

The Granola was surprisingly extremely good – I didn’t expect to like it at all, but it was rather nice (even without the additional Belgian chocolate – that made it even nicer!) – a bit like eating a crumbled up cereal bar with yoghurt. I could happily substitute my morning bowl of cereal with one of these.

My least favourite was the Senga Strawberry. To be fair, I am not a huge fan of strawberry-flavoured food items, I find them a bit too sweet and cloying. This variety wasn’t as sweet as some strawberry yoghurts but still felt a bit like eating a spoonful of jam with my yoghurt to me. I’m sure that this reflects my personal tastes rather than on the quality of the product, though.

I was also sent the two varieties of the ‘Naturally Good’ layered yoghurts: Morello Cherry and Senga Strawberry. These appeared to be the same flavours as the ‘Naturally Creamy’ split pots, only with a slightly thinner yoghurt and the fruit flavour at the bottom. I don’t usually buy layered yoghurts – mainly because the kids actively dislike them and I never saw the point in having all the flavour at the bottom. I usually end up just mixing it all up, by which point I may as well have bought a smooth-style yoghurt!

Ultimately though, these are a high-quality range with an appealing variety of flavours. I would definitely buy from the ‘Naturally Creamy’ range again in preference to their rivals, Müller Corners. Apparently they are available from Morrisons, but hopefully more supermarkets will follow suit soon.

On top of still feeling wiped out from the recent cold-from-hell, I have been living in a war zone for the last week.

For some reason, sibling bickering between Akra Jr (eldest son) and Li’l Bhaji (youngest son) has escalated to epic proportions of late (presumably fuelled by end-of-term-itis). Akra Jr’s speciality is quietly spoken nastiness and vindictiveness designed to get a rise. Li’l Bhaji’s speciality is a particularly high pitched whine and then suddenly lashing out. They both excel at tale-telling.

It’s becoming rapidly obvious that me intervening in any way only escalates the problem, even if I’m concerned that someone is about to become hurt. Separating them just allows resentment to brew to explosive levels and making any sort of judgement of who is right and who is wrong is a complete mug’s game.

We only have a few days left until the end of term, and then they get the glorious experience of togetherness for six weeks – the voice in my head is already chanting “DOOOOOOOMED” at me.

Would it be really terrible parenting to set up a boxing ring in the garden, let them get it out of their system regardless of injuries and then declare the rest of the house a fight free zone?!!

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It’s been a funny ol’ week.

A mixture of crappy weather, a variant form of man-flu that had jumped the gender divide, a spontaneously bursting knee vein and running out of witty replies for concerned bruise viewers had left me without much oomph or inclination to do anything much. The week has mostly passed me by in a flurry of “not a lot” and “sort of staring out the window while intending to do something in a minute or two” – any commentary has been strictly of the 140 characters or less variety and I completely messed up my Project 365 by not actually taking any photographs for two days.

Still, it seems to be turning around. Last night, I took and passed my first two martial art grades and this morning the cold seems to have subsided a bit. We’re even due some sunshine tomorrow, remember that?!

Now all I have to do is catch up with all the chores I didn’t do at the beginning of the week. Then again… maybe I’ll stay lazy for a bit longer…