Family Get-together : Weymouth Caravan Park, Dorset

Friday, end-of-term, the nation - or that part of it that still has children at school - considers a holiday in celebration of what is left of summer. Our family, the English sector, plans a get-together over the week-end, at Weymouth, in Dorset.

Our own sub-sector, Doreen's and mine, has fragmented somewhat, with Louise in Zimbabwe with husband Andy and three children, sole representatives in Africa of our connection to that continent. Our fourth born in El Salvador, married to a lovely El Salvadoran, with one daughter, whose acquaintance we have yet to make.

Gale Money, Doreen's sister, with her family around her, intact - her second born with his wife and blonde, blue-eyed daughter Julie; her youngest son Michael and wife with their two children and lastly, her daughter and husband with their two children. All the children are roughly the same age.

Missing are the offspring of my brother-in-law who sadly passed away a few years back. They too, are now all in the UK. His wife - teaching in Scotland and two of her children, also teaching, while the third family member is married and in the USA.

Of our offspring, the ones in the UK, two daughters, one of whom is married are with us. Two children round off that family. Our fifth-born was working, and unable to get away. Our youngest daughter, the oldest of her generation with us, the link between grown-ups and jungfrau. Curiously, now that I have used, or misused - that word, how strong the German element is in this wider family.

Two, from South Africa, have had experience in Namibia as well, though they come from German backgrounds. Our El Salvadoran daughter-in-law's father's admirable attributes were no doubt as a result of his German national character which has contributed so much to humanity and will make itself felt in the ongoing history of our wider family.

One becomes tired of remarking how beautiful this country is. Trite as the observation is, though, it would seem ungrateful, ungracious, almost criminally churlish, not to record the deep appreciation we all felt at just the parts of it we saw from the road and the campsite. Some stretches of the road ran through thick Robin Hood forest, dark, secretive, where very little sunlight penetrated the roof of thickly-leaved branches lifted high by straight, stout pillars of tree-trunks only yards apart in every direction.

I'm not sure how many species of wild-life inhabit such a daunting environment. I imagine human occupation would produce a pygmy species, probably mobile, living off the creatures and the produce of the forest, making small attempt to transform their habitat by permanent improvement, adapting themselves more by a process of blending rather than competing.

In contrast are the gently billowing downs, that may have been tree-covered once, but now are cleared and either under cultivation, geometrically precise, straight-striped fields of crops of even height, and colour - shades of vibrant green, warm gold or soft brown, the shades of growth, maturity, fulfillment, satisfaction. And by the coast, the sea, calm, unending to a far, far distant horizon.

100 favourite camping sites

By guest blogger: Brian Murgatroyd