Friday 5 April 2013

Archery Girl

One of the advantages of Home Educating is the fact that we can have beautiful places all to ourselves on some days but also that we can join in with the crowds when we want to without feeling we have to cram everything in to holiday times. We've had some fantastic weather up here in the last week, although still bitterly cold with snow on the mountains, the sun has been lovely and warm and really makes you feel like venturing out again.

 Eilidh and I had a rare day all to ourselves and decided to take advantage of one of the Easter holiday archery sessions at Brockhole Visitor Centre and use our residents passes to have a trip on the Windermere Lake Cruises for part of our journey home. It's really nice to have some time one to one with the kids sometimes, although not always easy to do!


Brockhole Visitors Centre

Looking out over Lake Windermere, snowy mountains!

One of Eilidh's favourite places.....up a tree!

Beautiful sunshine = sparkly water!

Leaving Ambleside on the boat back.

Wherever we go the pencils come too!



































Deep concentration! She loved every minute x

















We had a great day and I'm thinking this archery lark may be costing us a bit of money in the future!


Tuesday 2 April 2013

The Long London Interlude...

I know it's been ages since we updated our blog.....we've had a bit of a family crisis in the last few months with my brother (J) being rushed to hospital in London and on life support for weeks. I won't go into huge details here but it has been and still is a horrible, stressful and very upsetting time for us all. Although he is stable at the moment, he has got a long way to go and some major, major things in the near future with their own set of risks.

On the bright side he's alive and fighting all the way!.... We've spent much more time than we had thought we would visiting London Museums and getting to know parts of London we would maybe never have ventured to ... and family wise, I think we've all pulled together where I know I was feeling a bit disconnected all the way up here in the Lake District. Funny how life goes isn't it? .....

Well there you go...so we've got a bit of catching up to do!  I guess the best place to start is London, with J being right in the middle at a hospital in Paddington, it's a great place to venture out from and very weird for me to be doing my old commute into London from Berks / Bucks area again, this time with kids in tow! We've spent many hours, whilst waiting for hospital visiting hours, wandering around the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, V&A, playing at the great Diana Memorial Park in Kensington Gardens, eating noodles and pizza at Camden Market and braving Hamleys on a bank holiday (not recommended!!). The kids and D have done a massive walk around a lot of the main attractions including Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Eye, Globe Theatre and over Tower Bridge while I was ill one of the days, so they have now seen more of London than I have!! 

We had always said we would take the kids to London in the next couple of years and although this wasn't in the best of circumstances, it has still been a great experience for them and we may still have a few more visits yet this year.

Royal Albert Hall


Tower Bridge

Globe Theatre

Marble Arch

Pirate Ship at Kensington Gardens


 

Saturday 12 January 2013

Pines and picnics...

After a lovely Christmas and New Year down South (I'll write about this in the next few days) we have had the first few days of no rain....hurrah!! Apparently we're heading into a really cold snap for the next month so decided to get out and enjoy the cold, crisp, dry and sunny day we had on offer today by heading back over to Grizedale Forest.

We are slowly working our way through the different trails, so today it was the turn of the Grizedale Tarn Trail, 3.5 miles of beautiful forest walk with the added bonus of a natural tarn and sculptures along the way. Although it was a chilly day, the sun shone through the trees and we found a lovely little spot for our lunch but I'll let the pictures do the talking......

The start of the trail...

Through the arch...

with the sun shining through the trees...

over the bridge...

winding up the musical trees as we went.....

That's one big stile!!

Over a stream ...

Nice place for a picnic...hot soup all round..

A very peculiar man-made channel in the middle of the forest.....

What's that bright shiny thing above the pines?

The fox!

A rather large, wooden spiky thing

The newest sculpture...'Ben the serious rambler'

A fence!!

and it goes on....

We found the tarn! 

Pulling my stomach in whilst trying to smile...not easy!!

Grizedale Tarm...ahhhh...


Interesting stile with drop down cover to keep deer out (or in!)

Over another stream....


Cairn tree

On the homeward stretch, back at the bridge.

Time for hot chocolate!

Here comes the ferry to carry us homeward....