Tomorrow we're off to Greenbelt, the Christian arts/music/everything festival we go to every year. For the first time Sparkler's taking a friend with her, which is fun, but comes with Added Responsibility. Specially as said friend is vegetarian and has a nut allergy. But I think it'll be really good for Sparkler. Thirteen is too old to be stuck with your family all the time! Next year we've said Gloworm can bring a friend too.
Anyway, so we're off to camp on a race course for four nights, and eat falafel and fresh doughnuts and crepes and - ooh, pies, I just remembered the pies! And drink excellent fair-trade coffee. And go to interesting talks and events.
I'm also very pleased, because for the RNA conference 2010 I'm going to be going partly as a representative of Samhain, and giving a seminar on epublishing in general and Samhain in particular. Samhain should have lots of interesting new developments by then (none of which I can talk about yet!). And hopefully another Samhain staff member will be coming too, so no one has to listen to Immi Immi Immi for a whole hour.
It's been so sad to lose Angie James, but a positive effect is that new opportunities are opening up for other staff members - and the editors are all leaping into the Angie-shaped gap in an impressive and wonderful way. It's never exactly been dull at Samhain, anyway, but now does feel like a particularly exciting time to be part of the team. I remain insanely proud to be working there.
This is relevant to the blog post title, by the way, but my third bit of travel-related news is so exciting I'm going to have to save it for another post. And until I've squee-ed at MG and Dayna.
Sunshine. Yes, it did shine, and it was hot enough that we all picked up a bit of a tan. It rained, too, but mostly only in spells, and not enough to spoil the holiday.
Water. Three heated pools (indoor, outdoor, adventure) and a clean sandy beach within easy walking distance. Gloworm wanted to spend nearly every minute in the pools. The rest of us, not so much, but we did go most days, and slid down slides and went under waterfalls and fell off obstacle courses and played chasing games. And there were glorious hot showers to have afterwards - highly necessary for me to be happy with taking my clothes off and getting wet.
Good food. We were self-catering, so we stocked up our caravan with nice things: pains au chocolat, eggs and bacon for breakfast muffiins, Appletiser, white wine, six different cheeses to make lunchtime cheese boards (big success), Hovis digestive cheese biscuits. The on-site cafes and restaurants were pretty good too. Gloworm found her favourite tuna melts at the Aquabar, and we had super-fresh fish and chips the first day we arrived. Oh, and the one time we went off site, to the nearest village, we found a lovely family-run restaurant with fabulous food: again, very fresh fish, plus a duck salad for Sparkler.
Good coffee. There was an on-site Starbucks. Not just a coffee shop, but a Starbucks. Halfway between our caravan and the beach. I hate to be predictable, but this was one of the things that made me happiest - being able to walk down the road in the sunshine and get a skinny vanilla latte, or treat ourselves to Starbucks brunch. I make good coffee at home, but I never have skinny vanilla lattes on tap. On the way to the beach. And Abstract and I spent the happiest couple of hours sitting in the blazing sunshine outside the swimming pool, reading and drinking cider (at about 3.30 in the afternoon, how decadent is that?), while the girls took themselves swimming.
Good books. My holiday TBR pile post is up at the RNA blog right now, and The Hunger Games, in particular, kept me and Sparkler and Abstract very happy. Also, Haven has sponsorship from some literacy scheme or other, so we were given a big cotton bag full of books when we got there. The bag was, well, mixed (Jeremy Clarkson, Chris Ryan, Winnie the Twit, Letterland...) but both the girls enjoyed Chris Ryan's Survival, a teenage adventure story, and spent some happy time finding Wally in Hollywood.
Luxury accomodation. Our caravan was heaven in a box. It had two bathrooms (well, one bath and one shower), one of which was Abstract's and mine en suite. It had real sofas and armchairs, mirrors and cute little drawers and cupboards and shelves everywhere, a full-size kitchen with a microwave and washing-machine, and a dining area on a little dais, so it felt like a separate room. And central heating. And a fire with white pebbles rather than coals. The one really rainy day we didn't even mind - we just all sat around and read, and the girls did some craft, and fed the ducks that suddenly appeared, hopefully quacking, outside the caravan.
Fun, fun, fun. Aside from the pools and the beach and the playground, and the ducks, there was a host of extra activities you could book (for a small extra cost). We did rock climbing, and 'water walkerz', which are big beach balls you climb inside and walk around on the surface of the swimming pool (extremely weird, but interesting), and Abstract and the girls did a high-ropes obstacle course while I quaked on the ground (my babies, in the air!) and took photos of the incredible bravery, and Abstract and Sparkler did fencing (despite the maks and protective clothing, Sparkler managed to stab her dad in the throat, which was exciting). We also spent quite a bit of money in the funfair - mostly on the dodgems. Oh, and we hired cycle-go-kart-things and pedalled around the whole of the holiday village. Oh, and a pedal boat, and pedalled around the lake.
General happy ambience. The whole holiday village was set out beautifully. It felt like a very friendly, very safe, real village, with caravans rather than houses. There were flowers and butterfly bushes planted everywhere, and flocks of butterflies and swarms of happy bees all over them. We saw rabbits a few times, and our friendly flock of ducks, and walked down to the beach through a tall-grassed meadow and a river running through a little wood.
We were away for a week, then Abstract was off work for another week, so we went down to visit the Model Auntie and Dr. T-shirt in their new house, and My Model Cousin came over for dinner. Then we came back via Oxfordshire and one night at Abstract's mother's house (who wasn't there, cos she was in Thailand, but we had a key and went out for dinner at the Barley Mow).
And now we're home. And Abstract is back at work. And Angie James, my immediate boss, has left Samhain for a job with Quartet Press. And the end of the school holidays seems suddenly to be looming rather close. Which is all rather sad.
However, I have a new book video, made very cleverly by Nikki Duncan, and the book release of Heart of the Volcano coming up, and Gloworm's birthday, and My Model Cousin is coming to stay and go to a U2 concert with Abstract. And Blood of the Volcano, while not racing towards a finish, is doing pretty well. Oh, and I suddenly had a lightbulb moment about how to fix the conflict in my stalled-for-nearly-a-year Elizabeth Goudge Award book, Cloak of Feathers.
And we have a milkman! A milkman for the twenty-first century, because I put my orders in online and he delivers them. So far we've had semi-skimmed milk, orange juice (which also comes in a milk bottle, which I find charming), and free-range eggs, and on Saturday I'll have my first ever organic vegetable box. Now all I have to do is persuade him to form a partnership with Starbucks, and it could be milk and juice and eggs and skinny vanilla lattes appearing on the doorstep. Now that really would be milk delivery in the twenty-first century.
I'm away on holiday - at last, hooray! - for a week. Erica the red laptop is coming, and she's bringing her new pet, Bingle the mobile broadband dongle, but I don't know what the reception will be like so blogging may not happen. Twittering probably will, however, so keep an eye on the updates at the top of the blog!
And I don't leave you bored and alone. If you click on the above banner you can join in the scavenger hunt Long and Short Reviews is running to celebrate its second anniversary, and (if you're in the US or Canada - I know, sorry) get the chance to win one of three Sony e-readers.
See you when I get back! I'm taking a whole pile of books and I hope to do a lot of reading and writing in the sun (hot sun, please, please?) by the pool.
