A word that gets banded about in littles predominately the Alg circles no matter what sites you may belong to is "Camp" of which there are a number in North America and the UK and you may well wonder what is that all about.
The concept of a camp is simply a meet up over a fixed period of days of littles where people get the chance to put a face to a name, talk, play and critically be your little selves in a safe accepting environment.
Some may be organized more like a private hiring of a commercial but alg friendly complex with appropriate steps taken to keep the environment one where your privacy is respected especially in the era of the do it all smartphone.
Others are very much self organized up to the point of say making your own arrangements for things like meals, bringing any play equipment etc with you and their are advantages and disadvantages in both.
Speaking personally It would be great of one could take over a Haven Holidays site for a few days with Rory the Tiger complete with full catering laid on so everyone could stay very much in child-like playing to the last second head-space but you'd need a large number of folk to do this and I can't see that happening anytime soon.
But anyway I went to one such meet up in the UK.
One obvious thing is you need to get there, so I went part way by train and then catching a lift with two littles friends of mine as with my health conditions, driving ain't gonna happen and I tire easily racing around rail stations going from one connecting service to another. Thanks folks.
Like with most kind of meetings, the first bit was more a meet and greet aided by lots of candy on a table you could help yourself to after taking your stuff up to your room as you had a room number allocated and as shown above, also a BIG name tag on your door should anyone forget where your room is or if you're like me you do yourself.
What you wear is generally up to you as the sense of being little is pretty much in your head-space and people do it differently and in my case I went in my uniform as I feel more comfortable in my own skin that way enabling my little to come out more.
The big thing is playing together - that's right - what most of us did during chronological childhood.
Seasoned readers of this blog in addition to people in chat know I have major issues around trains and the railway stemming from how they were forced upon Mommy and I to the exclusion of what we wanted to do and the way we were treated for not wanting to go along with it.
I do get very nervous around them even now.
One of my friends brought a train set which kind of puzzled me as trains and girls generally don't go together but it proved to be quite interesting in that it is a Fairy based set a bit like this with Fairies, Trees and a Station and the Engine and Coaches in painted in girlie colours rather than the more boy sort especially the hobby sort like those by Hornby and the like.
The track was made from wood with grooves in that you pushed the train along by hand.
I found myself for once in my life actually enjoying playing with trains, making hooting noises and yes having the odd crash as that school girl!
Perhaps this was just what I needed to work through my emotions.
A member of our little group had been rather poorly for a period and on the Friday evening I heard noises.
Waking up the next morning I like the rest of the girls found a present which when unwrapped turned out to be a Tatty Teddy blue nose friend with mine being a "Peanuts" model.
Apart from being a really lovely gesture, this plushie didn't just talk, it conversed to others in the series when correctly set up, in an awfully cute way, talking of having adventures, playing together and being best friends.
To me it seemed to sum up the whole feel of being together as girls sharing and playing together
I spent a bit of time talking about dollies as a few of us had brought our dolls or that bit of our collections we could carry in our cases with us, learning about them and why they mattered to their owners.
Among the many games I played Scrabble, Frustration (and boy wasn't it just!), Pool (well kind of!) and Tetris which was fun although with my amazingly bad co-ordination and memory it's not my strong point.
One thing I did enjoy which takes me back a bit to actual childhood was playing with guns that fire plastic pellets out with some of the 'younger' ones because many of the girls I played with were tomboys and we did these things while the boys were well out of doors, in the woods.
The Sticky One had the Colour Game going where you are in teams hunting for pictures with clues that lead to others ultimately ending up in winning a prize as we run around camp up and down the stairs several times like crazy!
I'll swear I lost weight doing that!!!
We had a couple of quizzes going too, an arts and crafts session and several of us did some photography.
Although compared to previous meets it was a bit more laid back in part probably with the extreme weather we had the week or so before making us less inclined to bring outdoor play equipment or organize any sports, I had a marvellous time being me.
Maybe for those of you who read this and are littles who haven't for whatever reason attended such a meet, it may inspire you to find one in your own area or maybe organize one yourself with friends for what you can gain through being together.
One final word, I wore a skirt coming to camp and left returning in one walking out of the car through my friends front door with pride and a much needed confidence boost.
Thank yous: Camp Organizers (details elsewhere), Takeaway collectors (details elsewhere), Girls who bigged up and became chefs and waitresses
And finally everyone who turned up littles and partners of for being so friendly.
