Back From Our Holiday!

First thing I have to say is wow to the weather!

Welcome to our tent!

It's been blue skies and sunshine all week long!  I was actually glad to see clouds on getting back home last night.

So... camping!

It's not a stress free holiday by any means, but I don't think any holiday would be stress free with a 15 month old!  The days of lie ins have long gone and have been replaced by chirping at 6am with crying if not allowed out of the tent first thing to play outside!

Joel is very much an outside baby who wants to be outside as often as possible.  He would go to bed at 9.00pm at the earliest and be up again at 6.00am.  He could see us from his travel cot and shout us awake like an alarm!  But once he'd gone to sleep he did sleep through...

Blotto

When we got there it was a bit stressful trying to set the tent up, keep Izzy under control and make sure Joel didn't disappear or get in the way and hit by poles and such, but we'd soon got it all up and sorted, and Steve took Joel whilst I sorted the inside and set up the kitchen and beds.

We'd decided as camping wasn't expensive, we'd not bother with cooking and would eat out as much as we liked, so we found a little town nearby called Llanwit Major and got a Chinese for our first night.  Joel had chicken fried rice and loved it!  It was nice to not have to cook.

The next day Steve's parents joined us for a couple of days and brought their caravan, so they cooked for us, with barbeques each night which was nice.  It also meant that Steve and I got a chance to have an evening together where we visited some beautiful coast line at sunset.

We had a lovely day on the Monday at Ogmore Beach.

 It was £4 to park all day and it was a glorious expanse of sand once the tide was out.  Joel absolutely loved it. I was actually worried he'd crawl into the sea and keep going!  He toddled in all by himself and would have gone in up to his neck had we not got him back!!  He learnt how to make sandcastles and how to knock them down!  He enjoyed an ice-cream but not the mini milk we bought him, he wanted Granny's Magnum instead!

On Tuesday we went out to Margam Country Park which was free to enter, but £3.90 to park all day.  We had a lovely picnic in the shade when we got there and wandered around the huge expanse of land!  We took a train ride up to the stately home and walked back down again via a farm trail.  Joel cried at the chickens (??!!) and the goat (a bit more understandable as it had huge horns) but he liked the turkey!!

Then we had a little rest and by the time we found the Orangery and Nursery Rhyme land Joel had crashed out asleep.  Steve attempted to rouse him, but he was having none of it, and slept all the way back to the site!

 On Wednesday Granny and Grandpa headed off early, and in the afternoon after lunch at an Italian restaurant, we went into Cowbridge for a look around a different town.  I hadn't packed a pair of shorts for every day of the week for Joel but it was too hot for him to wear jeans or long trousers so I found a little 2nd hand babywear shop and got him two pairs of shorts as everything he wore, every day got grubby.  they saw us through till the end of the week!

On Thursday we headed back to Ogmore.  Firstly, we went to the castle which was a free place, and a lovely ruin which looked great against the river and blue skies.  Joel had fallen asleep again after waking up early once more, but woke up by the time we were leaving and had a little play there.  

We had a spot of lunch at a pub opposite called 'The Pelican in Her Piety' which was a bit of a mouthful!  We shared a tapas plate and got Joel a little lasagne which he didn't really want, he just ate some our of ciabatta bread so Steve polished that off too.  I cooked him some pasta once back at site which he ate up so I guess as long as he has his milk and cereal for breakfast and a good meal with snacks in between I'm not too worried.

Later that evening we had a nice surprise as we met my cousin who was staying on the same site for a couple of days!  So we got Joel and Lucy together to play.  It was something of a very random coincidence!!

On Friday we got the tent emptied, Steve loaded the car and we dried the tent out in the sunshine.  We set off about 11 and stopped for lunch in Monmouth.  We found a fab little pub called the Raglan Arms and had a lovely 'end of holiday' meal in the sunshine outside.  Joel had some mash, an egg and baked beans and although he ate the egg, he snubbed the delicious mash and only nibbled at the beans when normally they're a staple go to!  He did again eat some homemade bread with butter though and shared some fruit and cream from my pavola for pudding.

We got back home for dinner time on Friday and I managed to get to Asda for a quick shop, then three loads of washing through before settling down to watch the Olypmics opening ceremony, and Joel, having slept most of the way home with the car sending him off was up till about 10pm!!

And that brings us to today!  And the sun has dried all my washing which is most helpful, as Joel and I are leaving Steve behind on Monday to join my family in North Wales where the forecast is not so nice, but I don't really mind as constant sun cream and worrying about hats is a pain!!  All in all though, camping was not so bad, just tiring but I'll get my lie ins this week knowing my parents will take Joel of a morning!  Yay!