Chocolate Diarrhoea Cake

If I was living in Ground Hog Day, I would like to bicycle past this every lunch break:

Girl (on scooter): Dad?

Dad (on scooter in front): Yea-as?

Girl: I love you.

Dad: I love you too Squiggles.

Girl: Do you love me more than anything? More than anything in the whole world?

Dad: Yes, more than anything in the whole world.

I wouldn’t want to live in Ground Hog Day, because life’s variety is often so very pleasing.

For instance, I just spent the weekend at Bodium with a collective of beautiful souls. Some stayed in tents, one stayed for the day, and two slept in their brand new, but very old, VW Camper (1973).

Park Farm campsite is really quite something. In the main field, there is Darren’s. Darren sells burgers. In the Green Fields, there is Darren’s competitor. He sells cup cakes and jacket potatoes.

At Park Farm, there are no predefined pitches, and the site encourages campfires by selling a bag of logs for £3.50 a pop. While we made barbecues and fire, other people had pretty lights to dress up their tents.

The site offers homemade playthings; swings, a seesaw and a death slide. The death slide was particularly popular, so never free for cavorting adults. The seesaw could fit four of us on at once and felt wonderfully dangerous. The rope swings over the River Rother sat unused, just waiting for a daring child or a drunken adult to take a dip. We liked being dry.

From the campsite, there is a lovely walk along the river. A castle and steam trains sit at the other end. Bodiam Castle is a perfect example of a late medieval moated castle. That’s not just market-speak. It’s bloody brilliant. It was built in 1385, and the fish in the moat are so big, they may have lived there that long. In the olden days, people could sit on the toilet whilst shooting arrows at the French.

The Kent and East Sussex train line isn’t the best and is very expensive. We enjoyed a bit of soot, poking our heads into the locomotive to see the hot fire, and the fact they sold Chocolate Diarrhoea Cake at the pub near Northiam Station.

Fabpants Recommends: I am going to see Darren Hayman tomorrow. Darren used to be in Hefner. I loved the album Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern. Darren released an album this year. It’s called Pram Town, after Harlow New Town’s 1950s nickname. Darren grew up near Harlow.

Here’s a taster:

Download MP3: Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Big Fish (courtesy of hefnet.com)




Download MP3: Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Pram Town (courtesy of getdropbox.com)




I’ve also been enjoying The Foster Kids. They are from Norfolk like me. I grew up with foster kids. The album is called 'At Home With The Foo Fighters'. Bands from Norfolk do create a certain bias within me. You might think it's pants.

Download MP3: The Foster Kids – Before You Change My Mind (courtesy of letterboxrecords.com)