Author: racheltheunissenwriter

Camping Dramas Part One

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Some of our favourite ‘Theunissen Tales’ are related to our annual camping trips. We’ve been going to the same campsite for the last twelve years, usually twice a year. There’s nothing fancy about it, no fancy facilities, just a play park and the woods. As soon as we arrive, the kids disappear off to the park or the woods and only reappear for food or because they want one of the dads to take them on an adventure. This is about our most famous adventure!

One year, when the children were between 2 and 9, Sean decided to take some of our kids and our friends’ kids for a walk in the woods. He had Millie (8), Amelia (7), Abbie (4), Leo (3) and Eloise (2) with him. They were deep in the woods, ducking under low branches and climbing over fallen tree limbs, often Sean having to carry them over!

As they climbed over one branch, an ominous buzzing filled the air. Sean saw the source, a wasps nest! ‘Run’ came the cry! Sean picked up the two smallest children, Millie ran faster than she has ever done in her life and they all came screaming out of the woods, wasps pursuing!

Sean was being stung repeatedly as it was taking him longer to get out! The other children had mostly escaped, Millie arrived at the caravan having totally lost it! She was trying to pull off her fluffy cardigan, which had wasps clinging to it, screaming the whole time. I helped her rip it off and threw it onto the grass. She was still screaming as everyone else turned up.

There were still wasps buzzing around and fellow campers on the site were now staring at us as the screams continued. Unable to calm her down and check the other children, we safely put Millie in the car, unreachable by any wasps!

The wasps slowly dissipated, and we could survey the damage. Adam and Sarah, who were camping with us, checked their girls while I checked my little two. Sean had been stung all over, the most painful sting on his lip. Fortunately, the only other person stung was Abbie who had been stung just above her eye and it had started swelling. We reassured all the other campers around us we were ok and gave Abbie some antihistamine.

Millie was still in the car, but the screams had subsided. Abbie’s eye had swollen shut by this stage. She was perfectly calm but thought we should get it checked out and so headed to the out of hours GP.

When we got back, everyone was calm, and we sat down to eat dinner. Unfortunately, as we were eating a wasp (in reality a fly) decided to join us. Sean, still traumatised, leapt up from his bench and yelled ‘Quick! Everyone inside!’ But Adam had his ‘Executioner’ bat and swatted the offending creature away!

Everyone recovered fine from their wasp stings and now it’s just funny story! We can all laugh at the image of Sean running out of the woods carrying two children and surrounded by three others, all screaming, like something from a horror movie!

Killer Cat

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As the weather is getting better, we all start thinking about BBQ’s (or in our house Braai’s). This always leads us to the story of a BBQ we had a couple of years ago. The sun was obligingly shining for us and we were all enjoying chatting and the smell of cooking meat! We had a few friends over and Sean had made his usual platter of meat, which I’d supplemented with some salad!

I should mention here that we have a little black cat called Ozzy. He’s often the cause of drama in our house, whether that’s trying to get on the countertops to get at the meat or trying to eat sticky tape and gagging when he does! Well, this day he had been helpfully out of the way while the meat was being cooked and while everyone served themselves.

But clearly, when we all sat down to eat, he decided now was his time to make his big entrance. We’re all sitting with our plates balanced on our laps as he walked into the centre of all of us, a large flapping pigeon in his mouth! Cue guest jumping up and away from this demon proudly carrying his latest kill!

Horrified, Sean handed me his plate and tried to intervene! He tried to shoo the cat out of the centre of the circle, but he wasn’t having any of it. He obviously thought he would join us and bring his own meat!

After several failed attempts to get him to move away, Sean picked Ozzy up, flapping bird still firmly in the cat’s mouth, and threw him over the fence into the neighbour’s garden!

By this point there’s blood drops all along the patio and feathers everywhere! Half of the guests sat opened mouthed at the horror scene just played out, and the rest of us were in hysterics at the look of shock on Sean’s face!

This is probably one of Ozzy’s low points, or if you think it’s impressive that he caught the pigeon, a high point! I’m sure he will feature in other stories, usually being naughty somehow!

Sean’s sense of direction

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Something that often causes a lot of hilarity is Sean’s sense of direction, or lack of it! He takes after his mum, who was just the same. She would always ask for a hand-drawn map before going anywhere, even if it was to the local shops! To be fair, they lived out in the sticks! These stories come up so often around the table I think it’s worth dedicating a whole blog to Sean getting lost or going the wrong way.

One of my favourite stories is from when we were dating, Sean was at uni in Bournemouth and I was living in Portsmouth. We were both so excited he’d passed his driving test so we didn’t need to keep taking trains. Now you have to remember this was before Google maps or sat navs!

The first time he drove to see me, he called me in a panic and said he had seen no signs for Portsmouth in ages and had no idea where he was! He’d pulled over in a layby and the only sign he remembered seeing was one saying ‘Welcome to Salisbury!’ Now those of you who know your UK south coast geography will know that to go from Bournemouth to Portsmouth you follow one road and you head east! Well, Sean took the only mistake it’s possible to make and when the road split he took the turning heading north, and rather than being concerned about all the signs pointing to Salisbury rather than Portsmouth, he carried on driving for half an hour! Luckily, he found his way to me in the end, and it was that weekend that he proposed! Clearly, he realised he needed a navigator!

Sean’s family all live near London, and so we often make the trip up to see them. It’s a journey we have made dozens of times. It takes about two and a half hours and is pretty straight-forward. Normally, it all goes smoothly, normally! One time, I fell asleep in the car as we reached the M25 and when I woke up, we were almost at the M1, which is about half an hour past our junction!

Another time, Sean had been to visit his parents on his own and called me while I was cooking dinner with a friend. My hands were full, so I put the phone on speaker; he sounded very frustrated! So it probably didn’t help that I giggled a little and asked how many times he’d made this same journey! At that he started yelling down the phone that he was lost and had no flipping idea where he was! I then informed him he was on speakerphone and that I wasn’t alone, at which point he started laughing too! He’d just taken a wrong turning and was driving in circles around Arundel! He just needed to vent his frustration and me and my friends giggling somehow didn’t help!

Probably one of the funniest was when he picked up a babysitter to bring them to our house for the evening, they were just around the corner from our house when instead of turning left, he turned right! The babysitter turned to him and said, “Don’t you live back there?”

We’re so grateful for Google maps and I think without it Sean would literally be lost!

As we’ve been talking about this particular post, there have been several more stories coming up and so there will be at least one more blog on this subject!

Cookbook for the kids!

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I’m taking a break from our ‘Table Tales’ to let you know that for Christmas this year, I made a cookbook for my kids. As they’re growing up so quickly, I wanted to make them something that means they could take me with them wherever they are. Something to accompany the stories they’ll continue to share around their own dinner tables.

I learnt to cook when my oldest two were babies, mostly because I don’t like to be bored, and as much as I loved having the babies around, I needed to feel like I’d achieved something every day. I started out with a book called ‘Quick and Easy Recipes’ that I found in a charity shop. We had some absolute disasters along the way! The time I mixed up the sugar and salt in a lemon drizzle cake! Or the soggy courgette quiche, which even now makes Sean gag at the thought of! But over time, I’ve made fewer mistakes and gotten a better idea of what will work and what definitely won’t.

I’m not claiming to be an amazing or even a natural cook, I’m probably about an average family cook and the recipes are for things that I genuinely regularly make for my family.

If you’d like to have a go at a few of our recipes, then the cookbook is available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback and hardback. If you enjoy it, please leave a review or let me know if you have any other recipes I should try.

Clumsy Mum! (Again!)

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Following on from the electric scooter incident, there are a number of other stories that the kids like to tell about my clumsiness.

This first one is written by Leo, my youngest. You should know that in our garden there’s a fairly steep grassy slope!

“One day in the summer I was hungry so I went into the kitchen to look for some food. I looked outside and everything was normal and Mum was hanging the washing. I looked away for one second, then looked back to see Mum rolling down the hill. She had done it again, she had fallen down the hill starfish style again.”

The other story that causes Millie, in particular, great hilarity, happened last spring. As we’ve mentioned before, we have a caravan, but last year the one we had been using for about ten years was deemed unusable! So we took the kids to an outdoor caravan showroom. Not that we had much intention of buying one from there, but we thought it would be helpful to get an idea of what we would want.

This is Millie’s version:

“So this is my favourite story to tell anyone who is willing to hear it. It was the spring 2024, and we were looking for a new caravan, after the old one sadly broke. In the first caravan we looked in, we were excited and intrigued to see what it would be like. The first caravan was right in front of the caravan shop. Dad and I had finished looking around and were outside waiting for Mum, Leo and Abbie to come out. Suddenly, we hear an enormous crash behind us. We turned to see mum on the floor looking like a starfish! She was looking at the sky, praying that God would give her the strength to get up and not have her family laughing at her! Unfortunately for her, me and dad couldn’t control our laughter. Abbie and Leo were watching from the caravan and laughing too. Not only the family, but everyone in the shop! It was really embarrassing as the manager came and asked if mum was ok while the rest of us were still laughing. Then the manger went around all the caravans and took the steps away so that mum wouldn’t fall again, although that would have been fun to see. This was my highlight of 2024! I can’t get through the story when I’m telling my friends. I either can’t breathe or I’m on the floor like my mum dying of laughter.”

Here’s Leo’s version of the same event!

“We all went to a caravan showroom to find a new caravan. When we had arrived, we began to look around. The first caravan we looked at was nice and comfortable. We decided to look at some more. Mum went to get out of the caravan first, she stepped onto the stool and… the stool slipped and she fell starfish style on the floor.”

You’ll notice the theme of me “starfishing” on the floor, as it’s become known! I’m sure there will be more of these stories to come!

Our dad is on fire!

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This blog post has been written by my eldest, Tom! As you read the title for this, Tom would like you to be thinking of the song by The Kings of Leon!

Enjoy Tom’s story!

As I’m sure you know (or will find out) from other stories, we as a family love going camping, if you can call it that: caravan, deck chairs, windbreaks to block out everyone else there and hatred from those very people, and we go with one or two other families both lifelong friends of my parents and now all of us.

A key thing a person would note is that two of the three fathers in this collection have a significant lack of hair! My dad, the third of the trio is very proud of the fact that his hair has remained intact the longest (us kids would certainly tell you otherwise, the “McDonald’s” hairline is a staple comment that comes to mind).

One evening while we were “camping”, my dad, mum, Millie and I were sitting around a fire after dinner, while the army of kids, including the self-proclaimed “Starfish King” (a story for another time), were at the park and the other parents were washing dishes at the other end of the campsite.

We were having some usual parent-child chats about life and siblings who weren’t there, and of course, the condition of the fire dad had created, which was slowly losing its thunder as the evening went on.

As dad was fiddling with a stick that was trying to escape its fiery demise, it suddenly flamed up and, as chance would have it, the prominent tuft of hair that dad proudly holds to, did as well. As you can imagine, there was much shouting and after a second of panic and funny sounds, the fire was extinguished by many slaps and after that, his head continued to be slapped for a few more seconds.

We looked in shock as we saw a rather sizeable chunk of his hair had been singed and was still glowing a little. My first response was to run away in search of my dad’s bald friends, who also liked to mock his thinning hair.

When they got back, there was much laughter and speculation about whether my dad was going to have to shave it all off! Unfortunately, the next day, he woke up, and it was much harder to determine where the fire had got him (possibly due to the gallon of hair wax he puts on in the morning)

Brownsea Island

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This is an infamous story the kids love to tell about Sean. This is from 2012, when Tom was 5, Millie was 4, and I was about five months pregnant with Abbie. At the time, money was extremely tight and so my mother-in-law had bought us National Trust membership and I wanted to take full advantage of it! One of the few local options was Brownsea Island, just off Poole. This was quite exciting because we had to take a little ferry to get there. We would have to pay for that, but we’d checked the prices and thought it was worth going.

We drove to the ferry port to discover there was no parking. Sean offered to drop us off and find parking, but I was hesitant because Sean’s sense of direction is a little dubious and I thought we might end up never seeing him again. So we drove around the roads in the area looking for somewhere to park. All the roads had double yellow lines! So we ended up having to park at the beach in Sandbanks, probably the most expensive parking in the area and a good fifteen minute walk from the ferry.

Once parked, Sean and I dug out all the cash we had in order to pay the extortionate parking fee and headed off to the ferry. Millie was never a great walker and so Sean carried her most of the way. We got to the ferry and saw that we were just in time as they were getting people on board to leave.

We went to the little booth to buy our tickets. Four tickets, all good. They had space, and it was free for the children. All perfect. Sean handed over his debit card to pay and the man in the booth shook his head saying, “Sorry mate, we don’t take cards.” Sean’s mouth dropped open at this! Who doesn’t take cards?! Sean asked how he would prefer to be paid and the reply came, cash or cheque! He quietly lost it at this and laughingly said, “Cheque, cheque? No one has carried a cheque book since the 80s!” The man smiled in reply and insisted that we would have to pay by cash. Shaking his head, Sean got out his wallet and rummaged for some cash, but came up short because we’d used all our cash for the car park!

Turning back to the ticket man, he asked where the nearest cash point was, assuming it must be close if this was the only way to pay. But no, the nearest cash point was back at the beach.

Sean looked down at the kids, back at the ticket man, then at me. “Do we really want to go to Brownsea Island?” The chorus was “Yes!” from the kids. Sean sighed, and we walked across the road to where there was a tourist shop that the kids could look at the junk for sale.

We had a hasty whispered conversation about what to do and agreed there was no way round it. We’d already spent a fortune on parking, we were going to Brownsea Island. Sean left me with the kids and headed back to the beach.

We waited, and we waited. I was getting nervous Sean had gotten lost and, being five months pregnant, was desperate to use the public toilets. I took the kids in and realised that we couldn’t all fit into one cubicle with my enormous belly, and I was too nervous to leave them outside on their own. It was pretty grim in there and I was probably a lot more cautious when I only had two kids! We went back outside and waited as I hopped from foot to foot. Just as I was deciding we would have to all walk back to the car to find my geographically challenged husband, Sean came into view limping and with a face like thunder.

He was shaking his head and muttering under his breath, “This better be flipping worth it!”. I smiled sweetly and asked him to stand for a minute with the kids while I dashed into the toilets. We went up and paid for the tickets with cash and waited for the next ferry to arrive.

While we were waiting, I looked down and noticed Sean’s foot was bleeding. I reached into my bag and got out the ever ready wet wipes and gave one to him. Not daring to ask what happened!

He gave a half smile and told us what happened. He’d left us and ran along the road, thinking there must be a cash point somewhere between here and the beach. But no, he got all the way back to the car and finally found a cash point, still fuming about being offered to pay by cheque. He put his card in and entered his pin. It was at this point the cash point informed him that there would be a £1.50 charge for every £10 withdrawn. As I said, money was tight, and to spend £1.50 on getting his own money out of a cash point was a no no. So he walked a bit further and found another one but this one had a 25% charge! But by this stage, he knew we were waiting. The kids wanted to go; I wanted to go, so he had to get the cash. He walked back to the first cashpoint painfully and forcefully agreed to this outrageous charge and yanked his card and the cash out of the machine.

At this point, he was absolutely livid! This trip was supposed to be fun, and he’d had to drive around to find parking, walk for miles carrying a by now fairly heavy four-year-old, only to be told he couldn’t pay for the ferry unless he had cash or a flipping cheque(!), had to walk again to get the cash and finally pay for the cash. It was the last straw. He was so frustrated he now had to walk all the way back and pretend to be happy and enjoy this stupid island! An innocent pine cone lay on the road and so Sean took aim and kicked it with all his might!

The pine cone remained in place as his foot smashed into the pavement! As we heard this, I did my best to keep a straight face as Millie asked, “Why did you do that Daddy?”

We remember little about our time on Brownsea Island, but whenever someone mentions going there, Sean frowns and says definitely not worth the effort!

Key Dramas Part One

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You wouldn’t think there could be that many stories about keys, but as we were collating these stories, we realised that we’ve had some hilarious moments with keys. This is the first of them and I’ll intersperse them throughout the year!

Sean’s favourite key drama happened when our eldest two, Tom and Millie, were very young. Tom was two and Millie was under one. I had to take the kids out to do a food shop so took them out to the car, got them strapped in, put the buggy in the boot with the changing bag. I then reached into the changing bag to get the keys to drive. They weren’t there.

I was sure they should be in there. I emptied the entire bag into the boot and couldn’t find them. Then I repacked it and unfolded the buggy. I must have left them in there. But no. Still calm I realised I must have got them caught on one of the kids as I put them in their car seats. Nope. I strapped them back in the car.

Panic began to rise. I knelt down on the ground and looked under the car. I peered into the drain by the curb. Ran back to the house and checked they weren’t on the floor by the front door.

They had vanished.

Fortunately, I had my mobile with me. I called Sean at work, more than a little panicky, saying I couldn’t find the keys. He was very calm and said they must be there somewhere or I wouldn’t have been able to get the kids in the car. He suggested I look for a little longer and if I really couldn’t find them, he’d walk home and give me his keys.

Well, I searched and searched, now very tearful and exhausted. Shopping forgotten, I just wanted to get into the house. I called Sean back, and he agreed to come and rescue me!

It was about a fifteen-minute walk for him to come home and when he got to our road; I saw him running to get to me. He arrived at me at the car, walked around it, closed the boot and pulled the keys from the lock, handed them to me and ran back to work! Ooops!

Theunissen Table Tales

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At a wedding last year, my husband Sean was delivering the message, and he mentioned that to get to know us as a family, all you need to do is come for dinner. It’s around our table that you’ll hear all our stories, and our secrets! At that point in the service, several faces in the congregation turned to us and smiled knowingly.

It’s one of the things I love about our family. We can laugh at those little accidents and mistakes everyone experiences in everyday life. It means although some stories might have been difficult to live through with distance, we’re able to find the lighter side.

So with the help of my children and their permission, I’ve collated a whole list of favourite stories to share. Last year was a tough year and so rehearsing those moments of laughter is often what carries us through. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures and mishaps. I’d love to hear yours!

I’m going to start with a story the kids love to retell about me! I don’t think of myself as clumsy, but the reality is, I probably am, just a little!

A couple of years ago, Bournemouth introduced electric scooters and so we took the kids down to the seafront and hire them. Leo was very cautious and so instead he took his hoverboard with the go-kart attachment. We hired three scooters and took it in turns to scoot up and down the prom. Everything was going fine, the sun was shining, kids were laughing and racing each.

Then, unfortunately, Leo’s hoverboard battery died before we wanted to finish with the scooters. It was heavy and so we couldn’t just carry it around for the next hour or so, which meant someone had to take it back to the car. Sean was happy to walk it back, but I was sure there was a quicker way.

I suggested we strap the go-kart attachment to the handlebars of one of the electric scooters and then carry the (very heavy) hover board under one arm while scooting back on one of the other scooters. Sean was not keen on the idea but I’m a trier and so wouldn’t give it up! I strapped the go-kart on to Tom’s scooter as he watched with a doubtful look.

Sean and Tom both said they thought it wouldn’t work, but I was adamant it would be fine. Saying my stubborn catchphrase “It’ll be fine!”. I put the hover board under my arm, kicked off on the scooter, and accelerated off.

I say accelerated off, but in reality I went about 5 meters before the hoverboard started to slip and I had to readjust it. It turns out you can’t use an electric scooter with one hand while adjusting a weighty item under the other arm! I wobbled and toppled!

The crash was loud enough to draw the attention of everyone on the prom, which was, as always, very busy. My family stood 5 meters behind me staring and, in Sean’s case, hiding a smile and shaking his head. I lay, starfish style, on the sand covered concrete, assessing my injuries (a very real concern in your forties)! Definite bruised knees and elbows, and more importantly bruised ego!

After the freeze frame moment, Sean came jogging over and helped me up. The kids followed, staring down at me with incredulity. To his credit, Sean didn’t laugh, or say I told you so, not then anyway! He checked I was ok, picked up the hoverboard, unstrapped the go-kart from the other scooter and walked back to the car, despite my insisting I would try again!

To this day, whenever the kids tell this story, I still think we could have found a way! I think this story illustrates well one of my biggest blind spots! I think with a bit of effort anything is possible, and I’m willing to give it a go anyway!

My Dad

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I’ve been quiet on my blog these last few months because we had an unexpected loss. On the 18th May, my lovely dad went to bed and on the 19th, he didn’t wake up. Since then, it’s been a journey of navigating grief at a whole new level. When thinking of posting here, I wanted to start with telling you about this special man I had the privilege of calling Dad.

One thing to know about my Dad, is that he was fastidious about being on time and would rather be half an hour early than one minute late. It feels as though God understood this and so has taken him home early, before we were ready, but just right for him. 

Dad was born and raised in Guildford with his parents and sister, Angela. He had a happy childhood and loved his family very much. In his late teens, he unexpectedly lost his eyesight due to a blood disorder. Which meant an end to his motorbike loving lifestyle. For months, he travelled to and from the hospital while they tried to work out what was wrong. His family were so supportive and his older sister Angela, in particular, he mentioned with fondness during this difficult time. But he didn’t allow his disability to stop him. He married my mum, Jean, at 24 and then had my sister and I, his girls, over the following years. 

There were many highs and lows and one particular low was in 1990, our family had been made homeless and we had been temporarily housed in Lancing. We were invited to visit Grace Church, and it was here that Dad made a decision that changed his life. He gave his life to Jesus and devoted himself to learning about God.

From then on, his life was one of devotion. He volunteered at an audio production service and travelled there every day by train. Of course, he would be sure to be there at least an hour before he started! He loved his job and working with his best friend. Even when he retired, he kept up his friendship and learnt to play piano with his best friend’s wife, who did an incredible job helping him to learn by ear. Even passing exams, an achievement he was so proud of. 

I know he loved us girls, but he would have loved to have sons, which is why he was so pleased when we were both married and he had sons-in-law! He gave fantastic speeches at both weddings with no notes, just from memory. He’s been a great granddad to his seven grandchildren, willing to play games with them even when it’s been a struggle for him to see what’s happening. He would love to play catch with the kids and caused great hilarity when getting shocked at catching the ball! Often using his catchphrase of ‘Oh dear me no!’

In his retirement, he didn’t slow down. He volunteered at the food bank and anywhere else he could be useful. He was often concerned that he was in the way without realising that his presence alone was an encouragement! 

Being a member of a local church was really important for Dad and so for many years he would travel to Worthing to be a part of Redeemer, where he made some incredible friends who meant an awful lot to him. Then when the travelling got to be too much, he moved to join Lancing Tab, where he has made a whole new group of friends and has thrown himself into community life. I don’t doubt he’s missed by his church family.  

He learnt new technology and taught himself how to use an iPad and iPhone, meaning he could take part in meetings during lockdown and had weekly FaceTime chats with me. Even if some weeks it was a conversation with his forehead!

Apart from all these facts, my Dad was one of the kindest and most generous men I’ve ever known. He wouldn’t hesitate to help anyone who was in need and hated to ask for help himself. He had struggled with his health over the past few years, but even when he was down, he would cling to the hope of the gospel. He didn’t lose faith, but knew he was going to a better place.

Our whole family will cherish our memories of Dad. He’s been a devoted grandad to his grandchildren. Always ready to play games with them. Whether that was chess, catch, or the Sock Game.  What an incredible man he was. He taught me how to have a good work ethic, how to persevere no matter what, how to forgive and how to live life to the full. 

I love you dad and will never forget all that you taught us and the way that you lived and loved.