Making the most of grey days

Wednesday
Another dreary grey and rainy day.  We decided to head into Lancaster to try out a new Japanese restaurant that had just opened.  We did a spot of shopping first (mainly in Atkinsons - Matt wanted some coffee beans for his new coffee mill).  We then headed to Nami to find they were only doing sushi.  Sushi was the last thing we wanted - it was cold, we were cold, so we headed round the corner to the Sun Hotel and had a rather lovely lunch.  This is the best pub in the city we think - good service, nice ambiance and very good food.  We all ate up well.  We then decided to go looking for a corner unit for the lounge in a furniture warehouse in Morecambe, but got caught up in a lot of traffic and didn't find what we wanted.  Not a great trip, but a nice lunch!

Thursday
Thursday morning, Tom and I went swimming again at Stacksteads, and once again Tom was really good - his swimming really is coming on.  We came home and all went to Inglesport for lunch.  Tom and I then went to the Ellwoods for the afternoon - consisted of me and Alice trying to catch up whilst marshaling Charlie, Harry and Tom.  There were quite a few tears - mainly from Tom as Charlie was 'forcing' him to do things he didn't want to do.  Not a great success!

As we didn't have any friends to bring in the New Year with, Tom went to bed at the usual time (with a little sulk) and we sat down wondering what to do.  Matt ended up doing some colouring in with his new Japanese themed colouring books and I googled.  Very Rock and Roll.  Matt did some channel hopping and surprisingly came across an interesting programme on BBC Alba - the ABC of Gaelic cooking.  It was strangely compelling, so we settled down in front of it.  The next programme was a sort of social history of the Highlands, charting the life of a lady who started life on Harris, then moved to Skye, living in crofts all the way.  It turned out that she's an actress in a Gaelic soap opera.  Again, it was strangely compelling. After that was a programme of Gaelic whisky drinking songs.  As we were drinking whisky it seemed sensible to keep it on.  By the end of that it was 11.30 and they had a live Ceilidh going on.  Having had a look at the guest list for Jools Holland, we decided we would remain loyal to BBC Alba and watched that.  Think we were probably the only ones in Ingleton watching the channel, but we enjoyed it.  Think we must have seen nearly all 45,000 Gaelic speakers throughout the night.

Friday

Freezing on the top of the Howgills

It wasn't raining - hurrah, so we decided to make the most of it and head out.  Matt suggested the Howgills (near Sedburgh) the last time we had tried these, Tom was a baby - he objected to the wind and we had to abort.  This time he was much better.  It wasn't a long walk, but it was a steep walk and it was FREEZING at the top - with a biting wind.  It would have been nice to go further for views etc, but there was no way, the wind was cutting.  Tom did very well, he was wrapped up in layers and didn't really feel the cold.  We had a quick picnic on the driest bit of grass we could find and then headed back down.  As we had done so good in horrible weather, Matt suggested we then drive to Dent - the home of great puddings, so we did and scoffed a sticky toffee pudding as a reward for being good girls and boys. We then took the gated road back to Ingleton.  The best use of a 'sort of' OK day.

Saturday

Indian Selfie

The day of the Matt Young Translations Christmas party - we had decided to head to Bradford, to try out a new restaurant we saw on the telly: The Sweet Centre.  We got the train, walked through a dodgy looking neighbourhood, to find it.  The restaurant was good, the service attentive and the food fine, but somehow it just didn't cut it - I think we are in love with The Kashmir - even though the service there is very rough and ready.

After lunch we went in search of a Asian food shop and found two - one full of Indian food stuffs and the other full of oriental food stuffs so we were in our element and found quite a few things we couldn't live without.  We then went to see the new Westfield shopping centre which has just opened up and were pretty underwhelmed by it.  We had a coffee and then got the train home.

Playing Trombone (apparently Tom is a natural!)

Sunday
We headed up North to Dollar to see Neil, Sharon, Rory and Lewis.  It's  a 3 hour journey, but a lot of it is very scenic, so it goes quite quickly.  We stopped off in Moffat and found a rather lovely tea room for lunch, then continued up.  We got to Dollar around 1.30.  Lewis and Rory were out at the pantomime, so Tom had full reign with their toys.  The whirlwinds arrived around 5 - the rest of the evening was a bit of a blur.  The boys got on fine, we had a fantastic roast courtesy of Neil, and were up past midnight drinking wine and eating huge amounts of cheese.  

Monday

Soggy men

Soggy bottom boys

We managed not to be too hungover, both of us managing a decent sleep.  It was a wet and miserable day but we managed to get ourselves to Campbell Castle in Dollar for a run around.  It was cold and wet, but the boys didn't mind, it wasn't until the adults were drenched that we decided enough was enough and we left.  Then lunch at the Blezard's (soup of course - we are in Scotland after all) and then we headed home.  We went home via the Kelpies - huge statues of horses, set by the canal, at 100ft tall they were very impressive - even with grey skies and cold cold wind.

Large horse

What a big snout!

We stopped off at Moffat again on the way home for tea and a bun and some whisky shopping before heading south again.  Got home in good time, had tea, Tom went to bed and I struggled through Boxercise - which surprisingly was cure for my hangover!