A walk in Badgers Wood

This weekend the weather has been glorious. Lots of lovely sunshine.

On Saturday we headed to Badgers Wood for a walk. This is one of those places you pass in the car and think 'one day we'll stop for a walk'

Lots of things to see, my Daughter even spotted a Kingfisher (yes I was jealous!!)

We stopped for a while waiting for the train to pass. WOW that train moved fast, the little wooden bridge we where standing on actually shook.

Cramming it in. . . .

Following on from a previous post about the summer holidays going too fast, we have now started to 'cram in loads of stuff'

First we had a trip to Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry

Its very impressive and spread across several buildings.

The 'sewers' where especially entertaining for the children!!!

Then we did a quick tour of the shops in search of a new school bag for my Daughter.

We've also accomplish our pilgrimage to 'the beach' (any local beach will do, but you really must go in the summer holidays - its tradition!!) 

We visited in April to look at the shell in the photo above, looks a lot different when the tides in on a grey day!

The sulky looking Daughter is waiting for Son to get very wet! She didn't need to wait long, then he walked a bit funny and had to strip before getting in the car, after emptying all the water out of his wellies. 

We've also done uniform shopping and visited some family. Bring on next week for some more 'cramming'.

Summer knitting cont. . . .

So rewind a few weeks and you may remember my knitting project.

Most of the hat was completed before my holiday, just the sewing together needed to be done.

Then what to do with the left over wool ??

What about a snood!!

My stripy knitting produced loads of tangled ends to sew in. . . . 

Then the button selection *see button buying at the end*

So what do you think? I really like it.

But more importantly my Daughter does!!

*Button Buying. I have loads of buttons but not quite the right colour or quantity. So I headed to Abakhan fabric shop. . . . . .and came home with some buttons.*

(and two more balls of wool and some circular needles)

Slow down Summer Holidays !!

Is it just me or are the summer holidays going super fast? Last week I realize how long was left and had a bit of a panic!!!

We haven't been for some of our favorite summer days out yet. . . . 

So on Friday we headed up to Kirby Lonsdale for a walk along the river and a look in some of the lovely shops.

Its a beautiful town / village and I'm reliably told (my Mum told me) that it was used as a location for the BBC Jamaica Inn.

We had a look on the bridge for the devils hand print (This is something we did as children, the story has been very distorted over the years, I'm no longer sure there is a hand print. But my little boy was intrigued)

P.S. I've just had a quick look at Devils Bridge on Wikipedia and there's no mention of a hand print. Oh well this children enjoyed looking.

Our Holiday Part Two

 So after a lovely breakfast on Wednesday morning we set off for Cornwall.

We stopped on the way at Lyme Regis. What should I say about Lyme Regis?  WOW.

I really loved it, the beautiful gardens, the beach and harbor, the quirky shops and narrow streets, I could go on. I really wish we'd  had more time but sadly we had to carry on.

 On Thursday we went to The Eden Project.

This is somewhere I've wanted to visit for years!!

We arrived early and headed straight for the Biomes.

The first one was the Mediterranean Biome, it was beautiful and so lovely and warm.

 

The Rainforrest Biome was next and it was huge!! and very humid. They even had a cool room where you could call for medical backup.

The signs said to watch out for animals and my Daughter spotted a lizard (in the top right photo)

There was lots to see but be ready for walking, it covers a huge area and being in a 50m crater, its quite hilly.

So Thursday evening was our final evening before we went home. Personally I don't feel like the holiday is complete without dipping your toes in the sea. 

With that in mind we headed for the seaside village of  Charlestown. 

We all really enjoyed our holiday and will hopefully be heading back next year. 

Our Holiday Part One (don't worry, there are only two parts!!)

Early Monday morning we set off for Bournemouth for the first part of our holiday.

After many long hours on the motorway 

(similar to wacky races, do you remember that show?)

we stopped for some lunch. 

We had some lovely New Forrest ponies join us.

After checking into our hotel, we should've had a rest, BUT I hate doing that so I dragged persuaded everyone to go for a walk. We walked through the Chine Gardens down to the sea.

I love the sea. It was quite breezy, but still very beautiful.

Blue sky - Sand - Beach huts - Sunshine.

On Tuesday we went to the Tank Museum. What can I say? There are loads of tanks. . . . 

My other half thought it was great and my little boy said it was 'awesome' and 'epic', so a big success!!

Back at the hotel, yes we where all pretty tired, so time for another walk!!!

Back to the beach, then we headed for Bournemouth Pier.

Don't you just loooooove Beach Huts! 

Winter knitting in summer.

My Little boy is doing a reading challenge over the summer at our local library.

On a recent visit, just to pass some time, I had a little look in the knitting section.

Luckily I had my library card!!!

What to knit? ooh the debate.

On the short list are:

The super soft cape (for me),

The hat with horns (for my daughter),

or the gloves with acorns (for me).

A lot depend on whether or not you can get the wool. . . 

So after a trip to the wool shop, I am now knitting the hat with horns!

Its great to be knitting again.

The hat is done and now I'm knitting an ear.

Ooh how I hate knitting two of anything, but I'm told

 'the hat will look silly with one horn and one ear'

Yes I know!!

Water, water, everywhere. . .

Last week on a wet Friday, we packed up the car to go camping. The weather couldn't put us off because we had arranged to meet up with family in the Lakes. 

We managed to put up the tent and settle in whilst the weather was fine.

(we even put up bunting and fairy lights)

But Saturday was wet, wet, wet! We headed over to Barrow Dock Museum

 

 Spending time with family is great, we only had 13 in our group this time (along with four dogs). Number 14 is on placement from Uni at a Hospital for children. We really missed her !!

We did quite a bit of walking, mainly down to the lake.

We also did some 'playing with fire'. (We did supervise!!)

We also visited Ambleside and had a walk into Coniston.

We had visitors to our camp, a small group of goats. One goat is quite manageable but when the flock arrives my daughter had to use a folding chair to persuade them away!! Watching them around the camp was pretty funny, many unsuspecting campers had goats in there tents.