Crabs, Crocs and Very Strange Cats....

What to do for the last weekend of the summer holidays? Go to the cinema perhaps? (Nah - last time we did that I ended up bleeding at the bottom of an escalator.) Trip to the swimming pool? Nope. There's little I hate more than floating around in a big bucket of germ soup. Walk to the park? Not very adventurous. I know....let's go camping! We can spend half of Friday driving to the campsite and pitching the tent, three days cowering from the rain and getting everything we own filthy dirty before heading home and leaving ourselves barely 48 hours to get three kids ready to start school again. Brilliant plan.

Actually, it was. The kids had a ball. Yes, it rained, but not all the time. And yes, every single scrap of clothing got soaked and steeped in mud. But oh, the bliss of of no television, no laptops, no DS lites beeping. The children played in the loch all day until it got too dark and/or midgy to see. There were no complaints about tops not matching trousers (they were too thankful that there was a top dry enough to wear), and even Kid-with-his-faddy-head-on forgot to check for mushrooms in his dinner he was so hungry after all that fresh air.

Sartorially, it was a bit of a disaster. I took my comfiest slouchy jeans and some of those brown linen trousers, a selection of vest tops, little cardigans and my crocs. Why I chose to wear rubber shoes full of holes and leave my wellies behind I'll never know. I ended up having to roll all my trousers up to avoid wet flapping going on round my ankles.

Kid in the middle did take her wellies, but she still managed to get every pair of trousers soaked while fishing for crabs. I kept telling myself that this was what childhood should be like, while trying to banish thoughts of mildew from my suddenly middle-aged-grumpy-old-woman brain. But the delight on her face when she caught the biggest one seen all day was worth it. I think.

As for very strange cats, well, we haven't had a cat for a while now. Cat 1 died, and Cat 2 went a bit mental after her sister was gone. The kids created their very own replacement with bits of rock, seaweed and some blue string. It stood guard outside our tent for three days until I dismantled it - silly to say, but I almost felt quite sad to say goodbye to that cat.

So that's the crocs/crabs/cats. What about the diet? Well, it went okay. I've discovered that there are low fat versions of things that you shouldn't touch with a barge pole. Have one proper sausage instead of two "low fat" sausages. And don't buy packet rice. (This was an unplanned purchase - the camp shop only sold packets of flavoured rice. Next time, we'll eat our curry with bread instead!)

Of course, the most important thing is what the scales tell me. We were knee deep in campsite on Monday morning, so no opportunity to weigh myself until Tuesday. And yay! I've lost another 4.5lbs this week. Which is pretty good going all things considered. So now I really am a happy camper!!