A week away - August 2025

It's the end of August so it's that time of year when we get together with Hubby's extended family here:

It's a converted Oast House in Kent and there were over 40 of us sharing. These pictures were before everyone arrived and we decended into chaos lol.

Sound horrendous? Well not to us it doesn't.  Yes we have to share rooms (but there are lots of bathrooms) and some of the kids are on the floors but we love being able to all be together.  The kids love the pool, we played a lot of games on the lawn, took walks to nearby Scotney Castle and generally had a good time.

We all mucked in with preparing food - each family group takes a turn to be responsible for the evening meal - and everyone helps out with clearing etc.  

We play board and card games, do karaoke, and generally just unwind.

I'd like to say I came home rested but with late nights and then early wake up calls from the under 10s sleep time is limited.  But so many memories made.

I didn't get to do a Friday's Fave Five but the word to some it all up this week would have been Family!

I also gained some more books!

My brother-in-law was having a clear out and a few people took a few books but I ended up with the majority.  I've read a few which I will put in local Little Libraries, and there are some that I'll probably pass on that I don't think I'd enjoy but the rest will be added to the "to be read" pile.

It looks horrendous but I recently added quite a lot of them to my Good Reads site and I think in the house there are about 50 books.  There are also about 30 in our garden room but given that I read over 50 books a year I will get through them sooner rather than later.

As long as I don't keep adding to the pile!

Hopefully I'll get around to catching up on blogs later today.  Apologies if I don't manage to leave many comments, I'm getting ready to spend a few days away later this week with 3 of my cousins and their husbands.  Organising food etc for 8 will seem easy compared to last week!

A week in Kent - August 2022

                        

I feel like I've been MIA for ages.  We had a fantastic week away with all hubby's extended family and I did intend, as we were back last Friday, to do a Friday's Fave Five post but I was just too tired.

Socialising with such a large group (30+ adults and up to 15 kids depending on the day of the week) is tiring.  Also we were sharing a room with my daughter, her wife and their two children who did not sleep well.  Consequently none of us slept well.

For those new to my blog, every year over the August Bank Holiday hubby's family get together.  In the past we went camping but as time has moved on we've opted for a more comfortable setting - a converted Oast House in Kent.

Obviously the pandemic put paid to this for the last 2 years so this year we were all excited to get back together again.

The weather was kind to us - warm and sunny but not the unbearable heat we've had recently and I think we only had one short rain shower during the days.

Each family took a turn to prepare dinner for everyone - that was a mammoth task.  There was much playing of games and singing karaoke and time in the pool.  We even had a Club Tropicana pool party on the Saturday afternoon.

As requested I did take lots of photos and I've "borrowed" others although they are in no particular order!

My youngest son and his wife.

Grandsons Noah and Rory helping prepare the biscuits for the base of our dessert - Key Lime Pie

The youngest of the Great Grandchildren generation celebrated her first birthday while we were there.  (We still refer to them as great grandchildren despite none of the Great Grandparents from Hubby's family being alive.) 

Granddaughter Ella. Not sure about her reading material lol.

The obligatory "stairs" photo of my family.  Our photographer took loads of shots and these were probably the best two although none of them were perfect.  Co-ordinating 6 little ones is a challenge!

This is Maya the birthday girl and her cousin Poppy with their grandparents.  Some of you may remember how poorly Poppy was as a baby and although her condition is lifelong she is such a lovely girl.

Ella and Vinny

Nathan ready for the pool party!

Ella is getting so grown up but she's not 2 until November

She really wanted my hat.

Some of the family

Vinny

We definitely had a lot of water babies.

Miles

Bedtime story

The downside of being in the pool - getting out.

Pool party ready

Noah

Ella and Miles with my daughter

Rory

Noah

Some family members took the pool party dress code more seriously than others.

TV can be a wonderful thing.

Maya, the birthday girl.

Noah, Nathan and Rory.

Henry (the packhorse) was the only French grandson to attend but he is such a lovely young man mixing in as well with the little ones as he did with the oldies.

More family - my eldest son and his wife are sitting at the front, you can just see me behind my DIL and Hubby is standing on the left.

Noah and Nathan

I'd like to say I'm having a rest this week but Grandson Rory starts school this year in a Reception class.  Well school started today but his school are not having any of the Reception children in for the first 2 weeks as staff will be conducting home visits.  During week 3 the children will attend until 12.00 noon each day and during week 4 they will attend until 1.30 pm.  In week 5 (w/c 3rd October) they will be allowed to attend full time.

I could get bogged down in sharing what I think about this but we'd be here all night!  Anyway it means I have Rory all this week so that his parents can work and as Vinny has had an upset tummy and cannot attend nursery I have him as well until Wednesday at least.

Retirement is no easy life!

I'm back!

Well actually I've been back from my family holiday since last Friday but it's been hard to find time to blog.  Since we arrived back I've babysat Nathan, had Rory for 2 days, been househunting with Nathan's Mummies and been catching up with stuff at home.

Which is totally different from the week spent away which was very relaxed.  Well as relaxed as spending a week with more than 40 family members including all our kids and Grandkids.  Yeah it's not relaxing but it is lovely.  

We were very fortunate with the weather.  For the first half of the week we had a heatwave.  In fact for me it was too hot.  We then had rain overnight on the Tuesday but by Wednesday afternoon the sun had returned but it was much cooler.  Still warm but much more pleasant.  

The kids still loved being in and out of the pool and as usual the younger generation did their pool photo.  These are all grandchildren of Nick's parents.  There are 23 of them but a few were missing this year.  This is our seventh year at the Oast House and they always line up by the pool:

 

And then jump!

 

We had our own special water babies!

 And our own annual photo

 Family time is so special.

Holiday catch up!

My poor blog has been neglected again as I've been on holiday.  This is where we spent last week.

This is a converted Oast House in Kent.  Kent is in the south east of the UK and is often called the garden of England.  It is a very green area of the country and can often have good weather even when there is rain everywhere else.

We were definitely lucky with the weather - we arrived on the Friday of the long holiday weekend to brilliant hot sunshine which continued until the Tuesday.  Wednesday was a horrible wet day but Thursday was dry although a lot cooler and we returned home in sunshine on Friday.

When I say we, I'm not talking Nick and me or even our own immediate family, although this is the first time we've been altogether since Nathan was born so of course we had to get a picture.

The "we" for this holiday involves all 7 of Nick's siblings and their families.  So about 40 of us most of the time but we dwindled a bit towards the end of the week as people returned to work.

The house can just about accommodate us - most of the 9 bedrooms have a double bed, a sofa bed plus pull out trundle beds.  All rooms have full size ensuite bathrooms and then there is a huge kitchen/diner and an even bigger living space.  Add to that the pool and a full size tennis court and there is plenty of room to not feel crowded.

Each family group took a turn at preparing the evening meal and I co-ordinated the shopping.  Fortunately we are able to get supermarket deliveries to the door, although some of the drivers do struggle to find it by Satnav!

The youngsters spent a lot of time in the pool while most of us just spent the week relaxing, catching up with one another and playing a variety of games.  There was also the obligatory karaoke session.

The only think lacking really was a decent wi-fi connection and phone signal.  We could get wi-fi but it was very slow and there were only a few spots around the site where you could get a decent phone signal.  But hey, when you're on holiday that's not necessarily a bad thing!

We did do a couple of walks and, despite my laziness and total indulgence when it came to lovely desserts, (banoffee pie, tiramisu, waffleberry to name a few) I didn't regain any of the weight I'd lost so I was happy with that.

And of course there was Nathan time!  He was soo good.  We shared a room with him and his mummies and he slept really well.

He was one of 4 babies.  One of the others was little Poppy who I've mentioned before.  Regulars here will know Poppy was very ill at one point and still has ongoing health issues but to see her doing so well was lovely.  She's 20 months now and although she is still very petite you wouldn't know looking at her now, how much she went through in her early months.



And of course there were lots of pics taken so I'll just bore you with another one!

Another good thing about this place that it's less than a 2 hour drive from our house and it's not too far from the channel tunnel for our French relatives to get to.

Some of the cousins were missing this year but they still created the pool photo although not everyone jumped in this year!

We've been coming to this venue for a few years now and every year the cousins line up for this shot.  It's lovely to see them all growing up, and having families of their own in some cases now.  It's nice to see that even without their Grandparents around the family still pulls together, as it should.