Centenary

One hundred years of Guiding. One hundred and fifty zillion (give or take) ways to celebrate. So we're taking the girls to Alton Towers. They, and the majority of leaders, will be camping on the lawn. Tomorrow night. A single digit Celsius night, with rain forecast for Sunday, when they'll be spending the day in the park. Nice. We three are ducking out of the chilly bit and will be living it up in a rather large hotel room. Now that's more like it. Mum was supposed to be accompanying us as Guider in Charge; she's done most of the planning and sorting out and pre-leaving work, and then skipped out of the country and arranged a volcanic eruption to keep her on a different continent. Some people...

Which leaves four leaders to camp and myself to laugh at them all; should be plenty really. Doesn't quite feel like plenty right now. Little minor worries like, oops, all these health forms are blank, wonder where the ones all the parents have filled in are? And, oo, we have twenty people camping and tentage for eighteen. And, oh, Alton Towers say all tent pegs must be less than six inches long but all our pegs are seven inches, and the camping shop says all their tent pegs are seven or nine inches long too. And , eek, what have we forgotten, and ugh, so much packing for one night away.

And then throw in a sleep study tonight - Mog is all wired up and under strict orders to perform as she usually does, not as she usually does for a sleep study. So far she's managed to flood the lower half of the bed, and then I've managed to flood the upper half with feed. So that's going well then.So far it's five to ten and she's still awake. Actually getting to sleep would be a start. Once she is asleep, either she performs well, giving them an accurate picture of what she manages to do, and giving me a rotten night's sleep, or she sleeps well, giving me a better night's sleep but giving the medics an unhelpful study. We have the option of repeating the process tomorrow night should she fail to perform tonight, but I'd rather not have to lug the kit to a hotel (and risk leaving it there). A friend just suggested that, if she does have a really decent night, we steal the kit and make every night sleep study night; cover her with stretchy bands and ECG stickers, and watch her breathing beautifully. It's a thought.

Meanwhile, although I've found all the Guiding stuff, I've failed massively as far as packing is concerned. The bus is full of our usual flotsam and needs emptying, the suitcases are full of cat, which needs replacing with clothing. The kitlist is absent and the uniforms are creased. I had better go and do something about some of that really.

Tia