Ok It’s been raining a lot recently and all your plans for
having fun with the kids have been disrupted. But all this rain has reminded me
of one of my most precious memories with Adam and an experience that lead me to
writing children’s books, which would never have happened if I'd let the rain
interfere with fun with the kids.
So almost exactly 5 years to the day a couple of dads got
together to organise an overnight camp out in the sand dunes of the beautiful Brittas Bay beach. Everything was organised and the excitement paramount.
When camp day
finally arrived it was accompanied by the rain of all rains and total panic
ensued. The Met Office radar updates showed the rain was down for
the day and one by one the dads dropped like flies. “It’s too wet”, “we’ll
catch our death out there”, “we can’t bring the kids out in that”, “no way, I
didn’t sign up for this.”
Undeterred I kept checking the Met Office radar updates
every 15 minutes and deduced that the rain would stop by about 9pm and it was
still worth going for it. After a small amount of convincing 4 dads stuck with
me and said “what the hell, let’s just do it, sure the worst thing that can
happen is that we will have a great story to tell and to laugh about when the
kids are older.” Us 4 dads became instant heroes to a rendition of cheers and
excited screams.
After a wet but fun start to our campout the rain stopped,
we got the campfire going and roasted marshmallows, ate burgers, sang songs and
told scary stories, it was amazing. The following morning we were woken up by powerful happy
endorphins radiated by the early morning sun, with a single puff cloud in an
otherwise perfectly blue sky.
This was to be my most treasured memory of Adam and a lesson
for me to never give up on anything especially when it comes to having fun and
creating magical moments with the kids. So my message is to remember that there is always something
magical and wonderful locked away and hidden in what appears to be horrible or
difficult, and to unlock it all you need is love, laughter and fun in the
family.
The first book I ever wrote in memory of Adam was inspired
by that particular day, the fun we had and a magical moment I am blessed to
have shared with Adam. It’s funny it is as vivid now as it was 5 years ago.
If you've had any magical moments of your own that you'd like to share just post them below, or on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/AdamsCloud, or you can email them to me directly at benjisblog@adamscloud.com. Thanks!
Till next week
Love hugs and kisses to all.
