Camp Bestival Has New Stuff!!!

As you know (if not why not) I have been blogging (daily) over at Tent Sniffing for Beginners, a countdown to Camp Bestival because I'm a bit excited to be going there this year as an Official Besti-Blogger!! I'm covering different topics each day, stuff like getting kids to sleep, mobile phones, food, security, lots of past festival pictures, a giveaway or two, loads and loads of stuff, do take a peek!

And Camp Bestival are sending me emails to make me even more excited (I hope I don' burst with joy before we get there!)

The latest exciting thing is that there are THREE new arenas! (and the return of an old favourite)

 Ringmaster Rob da Bank says: “*drum roll* Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, the team at Camp Bestival HQ proudly present for your delectation and wonder, a host of beloved and brand new venues! Please welcome to our circus arena the Travelling Barn, The Pigs Big Ballroom, Caravanserai and Project Wild Thing! 

 Our new venues are causing the family and I a huge wardrobe dilemma: we'll want camouflage face paint and explorer gear for the feral activities in the Dingly Dell with Project Wild Thing, cowboy boots and chaps for the all-family toe-tapping hoe downs in the Travelling Barn, dancing shoes and circle skirts to swing along to Greg's Greats in the Pigs Big Ballroom and vaudevillian circus outfits to explore Caravanserai! Can't wait to discover it all with the nippers and a different outfit on every half an hour! See you there.” 

I'm really excited about Wild Time with Project Wild Thing, who will have a village tipi based at the entrance to the Dingly Dell. I've always loved the dell area and getting back to nature is lovely so I'll be looking forward to exploring the listening spots in the woods, trying the creative nature writing sessions, wild story-telling, an un-nature trail, creature mask making, bird spotting (and stepping), shadow drawing, a perfect digital detox for screen addled minds, Camp Bestival are sure Project Wild Thing will help kids and their folks re-connect with the wild and they’ll help you take that habit back home. 

Ticket Info

Ticketline / 0844 888 4410 / www.ticketline.co.uk/camp-bestival

Adult Weekend Ticket (inc. camping) - £195 Adult Tickets are for anyone aged 18 or over on 31/07/2014

Student Weekend Ticket (inc. camping) - £180 Student Tickets are for Students with valid ID

Age 15 to 17 Weekend Ticket (inc. camping) - £113 Age 15 to 17 Weekend Tickets are for anyone aged 15 to 17 on 31/07/2014. These ticket holders must be accompanied by a Ticket holding parent or guardian over the age of 30*

Age 11 to 14 Weekend Ticket (inc. camping) - £88 Age 11 to 14 Weekend Tickets are for anyone aged 11 to 14 on 31/07/2014. These ticket holders must be accompanied by a Ticket holding parent or guardian over the age of 26*

* NB: All teens (aged 11 to 17) MUST camp in the same area as their families with a maximum of 2 teens per adult (over the age of 26)

Age 5 -10 Weekend Ticket (inc. camping) - £20 These ticket holders must be accompanied by a Ticket holding parent or guardian over the age of 21*

Age 4 and Under Weekend Ticket (inc. camping) - FREE (but ticket still required) Age 4 and Under Weekend Tickets are for anyone aged 4 and under on 31/07/2014. These ticket holders must be accompanied by a Ticket holding parent or guardian over the age of 21*

Camping Plus Plot - £125 Advance Car Parking - £11

Campervan Ticket - £72 per vehicle

Caravan/Trailer tent ticket (includes a car parking space) - £83

All Tickets:
- will incur a booking fee.
- are non-transferable and cannot be re-sold

Now wash your hands

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

There is a very real chance that at least 2 people reading this are sitting on the toilet. Yes you! I see you (I don’t, that would be creepy and bit pervy if you ARE on the loo) 

Lots of people take the few brief moments of calm while sitting on the loo to check texts, emails, blogs, twitter, etc Numerous studies have shown this to be unhygienic (as if we needed a study – bloomin’ obvious if you ask me!) but we still do it because in this technological world of ‘labour saving devices’ (haha) we seem more rushed, more busy and more stressed than ever before.

Who knows why? Maybe it’s FOMO (fear of missing out) or maybe it’s lack of real friends in a digital age, or a genuine lack of time, I know that parents seem forced to rush form one activity to another, ferrying children in cars from event to event, monitoring their whereabouts, terrified to let them play out without supervision due to the threat of pedophiles (and I’d love to say ‘oh that didn’t happen in the 70s’ but looking at recent evidence I’d be wrong) or traffic. I saw recently on twitter that mums asked what they would do with 5 minutes to themselves struggled with an answer, so rare was the occurrence!

Anyway, the loo, the toilet, the bog, as a respite area, a calm haven in a busy work day or a hectic home full of small screaming children, unhygienic but needs must.

But wait, danger lurks, even in your calm and peaceful water closet…

From the news this week Fox attacks man on Toilet!

And other stories of toilet horror abound

Things like Rat crawls out of toilet

And Three foot lizard in supermarket toilet

And Squirrel found in toilet

and also Snake bites man's penis as he sits on toilet!!!

So now…still sitting comfortably? 

You may also enjoy this post where animals attack....

And the Winners Are...

For Best Animal Blog - The winner is http://marleyandlola.blogspot.co.uk/

For Weirdest Blog - By a landslide!!  http://www.theskullillusion.com/

For Blog that made me cry most this year - a tie!! two winners  http://motherhoodjourneys.com/ and http://randommusingsofarandomlife.blogspot.co.uk/

For Angry/Rantiest Blog the winner is http://dadandproud.wordpress.com/

For Best Political Parent Blog the winner is http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/

For Craziest Family as demonstrated by antics on Blog the winner is http://iknowineedtostoptalking.blogspot.co.uk/

For Blog with the cutest family the winner is .....  http://mamacrow.blogspot.co.uk/

For the Most positive feel good blog we have another tie! Hooray and the two winners are ... http://www.storyofmum.com/ and http://www.sleepisfortheweak.org.uk/

For Blog with the best life advice the winner is http://www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/

The *£!*$ Award for the Blog with the best use of Profanities the winner is (and it was close!)
http://www.thekrakenwakes.org/

For the Blog that once made me wee laughing the winner is ... http://iknowineedtostoptalking.blogspot.co.uk/ (sadly not sponsored by Tena Lady)

Best non UK based blog award goes to http://www.chickenruby.com/ (and no you greedy whatsit - there is no prize!)

For Blog with no theme but i just love it so there the award goes to http://bad-fiction.com

Best Music blog goes to  http://eddsnotdead.blogspot.co.uk/

The award for For Best New Music Blog goes to  http://hornetmusic.blogspot.co.uk/

The (if we are honest, slightly dodgy) award for Best blog with 'Aftershave' & 'Whiskey' in the title goes to http://whiskeyforaftershave.com/


The award for The 'I survived his shite and came out incredible and fabulous' blog award goes to http://motherhoodjourneys.com/

The award for Bravest Blog goes to http://poundofcheese.blogspot.co.uk/

Sexiest Blogger as voted by my readers is ....... drum roll ....  http://www.bigfashionista.co.uk/

Best Impersonation on a blog is unsurprisingly the talented and handsome  http://fudgecrumpet.wordpress.com/

And the award for  Mid-Life Blog Crisis - for bloggers who change blogs more than once a year goes to ...who else ... http://www.notsupermum.com/

Full details for those that missed all the nominees are here

Magpie Monday and the further adventures of Mr Tattooed Mummy

So, last week I blogged this, as a link up to Magpie Monday. (If you didn't see it - pop over to have a read - the rest of this is only amazing if you know the back story)

And some bright spark told Mr TM 'he needed one for coffee'. Now we don't drink instant coffee, we have the real deal and it lives in the fridge in an airtight container, so I thought no more about this silly idea.....but Mr TM did not forget.

On Thursday we went to Chicester to row on the canal

(which is lovely and well worth a visit) and after an hour of lovely rowing (in a boat, with oars - not arguing!) , watching ducks, herons and water rodents we had a picnic and then strolled into the town. Unable to resist the lureof a charity shop (Chichester has many) we wandered into a few and Mr TM had (unknown to DD and I) his eyes peeled.......

So! after a trip to the Scope shop, and for the grand total of £4 we are now the proud owners of..............drum roll.............. three matching lidded jars!

but that ladies and gentlemen is only the beginning, for this jar was part of a set......

Including an actual sugar bowl

a small shallow unlidded bowl of no clear purpose (currently holding our dishcloth)

and last but not least two matching mugs!

So that's it! he wins again! I may as well give up! and he's forbidden to buy any more of these jars EVEN if he does see another one! Where are they from? who made them? are they local? we don't know! There is no makers mark! any ideas welcomed.

Posted for

With a song in my heart.....

So it's nearly time for Magpie Monday over at the blog of Me and My Shadow again, and it seems I'm always either early or not there at all! So this week I'm here at the party and early too.

And what a party it is! This week's Magpie Monday find was gained completely free via the amazing Freecycle Network. I'm not often lucky enough to get the things that are offered that I really want but this week, well just look

The young among you will think it's a suitcase, in fact the older amongst you may also think that unless you had one of these retro delights.

Once opened all is revealed!

Yes! It is a record player! A tiny and gorgeous portable player of musical discs! And it works perfectly!

Cue hours of sifting through a terrible and embarassing collection of 45s ranging from old Chuck Berry's, original Elvis tunes (are you lonesome?) and onto the 1970s and 1980s with Roxy Music, City Boy,Scritti Politti and even some George Michael!

I have had a very enjoyable musical afternoon, listening to 'proper' music, complete with hum, clicks, scratches and glowing diodes.

I am old, nostalgic and very happy. What a super magpie find. 

Do you still have any records? Want to come round and dance in my bedroom?
 

Written for Magpie Monday 

Ranty Ranty Rant (in which our hero rants)

So NetMums has annoyed me. An article in the news says that they did a survey and mothers admitted to ‘lying’ about how much quality time they spend with their kids, what they cook and feed their children and how much TV they allow kids to watch. Etc etc

The reason for this lying is apparently to keep up with other parents, and the moral is that we can all relax as everyone is lying.

This makes me angry on 2 counts. Number 1 is pretty obvious to anyone that knows me and it’s because I don’t lie, and neither does my hubby, I include him because he’s the stay at home parent in our house, he’s the one that cooks DDs meals from scratch (I recently taught him Bolognese sauce! LOL) and he’s the one that sits with DD to do homework, the one that helps, encourages and listens while she practices her clarinet. I’m the one that drives her to horse riding, bakes muffins with her, takes her to her music lessons ( and yes, I admit it – we have middle class pursuits and you know what? I don’t care!) which leads me on to the second reason it annoys me. (to be fair, it annoys NetMums too and it’s part of what the are saying but not all, because they are happy to assume everyone lies, which as I’ve pointed out, they don’t!)

I’m annoyed because of the reason parents supposedly feel compelled to lie. Once again it’s to feel good about themselves. Parents that lie are lying because they see their parenting as substandard, and they lie to sound closer to the ideal parent. Well here is a newsflash

THERE IS NO PERFECT PARENT

Really, we are all learning and all our kids are different , we, and they, are all individuals. Maybe your kid watches TV from when they get in until bedtime every day, maybe you are a vegetarian and they only eat organic, maybe you breastfed for 6 years or you formula fed from birth, maybe you work and your kid goes to breakfast club, maybe your 11yo has a TV in the bedroom or you have no TV in the house. IT DOESN’T MATTER!! We all love our kids, we all do the best we can for them and for us. As Janet street Porter said today on Radio 4 “There is your way and there is the wrong way” there is always someone ready to bash your choices, always a ‘study’ somewhere to show you are ‘parenting wrongly’ so get a grip, DON’T LIE be proud that you are a parent, a parent who may struggle, may yell, may use the TV as a babysitter so you can get time for a shower, a parent that may (shock) allow a toddler to share your bed because it means you all get to sleep. Whatever you do, if it works for you and your child be proud of it! Stop lying! 

Admit you are awesome. You are mainly awesome because you read to the end of this ranty piece of crap. Now like my Facebook page and you will explode with awesomeness

I'm a Twitterholic - don't judge me

When did you join twitter? (You can find the exact date at bwitterday.com)
I had an account for 6 months or so, which I deleted when hubby said I was addicted. He told me to create a new one when I was so grumpy without twitter! This account was started September 22, 2009

Why did you join twitter?
I didn't want to, it sounded awful and I loved facebook (which I have now deleted! oh fickle online person I am) but Stephen Fry seemed to rate it so I joined to see what it was like.

Who is/was your oldest follower? Who did you follow first? Tell me all about them. (firstfivefollowers.com will give you this info)

The First person I followed was Stephen Fry

My first 5 followers on the new account (so they must have missed me!) were: @saraheadworth @StoatsJackson @ti_bo @LivingWithCMT @JasonBradbury.

Stoats is a lovely cuddly funny guy well worth a follow :-) I have a crush on Jason Bradbury, Ti_bo is a cutie of the nefarious type, the CMT account is a hereditary condition I have too, we share symptoms :-) Sarah is a nice relatively normal person haha

Do you have any celebrities following you or have you ever had a DM from a celeb?

not DMs but lots of @replies (depending on your idea of celebrity I guess!) I've had tweets from Graham Lineham, Alexsander(The Meerkat) , Paul Daniels,  Stephen Fry, Chris Moyles, and I chat fairly regularly with  Jason Bradbury, Andy Stanton, Matt Kirshen I tend to star them, so check my favourites.

If you could follow anyone who is not on Twitter – alive or dead, real or fictional – on Twitter, who would it be?

would be good to follow a blog of someone really real but also who is secretive in real life or who no one knows much about, God would be great though! But I bet he'd tweet fast

Which came first Twitter or the Blog?

The blog. No readers, but the blog.

The darkness beyond

I'm not the only one musing on the internet. I'm not the only one that posts stuff online. You all know that, you blog or you read blogs everyday, when you find a good one you star it or share it or follow it.

But do any blogs follow you?

I don't mean follow your blog, I mean follow you. Like stalk. Watch you, wait for you to move and be there, at your destination before you?

Are you alone while you blog, or is someone watching, over your shoulder. Biding their time.

I stumbled onto a blog a while ago and I'm hooked. I like to think it's safe to read, but sometimes I'm not so sure. Sometimes the thrill of a scary story seems just a little too close.

Do Vampires exist? If they do do they sparkle?

I doubt it, I expect they prowl silently at night, on rain slick streets, like tigers in a damp jungle, sniffing the city air...waiting.

If I knew there were real vampires would I be happy or scared? Is fear only fun when it's far away. Is danger glamorous, like my padding tiger in the dark.

Twitter seems a safe place to be. Or a blog. But how safe is safe?

Enjoy a scary story? (nothing like Twilight - trust me!)  Check out this blog. But don't say I didn't warn you.