Holidays

Poetry in motion

Wednesday we had a slow morning whilst the car was having its breaks fixed.  Then in the afternoon we went shopping to Kirkby Lonsdale as we were having the Mannings over for tea - they moved into the village from Stainforth last week, and we thought it would be nice to have them over for tea to give them an Ingleton welcome.  I got a big gammon out of the freezer to try to give us some more space.  Once all the preparations were made, Tom and I went over to the community field with some games including Frisbee which Tom is addicted to at the moment (he will happily play Frisbee for 8 hours given the chance).  Steph, Sierra and Jack caught up with us and joined in until Steph threw a ball at Sierra which hit her in the head, from which she didn't recover.  We returned and they played in the house whilst I made dinner.

Eyes on the prize

Apparently when Jack first had Gammon he called it Horrible Gammon because he thought he wouldn't like it.  On trying it he decided it was ace, but the name stuck!  It has now stuck with us - so we all had horrible gammon and loved it.  In fact Jack's face lite up when we told him we were having horrible gammon for tea.  Unfortunately John had to work late, so missed tea.  Well he missed it when we had it - I had to heat it up for him to eat whilst we had pudding.  Jack is only 4 so we couldn't wait much longer.

Anyway, once the kids had food in them, they all cheered up (they had been quite grumpy) - doing too much in the holidays as usual.  John also cheered up (he was a little bit grumpy having had to work late) so they ended up staying late (ish) and we had quite a good evening.  Will be good having them as neighbours - very easy to get on with.

In Barbon Woods

Thursday, I didn't have any plans but thought we should do the Ingleton Easter Egg hunt.  I put out an invitation for friends on FB, and was offered Annabel for the morning.  Tom was pleased, so we went to pick her up.  They both 'got' the Egg hunt immediately and I spent the morning chasing them around the village whilst they found all the letters.  We ended up in Inglesport for tea and a bun whilst we worked out the word they had to find.  We returned the forms to Seasons and then Annabel decided to stay for some Frisbeeing.  She then had lunch with us and then we got some paints out (she's really good at art) and then they were outside playing football, sorting stones etc.  Before we knew it, it was 4.30!  Thought maybe we should take her back, as we had only borrowed her for an hour!!!!!!!   Was a good day, Annabel is such fun.

BEHIND a bar for once

Good Friday, we decided to go for a walk and ended up visiting the Magic Chocolate Tree in Barbon (it was making Easter Eggs today which was very seasonal!)  It didn't take us long, we always think it is going to be a longer walk than it is as we first took Tom when he was 3 and it took him ages.  In fact the first time he did it, he only did it one way and Matt had to run back to the car to collect us from the pub as he was unable to walk back!  We decided to head to Sedbergh for lunch and were very glad we did - we found a great cafe, Three Hares, which sells home-made food.  They had a huge selection of wonderful homemade cakes, so we had soup and a cake: homemade jam doughnut for me which was just wonderful.

Ingleborough from Warton Crag

We then headed back to Ingleton for an afternoon film before Matt headed out for his stint behind the bar for Sheaf Stock.  We followed an hour and a half later for our tea (burgers).  I didn't think we would stay long, but Gemma and Sarah (from school) turned up and asked Tom if he wanted to play, he did and spent a good hour or so playing hide and seek in the pub garden with them.  I hung out at the bar chatting up a certain good looking bar man and somehow ended up sampling all 4 of the ciders on offer.  I pretty much staggered home!  A good evening.

Up Warton Crag

Saturday morning, I was a little hung over!  Matt suggested we head over to Warton Crag for a walk.  As it isn't strenuous, I agreed and we had a pleasant walk to the top.  Good views are to be had over Morecambe Bay - it was pretty clear.  The place is riddled with paths, so we decided to head down following our noses.  We did go a little off track, but it was a very pleasant walk - lots of trees, moss, walks, big rocks, blue bells, orchids and I'm sure I spotted a Gruffalo at one point!  We found our car and noticed we had parked next door to Old School Brewery (the beers Matt was serving last night), unfortunately they were closed, otherwise I have a feeling quite a few would have been purchased! We headed off to Archers for lunch which was as good as always.  We then hung around by the coast to do some Kite Flying.  After a few duff goes, we got it up - think the key is to make sure it has a long thread.  It is a stunt kite and very quick to react to any tug, so we still have a bit of a learning curve to go through until we work out how to do the tricks, in the mean time, it did hit the deck lots of times... On our return to Ingleton, we stopped off at Cowan Bridge for the Duck Race, which was very local and quite cute.  We didn't win, but we had fun watching it.

Cowan Bridge duck race

After tea, we decided to head back to Sheaf Stock for a quick pint.  When we got there, we found loads of people we knew there.  Tom headed off to play football with some of the boys and somehow, we spent a good 3 hours there chatting to various people.  Was a good night, but I kept off the cider this time.

Now one of the things we really like about Tom's school is the way they encourage intermingling between the years.  Tom knows everyone at the school and will happily play with anyone regardless of what year they are in.  At Sheaf Stock we didn't encounter anyone from Tom's school year, but it didn't matter, he was playing with children from years above him and below him and was more than content.  Thank you Ingleton Primary School for teaching the kids to be inclusive regardless of which class they are in.