Empty Nest Mummy

If you decide to head away for half term with the kids in a caravan, you need to be prepared for a wet day. Or maybe several wet days. But plan ahead and you can still have fun. Lots of it.

For the last couple of years, the kids and I have been coming to the same holiday park to stay in a caravan for half term. I know staying in a caravan is not up in the Top 5 Most Glam Things To Do, but it works well for us. But I have learned that you do need to plan for the odd wet day, or maybe lots of wet days. You need to have some Wet Day Fun Things up your sleeve. Just in case!

Make an Indoor Camp

Now, I’m really starting off with the big guns here. There’s nothing that Big Boy and Littlest Angel like more than making a den, or a camp, or a fort. And it really doesn’t matter where, or with what. But the absolute grandaddy of all indoor camps is to be found in a caravan.

As I’m such a mean and strict mummy, part of the Fun Police as Northern Husband would have it, the kids are NOT allowed to make camps with the sofa cushions at home. And maybe that’s why they spent half the journey down planning their caravan camp. And how they would make it the best camp ever.

It was tipping down with rain all last night and this morning. The perfect weather for camp building. Indoor camp building.

Armed with just the seat and back cushions from the sofas, the kids set to work. They worked together, building and demolishing, laughing and guffawing for a good hour or more. And I bet they would have carried on going had I not spotted a little bit of blue sky and insisted we head out.

Hide and Seek Fun – Caravan Style

Yes, you read it correctly. Hide and seek in a caravan. And fun. All in the same title. Now, the caravan itself is small. Very small. It has 2 small spaces which are optimistically described as bedrooms. Oh, and a living room with a few kitchen cupboards and a tiny table shoe-horned in.

And very little in the way of cupboards or hiding places.

Yet, somehow, Big Boy and Littlest Angel, and whatever cousin is visiting us, can play Hide & Seek with near-endless enthusiasm. In a tiny space so small that you could barely swing a cat, they seem to be able to hide as many cousins as we can bring in.

A Big Indoor TV Nest

Our normal life is, like everyone else’s, a mad dash from getting out of bed in the morning to flopping down into it at night. So, a good old wet day in a caravan gives us the perfect chance to hunker down and do nothing. To just lie off and cuddle together.

And what better way to do this than build a big squishy nest?

Tomorrow morning, when it’s raining again, and already daytime, we’ll get all the pillows and duvets we can find and make my bed into a nest. And then we’ll all pile in together and put the TV on.

The kids will have fun watching TV. And I’ll have fun, with my eyes closed, listening to the kids watching TV.

The perfect start to a rainy day in a caravan!

An Indoor Dance-Off

When the rain pours down and you’re in a caravan, you can mope around and moan. Or you can put the music on real loud and let your most inspirational dance moves out.

With nobody around to see you, or nobody around that you know to see you, this is a great time to perfect some new dance moves. So loosen up those limbs, put Despacito on at top volume and release your inner Dancing Queen.

Bring a Farting Pig

No, I haven’t finally lost the plot. We did bring a Farting Pig with us for our caravan holiday. All camped out? Exhausted every nook and cranny for hiding? Tired of TV? Danced until you can dance no more? Then bring out the Farting Pig.

Actually, this year it’s a Farting Pig. Last year it was Plop Trumps.

When all else fails, only a toy or game that involves farting or poo will cut the mustard.

We’ve already had hours of fun playing a kind of pass the hot potato game with a plastic pig who sings. Until he farts. And you don’t want to be the one holding him when he farts.

So, Mother Nature, do your worst. I have plenty of fun things to do in a caravan on a wet day with the kids. Let it rain. Let it pour. I’m ready for you! And so is my Farting Pig.

(If you liked this, you might also like Fun Crafts & Baking Ideas for this half term too.)