We had planned to hire a bus and head out to the annual wine and food festival ‘Spring in the Valley’. It looked like a great idea – everyone said ‘great idea!’

But when it came time to make it happen it became much trickier.

You see for couples to go it requires a whole day of baby-sitting. Most people we know have few friends up here they know well enough or they live a long way from family so the kid factor became our undoing.

We cancelled the bus last week and managed to recoup our deposit, but sadly we will not be going. Maybe next year with a bit more planning we can pull it off.

The kid factor is actually a very real issue in isolated suburbia.

Many people do not venture out at night because their kids don’t sleep in other people’s houses. Many people don’t know anyone well enough to baby-sit their kids. I realised this the first time we had 3 other famiies round for dinner and the house was empty at 8.00. What happened? Bed time…

Its not insurmountable, but for any group like us that attempts to get people together on an evening it is quite a challenge.

We have been doing Sunday brunch and Sunday early dinner (4.00pm) with friends to spend time with other families but nights are pretty much a write off.

I wonder if ‘kids who sleep anywhere’ is another aspect of church culture that we have taken for granted. Is there anyone else whose kids come with them everywhere and sleep on the floor on other beds, etc? Is that a church thing because we have become used to going out on so many evenings?