Holiday!

The first wave of the North West Expeditionary Force left Kirkby Lonsdale at 0850 hours, this morning, with me driving and Milly in the co-pilot's chair. We collected Dan and Abi, the expeditionary regulars, from their mum's and struck south.

The Minx and miniMinx set off about an hour later, putting us just twenty minutes ahead of them, but the rest of the girls - Charlie, HB, and Izzy - didn't rendezvous until after two o'clock, as HB and Izzy were both working this morning.

The motorway traffic was heavy but moving, the long stretches of people driving perfectly sensibly punctuated, as usual, by people who I can only imagine have problems with personal space and respecting queues in their day to day lives. It was the big girls who suffered the dividend of this behaviour as an accident on the M1 later in the afternoon slowed their progress right down.

The rest of us arrived at our destination in Kent around five o'clock. The Chorley contingent had passed us while we were taking a pit stop on the M25, so they were already at our 'tent' (pictured). It was beautifully hot and sunny and the campsite itself was very sparsely populated: our tent, a couple of yurts, and a little row of huts, one of which the girls would be staying in.

Inevitably there was Prosecco and then some red wine, and we lit the fire once we knew the rear guard was only an hour away. The sun was down when they arrived and we cooked in the dark, which was more successful than I feared it might be (particularly as I was cooking*).

After we'd eaten we sat around and chatted. The sky was clear and, with no major towns for miles, we could see both individual stars and the celestial wash behind them. The plough made sedate progress across the sky but gasps were drawn by the occasional shooting star. It was lovely.

*Putting bits of meat on the grill and turning them over from time to time.