Quiet Weekend

We didn't really do much this weekend, the weather wasn't great, and Tom wasn't great either!

Saturday - after looking at the weather we decided we should have a day in rather than out as although it was sunny, it was very windy.  After much debate we decided to go for a car ride in the Dales over to Kirkby Stephen.  It was a very beautiful ride - lots of dales, some quite different to here - more remote, rugged and deserted (apart from the sheep!).  First stop was the Stainmore Railway.  This is a 'very' local heritage railway and wasn't operational this weekend, although there were plenty of volunteers around and we were warmly welcomed for a look around.  Tom got to play on the name plate, we bought some bits and pieces in the shop and looked around their little museum.  A cute place, we will be back one weekend when it is open (for the ride over more than anything else).

We then headed into the village for lunch and found ourselves a good little tea room in The Mulberry Tree, then a visit to the tourist information office where I managed to find myself a patch (very rare these days) before heading back a different way home.  

Now Tom wasn't really himself all day.  He seemed in his own world, and nothing we could do would shake him out of it.  We asked him if there was anything the matter, but just got a shoulder shrug as a response.  We thought he might nod off in the car on the way home but he didn't.  All very curious.  We thought the roast dinner we had planned for him would help, but it didn't.  Oh hum, early to bed then.

When Tom went to bed he started to complain of ear ache.  Not great (did I mention one of his grommets fell out about 2 weeks ago - it came out in a huge big ball of wax).  We believed him (he often comes up with fake ailments) and as we left him to go to sleep we thought it wouldn't be the last we heard of him.  We were right.  Matt ended up sitting with him on his bed until he went to sleep.  It didn't take long - I was really surprised, I guess he was tired.  However, he coughed in his sleep, the cough woke him up and then we had crying and this time he wasn't going to be consoled and he wasn't going to go back to sleep.  In the end we allowed him to get up and put Totoro on the telly for him.  This did the trick, he got absorbed into the film and forgot about his ears.  Once the film finished (about 10pm) he went back to bed happily and back to sleep.  

Sunday

Believe it or not Tom slept right through!  We couldn't quite believe it when we woke up and realised that it was morning.  Well done Totoro.  He was much perkier in the morning and said he wanted to play cricket so off he went.  The village cricket club offer cricket sessions for little ones on a Sunday morning in an attempt to get children enthused with it and join the adult club later on.  Matt took him down and I joined them later on (I was waiting in for some cakes to be collected).  Although one of the smallest, he was actually quite good, especially during batting practise - he hit nearly every ball, when most of the others missed nearly every ball (although I think the bowler was being nice to him).    When we got back, I noticed there was a discharge in his ear, poor thing, not huge amounts, but definitely enough to be quite uncomfortable.  He was happy though, the discharge meant his ears weren't hurting anymore.

We went to Inglesport for lunch and then Matt went off to play cricket for the village team.  Tom and I went over to watch him for a bit, but they were having a bad day so there wasn't too much to see!  We had a quiet afternoon, tea and bed.

Sorry, we didn't take any photos this weekend!

Birthday Weekend

With the Ellershaws

I had a wonderful birthday weekend, thanks to everyone for their presents and messages.  It started on Friday after school when Tom came home with a certificate of merit for a beautifully drawn and painted sunflower?!  We were gobsmacked as he very rarely does anything creative, and almost never done anything creatively well.  So that was a good start.

Friday night was spent in The Old Post Office, I had arranged a girlie night out.  Kate's birthday is also 9th May so we invited a gang of people as a joint party - there were 12 of us altogether.   We all ordered platters in advance.  I had a really good night out.  Stayed on the white wine all night and didn't suffer any ill effects in the morning - phew!  Everyone was in super chatty mood and the evening just flew.  

Tom, Charlotte and Caitlin

In the morning Tom couldn't help himself and barged into our bedroom early to wake me so I would know it was my birthday!  Bless him, he had been mega excited about it all week!  I got a good haul of presents (thank you everyone) and then the boys went downstairs to make me breakfast in bed: soft boiled egg with dippy soldiers.  Absolute bliss - that was the best.  I felt very very spoiled.  As it was a nasty rainy day we had decided to go to Leeds on the train - keeps all of us happy.  We were going to go to Miller & Carter for a steak lunch, but en route we came across Friends of Ham, a pub which looked very interesting so we headed in there instead and had a platter of french ham and cheese which was very lovely.  We then headed to Fat Face where we all found something in the half price sale.  After a quick Primark shop we stopped off at M&S for tea and a bun before picking up tea from Wasabi.  Tom had a very fidgety trip home on the train, so he was in bed in record time after wolfing down his sushi.  Oh, almost forgot - when we got home there was a cake on the door stop, with a tag attached saying that as I spend all my time making other people cakes, here was a homemade cake for me!  It was from Caroline, what a lovely sentiment.

Silly faces

Anyway it was a fab birthday, best one in years, so thank you everyone.

Sunday we had arranged to do the waterfalls trail with Caitlin and her family.  Apparently Caitlin is not a great walker (unlike her 3 year old sister) but her parents wanted to do the trail.  They thought if Tom was around it might spur her on.  It certainly worked, Tom and Caitlin were out front and running around most of it.  Never would we have guessed Caitlin was a whiney walker!  Lottie at 3 raced round too, mind you it is a fab walk and it was the first time they did it so really they should have enjoyed it.  We got round in record time so we invited the Ellershaws round for tea and cake which was just as well as we now had 2 cakes to eat as I had made a chocolate cherry R and D cake as my treat to me.  Once the Ellershaws left we sat down to watch Airplanes - Tom didn't cry - yahoooooo!  

Bank Holiday Weekend

Saturday

Was a very horrible, blustery and rainy day.  A day for being inside.  However, it was Fred and Frank's army party today which was taking place outside.  Oh hum, as usual it was the adults who minded more than the kids.  Enjoy-a-Ball Paul was there so the kids had fun.  They all came in for their mess and with the weather getting worse and worse they didn't go out again.  Poor Caroline and Rob's extension is only just finished and they had 20 plus children in there causing trouble.  Oh well, there were good spirits all round and the children enjoyed themselves.

We were wondering what to do and decided it would be nice to go to a pub, and then we suddenly thought that the Old Post Office would be open - ah ha!  We hadn't been fed, so that meant we could go and try out their platters.  Fantastic.  We headed over there and found it empty.  I had a Mediterranean platter and Matt the fish platter - both were excellent, however, Tom still managed to find some room to 'help' us out.  Fantastic!  We then went home and watched a film as it was still a revolting day!

Sunday

Trying to figure out Morris Dancing

We had found out in the local paper that Skipton has a waterways festival this weekend - the canal goes straight through its centre.  This year the theme was nursery rhymes and as that is this half term's topic for Tom at school, we thought it would be a good idea to go along.  The weather still wasn't great, but it was due to clear so we headed over.  We parked at the nominated car park and got a vintage Route master number 9 down to the town, which was fab as we got the best seats in the house.  We had a quick look around the farmers' market and headed through the main bit in search of a pub for lunch.  We ended up going to one called 'The Narrow Boat' very apt don't you think?  It was a proper real ale pub, children were only allowed in if they were eating a proper lunch with adults.  Not a problem - Tom was hungry.  Wow, it was a good food pub as well, they had lots of light bites, which were smaller versions of their main courses and just the right portion for a lunch.  The boys had fish and chips and I had risotto.  We were all happy and we all ate up.  This pub was also home to a troop of Morris dancers so we were treated to lots of jingly bells as they walked around.

Decorated boats

Once fed we headed back to the main canal area to see what was on.  The Morris dancers had got there first and were dancing.  Tom was interested and made his way to the front of the crowd.  They held his interest big time, in fact we stayed to watch the full performance.  They weren't even particularly good, but were obviously having a good time.  Next on the schedule was the raft race.  There were cash prizes for the first 3 teams, but only 2 entered, and one of those was the Morris dancers!  Next time we should take a boat with us would be an easy win!  We looked around the boats, some had been decorated really well with nursery rhyme themed items, although many of the nursery rhymes were old ones that Tom didn't know: Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Little Miss Muffet,  The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe, etc etc (not, I hasten to add through lack of me reciting them to him as I did many many many times when he was a non listening toddler!)  Tom then had a go on a huge bouncy slide before we got the vintage bus back to the car park.

As the sun had come out and the countryside was looking good and it wasn't too late, we decided to head to Malham on the way home.  We got there just in time to ask at the tourist office about the walk to Janet's Foss.  The lady pointed us in the right direction and off we went.  It was a pleasant walk, alongside a river ending up in a lovely waterfall.  A very pleasant end to the day.

Monday

Bus stop scarecrow

About to be devoured

Bank Holiday Monday and it wasn't raining - hurray.  We had decided to go to Wray for the scarecrow festival.  We had a great time.  The scarecrows were looking good - almost one in every house in the village.  Also there was a big fair and fun fair which meant we had a busy day.  As Wray is quite close to Ingleton we 'bumped' into a number of people we knew.  First of all we saw Judith from Smile Nursery who recognised us and Tom immediately.  Not only that, but she remembered everything about us: my cake business, our link with Japan, Tom's friends at nursery.  I was very impressed as it has been almost 2 years now since he was there.

Naughty Kristoph

We also bumped into Miss Swindlehurst who was very good, taking time to talk to Tom considering it was her day off, also some other friends from his class.  We later found out that we missed quite a few more of our friends.  Tom had a couple of goes on some attractions in the fun fair, we spent some time watching some things going on in the main field - including a pipe band where Tom really got into the drumming and some birds of prey do their stuff, but their star attraction, a Russian Steppe Eagle called Kristoph, decided to fly off rather than do his party tricks, bringing a quick end to the performance.  Tom also saw a magic show before we decided we had had enough and returned back home.  It was a good day out and it didn't rain - hurray!