An exceptionally good day.

A decent night on ultra comfortable new airbed. No more hippo and chick rolltogether issues, and Mog's nocturnal seizure minor ripples not earthquakes.

A date with friends to go down to the camp cafe for coffee became through laziness a bacon bitty for late breakfast, and the chance to meet in real life people who have been up til now internet friends. A trip to Sainsburys; drudgery when alone, brightened by the company to become an Actual Outing rather than mere routine.

Lunch with more friends, a small squidgable child, not my own, napping on my lap until with jingling bells a couple of donkeys appeared. A donkey ride for Mog, much to her delight and my own; five minutessitting on a donkey and her hips are looser than they have been for months.

Laughter, renewing of old friendships and the growth of new ones. Bittersweet; a new friend's son fizzing with life and enthusiasm and joie de vivre, as loud and as excited and as happy and oblivious as Goldie on a good day. And the meeting in person of a friend I didn't get to meet before the death of their precious daughter.

Life with special kids. Sitting one minute watching five boys playing swingball. Three boys with varying degrees of autism, one with other undiagnosed wonkiness, and one with nothing particularly unusual about him. Some anxious parents worried about how thier own so. Would cope, each child being not especially socially aware. And each child obliviousto the others' quirks, focussing on how best to make a game to play.

In another patch of grass, a volleyball net. One small boy rolling a giant football under the net. Two children playing a modified version of tennis ofer the top of him. A small girl twirling and spinning, oblivious to the game but high on the atmosphere. And two adults playing badminton sideways on over the top of everything else going on.

Husband and wife battling out some tensions in a vicious swingball match. Small clusters of adults sitting chatting. A pack of small children running up and down a slope, some wobblier than others, all uncaring. A batch of teenage girls all hovering together. And a gaggle of children, able and disabled, 4 and 8 and 12 and 16, wrestling together, tumbling over and over, screams of delight reaching the far corners of the site. Teenage boys, teasing but protecting fragile preschool girls. Delicate dainty children nibbling titbits from parents' cakes.

Chaos perhaps, but a happy, accepting, welcoming, anything goes kind of a chaos. Good times.
Tia