Half Term

On Ilkley Moor

Monday we had a very easy day: a slow morning, then we went to Kirkby Lonsdale to do the river walk, followed by lunch at Country Harvest and then back home to crash on the sofa and watch Big Hero 6.  He's better today, but crashed around 1.30 and really recover.

His illness isn't helped by the fact he has about 4 wobbly teeth at the moment, including two of which are hanging on by threads.  He doesn't want to loose them so gets really upset about it all especially if they catch or bleed.  It is having an effect on his eating, he won't eat anything hard or sharp and it takes an age for him to eat anything as it all has to go in the side of his mouth and be chewed at the back.  He can't cut anything at all with his front teeth.  We have had a lot of tears, we can't wait for them to come out.

Cow and Calf Rocks

Tuesday, Tom was feeling a bit better which was good because he was due to spend a day with Grannie and Grandpa - after all that is why they have moved up here, to spend more time with him and I'm sure they have more fun with him if we aren't around.  They decided to head to Skipton Castle with him, so we dropped him off and then headed further East.  We had planned to go to Brimham Rocks, but the traffic was very slow (still road closures from the floods) so we decided to stop at Ilkley and discover Cow and Calf Rocks instead.  However, it was lunch time when we arrived in Ilkley, so we decided to have a little explore and find a tea room first.  It is quite a well-to-do town, it has charm, and the feeling of lots of money, although there were quite a few charity shops (all very nicely presented).  It even has a satellite of Betty's Tea Rooms - and seeing the prices they charge, it really does need to be a well to do town!  We found another tea room - Cafe J and had a rather nice lunch at a reasonable price.

After lunch we headed up onto the moor (both of us singing On Ilkla Moor Baht' at - well it's hard not too!)  We found a place to park and clambered up on the moor and found the cow and calf rocks.  We tried using our imagination to turn the rocks into a cow and a calf, but didn't manage it.  Anyway a good time was spent clambering, even though it was very very windy.  Luckily there was a pub very near by so we had a restorative drink before heading back to Settle and picking up a very happy Tom - seems like he and his grand-parents had a great time without us.

Tea was fun (not!)  Tom's very loose tooth was causing him grief, as a result it took a very long time for him to eat anything.  We had risotto as I knew he would have difficulty, but it was quite ridiculous.  Problem is that he refuses to touch his tooth or wobble it out - so it is hanging on by a thread.

Tom and Lord Hinton

At bedtime I asked to see inside his mouth to find his tooth had gone!  The thread must have snapped during tea time and he must have ate it.  Oops.  Tom cried when I told him it had gone (silly boy) but managed to recover himself to write a letter to the tooth fairy to apologise for eating it, so he could get his reward.

Wednesday morning Tom and Matt headed to Settle to get their train tickets for a 'Boys Day Out' on Saturday whilst I put together a cake for a lady in the village (normally I don't do cakes during the holidays, but this is for a lady who has cancer and children at the school - I figured I should make time to do something nice for her).  Matt and Tom returned back to in time for lunch so we headed out to Inglesport, we then had a quiet afternoon.

In The Cavern

Thursday we figured we really should do something this half term, so we decided to head out to Liverpool to go to The Beatles Story as we had vouchers for it.  We decided to go a different route to normal (via Ormskirk) and arrived in a cold but clear Liverpool.  The first leg of the journey was popular with the boy. It was an old-fashioned engine-pulling-coaches type train, and the engine doing the pulling (pushing actually) was the same class as the super-duper digital locomotive he now has on his train set.
First stop was lunch, unfortunately Etsu wasn't open so we headed to Miller & Carter instead for a light steak bite (if there is such a thing).

Heading to America

Then to The Beatles Story which was good.  They focused on the people that made the Beatles: Brian Epstein, George Martin etc, and recreated The Cavern and The Yellow Submarine.  It was very interesting - but I would have loved a bit more about the music.  The museum was pretty empty which we were really surprised by, in fact Liverpool was pretty empty, we could only assume that it wasn't half term there, great for us though, we had expectations of overcrowding so were very pleasantly surprised.

We all live in a Yellow Submarine!

We finished off the museum visit with a 'Beatles Cookie' and a drink and then walked over to the Pier Head to the second museum where we enjoyed a 4d film involving the Beatles music (and a Ringo Starr with very rolly eyes).

Psychedelic Tom

We then decided it was time to head home before Tom got too tired.   We went home the traditional way, stopped off at a pub in Hornby for tea.

The Fab Six

Once again Tom had a problem with a very wobbly tooth (one of his big upper front teeth).  He had ordered macaroni cheese, but even this was causing him grief.  He had a mouth full of blood!  I asked him if it was ready to come out, he said yes, so I asked him to pull it out.  To my astonishment, he grabbed it and gave it a quick pull, it came out.  Hurray!!!!!!  I wrapped it up in a serviette and put it in my bag.  Well done Tom!  At last - we've been waiting ages for these to come out and at last he had the courage to pull it out - phew!  He ate up the rest of the pasta and then we headed home and he went straight to bed.

Gappy Tom

Friday - another quiet day, so Tom could recover from Liverpool.  The morning was spent writing Thank You cards, then we went to Ireby for lunch and returned home to watch films and play on the model railway.  Not a fun day, but necessary to try to get Tom well enough for school again next week.  Oh, and Tom has been actively wobbling his other loose tooth today - hurray, maybe this one won't take as long to come out.  He is looking very gappy now though!