...weekends are great!

good morning coffee cup! i love you!

we're home after a weekend away camping. i'm back at work this week for one week before being off for another 5! and by a strange quirk of fate today is my day off!

we've not been far this weekend. a little jaunt down to barnard castle - just half an hour down the road. we were off with the millers and it looked like lyn had to head back for work saturday afternoon, so we stayed local, but then she didn't. but nothing lost - we don't like going too far - just being away and chilling in the camper is the order of the day and it doesn't really matter too much where you are.

the site we stayed on (thorpe farm) was a bit weird. the setting was lovely with rolling hills all around and a very open roomy site. but.... it was lots of things that i don't like about camp sites. there were lots of large groups and we'd clearly missed the sign that said if you were staying on this site each family had to bring 8 children under the age of 10 with them! they were like ants swarming everywhere and allowed to swarm until way beyond the 'quiet campsite' time. i'd also missed the sign that said i needed to shave my head, be heavily tattooed with decidedly dodgy tattoos, that i showed off by wearing a vest top. then walk around the site in a menacing way with that 'head-bob' type of walk that says 'a'm geet hard me like'. all of these types then gathered in a wood hut on the saturday night to drink an make loads of noise.... turns out they were all from the camping and caravan club! turns out they were in there until well gone 11.30, turns out they were in there with the owners of the site, turns out the minimal noise after 10 didn't apply to everyone! ....don't think i'll be joining them! (note: i'm sure there are nice people in the camping and caravan club as well - they just weren't on this site!) we left the millers on the sunday lunch time to head home and advised them to go into the caravan, lock the door, and stay there until they were heading home monday morning, for their own safety .....you know the other thing was interesting was that, unlike most of the other sites we've stayed on, when you walked passed people they actively tried to not make eye contact with you.... this is very unusuall when you're on a camp site where people hallooo each other at the drop of a hat.

all of that said - we had a lovely weekend with the millers. once you're set up you can pretty much develop your own little microcosm where you can play, barbecue, and generally chill and chat. we had a lovely walk to the morritt arms for a couple of afternoon pints followed by coffee and cake at the thorpe farm coffee shop. the boys played 'keepie-ups', the babies toddled around, and i managed the barbecue with a great intensity.

we got home sunday afternoon and i turned myself back around and headed out to get karl so that two wiseguys could play at the ashington football club music festival. despite me forgetting some of karl's gear and karl forgetting some of karl's gear and both of us looking tired we discharged our musical duties well and then had a couple of bottles of beer and a burger and chips while listening to a bluesy/country/folky band and then headed home happy. so... we managed to play a gig and both be home before 9. this is the future of gigging!