Bubbles, Balloons and Laundry

There isn’t a woman on the planet who doesn’t know that the sense of rest and relaxation gathered during a vacation of any length all to quickly dissipates the moment one puts ones key in the front door and real life hits home…
If you are returning from a foreign land, then airport surcharges make the likelihood of packing everything but the kitchen sink increasingly slim, but not so for the happy camper strutting her stuff in her own country and all too able to pack the car to the gills and take everything she owns, you know just in case…
While this may not be quite in the spirit of camping, for those like me who have long suffered a mild case of tisantaphobia, packing a whole lot of home is the solution to a deep-rooted fear of finding oneself stranded in a field without the more obscure, but still essential supplies liable to see a person through the kind of worst case tenting scenario’s, like um, the midnight munchies,  the urge to shave one’s legs in a puddle or a sudden desire to watch tv in the kind of place modern technology clearly forgot.
And there you were, truly believing that I had manifested into the kind of back to basics Birkenstock wearing hippie who can cope in the wilderness without three metres of Home Sweet Home bunting, a home-made quiche and 3g internet access! Hell yeah I may have the (patent leather) Birkenstocks but me and a sleeping bag are never going to be the best of friends and that my dears, is that. But give me my own pretty patchwork quilt and I will sleep like a baby.
And so here I am home from five days of festival bliss and suddenly all too aware that she who packs must also unpack and offers of help in the yukky grass sprinkled matter are few and far between.
So think of me today won’t you? Knee deep in laundry and wind-up lanterns. I would really like to share the long list of teeny tiny joy’s from the past few days, but today when it seems everything I own is still packed in nylon and hanging around my dining room, and Finn’s Sports Day is calling my name, I simply don’t have the time, so I will be back tomorrow, with more photographs of morris dancers, bubbles and balloons and tales of children stranded in trees. I will be back this week with the lastest chapter of MUSE, the first post from Season Three of The Vintage Housekeepers Circle and a scrumptious list of puttery treats for campers garnered from a gorgeous hilly field somewhere in the Cotswolds…
Do join me won’t you? It would be such a pleasure to catch up!