Bitterne hit the headlines of the South Today news for all the wrong reasons. A 2 year old girl was snatched from her pushchair while she sat with her mum in the precinct, by a 23 year old guy they caught and charged with attempted abduction. I heard a story, a while ago, about a friend of a friend. She stopped someone taking her child from Sainsbury's in Bitterne, where the child sat while the mum packed the shopping. I don't have any wisdom or wit to offer. Am going to keep A on a very tight rein when we are 'in precincto' from now on.

Our weekend involved one night of camping. Words can not do justice to the depth of coldness experienced by the foolhardy camper in April. 'Cast n'er a clout till May is out' is wisdom indeed for the Yorkshire folk amongst whom I learnt that phrase. I would like to add my own proverb to the English language: 'Don't camp in April.' I know it doesn't rhyme, but I hope you appreciate its sentiment. The girls were asleep early enough in the evening to not feel the cold (or else were covered in a thick permafrost so we couldn't hear their cries), but we stayed up too late and it was cold. It was a fabulous clear night with great star views, so that was a bonus, but not much of one compared to being awake a lot and not being able to feel your legs.

We live and learn. Or in my case, we live and don't learn, because by this time next year it will be a romantic long forgotten memory and once again I will consider camping as a 'fun' and 'cosy' experience. So, please, please, get to me first before I suggest subjecting my family to such pain again. Yes, it was entirely my stupid idea in the first place, I hold up my hands and freely admit it was stupid. But I bet I do it again next year.

The weekend was lots of fun, we stayed at the YMCA up the road for our church weekend away. The weather seems to be programed to 'sun' for all the time we are there, and 'rain' comes in at the end of the spin cycle when we are packing up to go home. I had a great kids work session 'winging it' which is one of my favourite teaching activities and one which you don't get to do much of when you are responsible for the kids work, or indeed a class of children. We did lots of team activities, sports, arts, creative, with the sum total resources of 2 footballs and some eggs and spoons. Oh, and a parachute. Give me those items and I am invincible kids worker! The 3s up to teens were all together and the oldest did a good job of team leading the youngest. Would like to do that kind of thing more often than once a year, but not sure on my motives, only one I can honestly come up with is cos I like it.

Before we went away I had a busy social Friday, which culminated in a cleaning cloth party. Called Enjo, we really were amazed by how these cloths clean just using cold water. They are incredibly expensive but I was convinced by them and can only assume that they are made from the robe that Jesus wore (or at the very least Peter), for their miraculous properties. For the first time I can take seriously those people in Acts who brought hankies for the apostles to touch to take away with them the healing powers. I am serious. I have always considered those people to be sad, hopeless and deluded individuals, but am now delighted to join them, and feel sure that I, too would have brought my rags and asked the relevant apostle to touch them.

I have finished reading some of the 'personality type' book that sheds more light on the Myers Briggs test result, which could not have been written more accurately for me than if Myers himself had written about me. Yesterday we had some training about how people of different types relate to each other, and this used colours to quadrant the four main types. I guessed from the names around the edge of the colour wheel which one I would be, then we used cards to categorise ourselves and each other and I did end up as orangey yellow, an EF, known in this colour wheel chart as Motivator. It was weird how I was attracted to being a yellow right from the start, did not think about it too much but knew I was not turqoise, or any shade of green or blue, as soon as I saw the chart. Those of us who did the training session ended up fairly well spread around the circle of colours, which was pleasing to my sense of fair play.