Family camping in the New Forest

With a busy spell of weddings out the way, I had chance to sneak in a couple of days camping.  
This achieved three things:
1) gave us chance to test out our new tent, 2) tested my patience in coping with only the bare essentials in life (oh how we laugh), and 3) how many consecutive hours the kids could stay awake for, before they'd finally give in to sleeping in a tent.

All packed up and off for camping.  Needless to say it took about 12 hours to pack - OMG.....packing for camping is a nightmare.  Next time we'll stay in a house with all our cooking, sleeping and eating arrangements already there.





"Ball" - yep, this is one of the few words Barney can now say.








Yep that's me, and at that angle I do indeed have double chins...also strange arms.  It's hard taking a photo and being in it - back-button focus on a DSLR wasn't designed for 'selfers' - (sorry that's geek talk again)



Ohh the blue skies - if only they'd lasted to the day we packed up camp, rather than a torrential downpour to soak us through for our journey home!


Barney has a strange magnetism towards pink things and dolls.  His bed looks somewhat untouched in leau of Daisy's side!? :-)


Take it easy luv, I'll do all the work around here!




Ade makes washing up that little more enjoyable with a Magners to hand.




When night falls I soon become bored without a laptop to entertain me.  Painting with light was my solution.....although the kids did try their best to stay up until midnight!






Below we have my friend Ade - also known as Abe (as he can't spell so well after a few beers).




Night night campers.  And no, it wasn't meant to be a hedgehog, but yes apparently it does look rather like one.


Next day we went off to Moors Valley, which is great for kids.  The train ride was a highlight.  The picnic in a force 12 gale however wasn't such a hit!


"OK kiddies - we're going to go on a train ride, but you have to wait patiently for it to arrive."  Freya found something to occupy her time well!



This is Daisy's "can I have some sweets" face. 









A tasty blackberry or two on the way round.



This isn't some photoshop trickery, just a slow shutter speed.  For those of you geeky enough to care - 1/2 sec shutter, f6.3 and a rather steady hand was required.