Holidays - Week 1

Monday - we decided to have a quiet, useful day, so I took Tom to Clarks in Kendal to get him some tough trainers for school next year and then Asda to buy his school uniform (6 new polo shirts) and daps.  We also did the weekly food shop as we were there.  Can you believe to do the shopping and have lunch took us over 2 hours - no wonder I normally do on-line shopping, what a waste of time!  However, can't complain, Tom was an angel, didn't complain at all and was very helpful, fetching grocery items etc.  A dull day was actually quite fun.


Tuesday - I had a wedding cake and cupcakes and a birthday cake to make this week.  The idea was to do them whilst Tom was at football, but of course because of his broken arm there was no football!  To give me time to get things done, Matt took Tom to the National Railway Museum for the day whilst I caked like mad.  However, the Rancom man came and Kate came for a natter, so I didn't get started until after 11am, but I put my head down and got enough done - phew!

Tom and Mallard

Yes, we hadn't been to the National Railway Museum for a while, so we figured it was time for another visit. We parked at Steeton and Silsden station, as recommended by an Ingleton friend, and got the electric train down to Leeds, where we only had to wait 10 minutes for a fast train to York.
There was no queue whatsoever to get into the museum, quite different from last time, and once inside the Great Hall, Tom headed straight for the big O gauge model railway (no surprise there), but there were only two trains running on it, so we didn't stay long. We watched two members of staff give a demonstration of the turntable going round, with a large steam locomotive on it, and we then had a look at all the locomotives on display. My favourite was a beautiful streamlined maroon steam locomotive that looked as if it was brand-new that day. A really magnificent sight.

Best seat on the train

We had an early lunch (homemade macaroni cheese and chips for both of us) sitting alongside Queen Victoria's royal train, after which Tom decided he'd like a ride on the outdoor miniature railway, which he did, managing to sit right behind the locomotive.
We then had another quick look round our favourite bits before heading back to your station for "tea and a bun", which consisted of a half pint of cordial for him and to half pints of real ale for me at the excellent York Tap, a craft beer pub converted from the old York station ticket office. I think Tom approves of beer gardens directly on busy station platforms.
Once we'd finished our refreshments, we caught a Penzance train back to Leeds, where we were under orders to visit Wasabi and buy bentos for tea, which we duly did.
Our shopping complete, we caught the electric train back to Steeton and Silsden, and then endured an extremely slow and frustrating drive home along the A65. It took nearly an hour to reach Ingleton.
Still, it was a pleasant day out and Tom was excellent company, as he generally is these days.

Two cheery crappies

Homage to the Morecambe Missile

Wednesday - another useful day.  Tom and I took the car to Morecambe to have its air conditioning pipes looked at - it hasn't been working very well recently.  We waited about 45 mins whilst they checked for a leak - yep there was one, so we booked it in again for new pipes next week.  As we were already in Morecambe and it was lunch time, we decided to head to the promenade and went for a walk.  It was a lovely day, sunny and very clear.  We walked along the prom, said hello to Eric and headed down to the stone jetty to the cafe for lunch.  We then hit the amusements to loose £1 of 2ps - took quite a while and Tom ended up winning 3 lots of sweets via some tokens, and was very happy.  We then headed to the wool shop so I could browse yarns for my tea cosies and found it was closed on Wednesdays - oh joy!  We then headed back to the car and back home.

Panorama of Morecambe Bay

At 3pm Kate and Finn turned up, they were having Tom for the afternoon whilst I finished off my cakes.  I got them finished at 5.30, delivered them with Matt and then went to Kate's with a bottle of white to pick up Tom.  We ended up drinking it with her and Josh, and relaxing in their garden until about 8pm - a lovely friendly evening with good friends, just what we needed after our Deer Shed experience.

Thursday was a nasty, rainy day.  I decided to take Tom to watch the BFG, I gave him a choice of towns to watch it and he decided on Kendal.  I haven't yet found a good eatery in Kendal so put out a feeler on Facebook and got quite a few suggestions of eateries I haven't heard of.  We ended up at one, Brew Brothers and were very happy.  Big Herdy wall paper, a nice vibe and an interesting menu.  Was full of office workers which I guess means that it must be OK and fast service which is what we needed as we didn't have a huge amount of time.

We got to the Old Brewery Cinema 10 mins before the film and managed to get good seats, good job we arrived when we did because the cinema was full to bursting (first time I've ever seen that) by the time the film started.  It was a good film and held Tom's attention.  Not sure he followed it completely, (I didn't) but the animation was great and it was a good use of a wet and miserable day.


Friday we had a quiet morning and then met up with the Ellershaws x3 (Sal was in London with a friend who has just been bereaved) in the afternoon to do the waterfalls walk.  As it has been raining so much recently, the waterfalls were looking quite splendid, roaring their way down through the valleys.  The children were in good form and marched their way round with no complaints and with haste.  We were particularly impressed with little Lottie who is only 4 and matched the pace of the older children with little to no effort.  As has become habit with walks with the Ellershaws, we had a break and beers came out as refreshments.  I wasn't drinking as I had a craft evening to go to where I was hoping to learn some crochet, but the boys didn't hold back and enjoyed themselves.

Young hikers

Thornton Force in good flow

Unfortunately, Catlin turned her ankle right towards the end and got a little upset, so me, Matt, Tom and Lottie were sent on ahead to grab a table at The Old Post Office for tea.  Oh yes, there was a reason why we met in the afternoon, the boys like a drink at the OPO and what better place to end a walk.  We were lucky and found a table so ordered some platters, beers and cordials.  We had a good nosh and headed home happy around 7.30.  A good afternoon / evening, followed by a craft evening at Fiona's where I tried to learn some crochet.  It is still a mystery, but I made a sun which was very satisfying and finishes off one of my tea cosies.

Saturday

Nik "Del Boy" Young

Today was Matt's Birthday but our celebrations were being postponed till tomorrow as he was playing cricket today.  The morning saw us in Settle visiting Pat and Bob.  We then had lunch in Feizor (where a lady bashed our car reversing into us even though Matt had his hand on the horn!)  Luckily a dent popped straight out.  Apparently, her radio was on so loud that she couldn't hear our horn!  Oh hum.  We all had a snacky lunch, then Matt went to play cricket, whilst Tom and I made a chocolate birthday cake for Matt.  We then watched a bit of the cricket before heading home to make our compulsory Saturday tea of mushroom pasta.  Matt was back in time for it as they won their cricket match in super quick time (the visiting team didn't have a full complement of players).  We then had a quiet, cosy evening in.

Sunday - Pat and Bob came round at 11am to collect Tom.  My birthday present to Matt was a night in a spa hotel in the Lake District, including an all over body massage for the two of us.  I had asked Pat and Bob to have Tom for Sunday night, they suggested they have him for 2 nights, which meant that we had the whole of Monday to play and do whatever we wished - we were all happy with that and I discovered that Tom can keep a secret as I figured I should tell him in advance what he was up to.  So, Tom happily left with Pat and Bob and we packed a bag and headed to the Lake District.  We went to Cartmel for mooch around and lunch and landed in The Swan at Newby Bridge at 2.30 ready to check-in in time for our massage.  The pub/hotel was way way way bigger than it looks from outside and inside is very very freshly decorated (it had to close for 6 months after the floods as the ground floor was ruined).  We found our room which was very lovely, nice big bed, huge comfy dressing gowns, posh toiletries etc etc.

Nik, having conquered Red Screes

We headed to the spa, filled in our questionnaires and then went for our massages.  Oh wow, it was amazing!  I got to choose which oils I wanted, then a bowl of infusions was placed under my face for me to inhale and a hot, damp towel was placed on my back.  I was then massaged for an hour - it was heavenly.  She concentrated on my shoulders which are full of knots and tension (all the knitting I'm doing) - I could feel my muscles pinging all over the place, but she also did my back, arms, legs, fingers and toes (didn't realise you could massage fingers and toes).  I felt amazing afterwards.  I found a nice, relaxed Matt in the relaxation room who was equally happy.  We then decided to go for a walk in the forest to stimulate our appetites.  We walked up a hill and found a crenelated tower and were hoping to see a view, but no luck.  Oh well, never mind, it was a pleasant walk and we found lots of lovely sweet wild raspberries to eat on the way.  We then went for a swim, sauna and jacuzzi in the spa to relax again.  We decided to have dinner in the hotel - it was a good experience, lots of interesting menu items - we both ended up having carb free dinners - I had courgetti with milanese chicken and roasted vine tomatoes whilst Matt had Asian slaw salad with chicken and cashew nuts.  This meant that we both had room for pudding and opted for the cheese board which we inhaled.  We didn't get back to our room until after 10pm - very very late for us so it must have been good.

Bowness from above

We slept quite well (for us anyway) and after much discussion re what to do for breakfast, decided to stay at the hotel and pay the extortinate price for it.  It was £9 for continental breakfast and £14 for anything hot.  We didn't realise at the time that breakfast was included in the package - durr!  We had a nice, easy morning as we had decided to stay at the hotel for lunch (this was also included in the package, although once again I hadn't realised when I booked it and it didn't say on any paperwork that it was).  We therefore spent the morning in the spa: swimming, steaming and sweating before having a huge, thick, well filled coronation chicken sandwich each.

Highland calf

We then headed to the Kirkstone Pass and parked at the Kirkstone Inn.  Opposite the Kirkstone Inn is what I would call a chid's mountain, Red Screes, a triangular mountain that goes vertically up from the valley bottom.  People gather at the pub to watch mad people walk straight up it.  We didn't go to visit the pub - we decided that we were both fit enough (and mad enough) to walk up it.  I was quite scared at the start, but I surprised myself, I walked up the track and didn't really feel it - we only stopped once and that was more to enjoy the view rather than gather breath (in fact I didn't get out of breath at all!)  Wow!  Matt was the same too and we both congratulated ourselves on how fit we have become in the last year (such a shame it took such a major operation to get me to this state!)  We were treated to a wonderful view at the top - we could see most of Windermere, Coniston Water, Ullswater and lots of mountains.  It was clear and sunny and there were Hardwick sheep grazing around us - what more could we want?  We spent quite a while on the top taking in the different views.  We then headed back down the mountain (probably took longer than going up), retrieved our car and drove down to Ambleside.  I went to Gaynor Sport to get a new pair of everyday trainers (seems a tradition now to get my yearly pair from Gaynor Sports during the summer sales).

Montgue - the new boy

Matt fell in love with a large Mammut Mammoth here but managed to walk away.  We then went for a drink, whilst Matt mulled over the mammoth.  He went back to the store, whilst I went shopping for some bits and pieces, we met up - he with a huge mammoth under his arm!  He is a ridiculous softie when it comes to mammoths - we have named him Montague!  We then headed back home, had showers etc and went to the Indian in Ingleton for dinner.  A lovely short break it felt longer than 2 days.  Certainly we were both in need of it, think we should do it more often!