Summer Holidays - Week 3

After the ride

The weather forecast for this week wasn't great!  Monday was looking good so we decided to make a day of it.  Matt suggested a bike ride and Tom requested we went to Gisburn.  So...deep breath and we agreed.  We went before in 2014 but it was a disaster: Tom ended up refusing to ride his bike, I had to drag him crying and his bike and my bike down a long narrow downhill bit with cyclists zooming past me as Matt had gone on ahead - one of the most stressful days out ever!

As I said it was quite a few years ago so it should be better this time round.  It was!  In fact Tom was fine, I was scared and Matt was injured, so Tom did the best out of all of us!

The downhill bit where Tom had his tantrum last time was much longer than I remembered (funnily enough).  Matt did it fine, Tom did it fine and I did it fine but was scared for most of it.  I am not a natural Mountain Biker, and if I hadn't have had lessons with Jill a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have had the slightest idea of what I should do (ie lean back, don't sit down and use your breaks a lot!)  Luckily her training worked and I made it without any drama.  We then had a couple of miles of easy gravel tracks (made my wrists vibrate like mad and made Matt's shoulder which was stiff from cricket feel much worse!) it was much harder work than I expected.   We then had another section of lumps, bumps, wooden bridges etc that we didn't do last time and I surprised myself again by being both more scared than I thought, but also more able than I thought (although my foot went down plenty of times).  We survived and were quite tired, hot and sweaty by the time we got back to the hub.  It had only been 6 miles but it had been 6 quite tough miles.  Luckily the cafe was open and selling ice creams and lollies so we sat down and cooled down.  Then we had a go on the skills loop (I had one go on the blue run, the boys both did multiple runs of the blue and red runs) and then another downhill loopy bit back to where our car was parked - although we over ran somewhat and had to ride back to it.  Anyway it was a success and we may visit it again more frequently.  Guess the only way we can get better is to keep going!

Shower needed!

Tuesday - back to grey and rainy weather.  As a result we did very little.  I was surprised in the morning by Mark Woolly who popped by with some flowers when I was still in my PJs.  He had heard on the grapevine that the school hadn't recognised me and Anne for all our efforts with the PTA over the years. To be honest we weren't expecting to be recognised - it was such a strange year and management had much more pressing problems to sort.  His youngest left last year and he was recognised by the school and felt bad that we hadn't, so he bought us both a bunch of flowers to say thanks.  How lovely is that?  The morning was spent doing the small amount of homework QES had requested, and then the afternoon spent playing Ticket to Ride and Monopoly - I won them all - oops, think Tom may have had a little sulk, he made up for it in the evening though as he beat us in cribbage.

Wednesday - another grey and rainy day.  Spent the morning sorting out chocolate for Gingerbugs with Tom's help, then we went to Knight's Table for lunch (50% off) which was very good and then an afternoon catching up here!  The weather is supposed to improve tomorrow - fingers crossed.

The family Hondas

Thursday - a sunny day - hurray!  The morning was spent in Settle - Matt had to take his little bike for an MOT but it got cancelled at the last minute, however, we still went as Matt wanted to bring the little bike home as we now have the garden furniture out of the garage.

Friday we didn't do that much.  I started getting ready for our Scotland holiday - we are in a rented motorhome, but we are collecting it and heading straight off, so we need to remember everything including bedding etc.  So the day was spent trying to think of what would be needed and making piles, then beginning the packing of the car - including the under boot so we could get as much in as possible because as usual we would have a lot of soft toys with us taking up so much room!  The evening was spent in the sunshine watching Tom play cricket whilst drinking Prosecco - how civilised.  He was against Netherfield boys.  They are the hardest team to beat, and although they tried hard, they still lost by about 20, but when you think about it Netherfield have the whole of Kendal as their catchment area meaning that their team was made up of 11 year olds, whilst ours is one 12 year old, 2 11 year olds and the rest are 9 and below.  So really they didn't do that bad at all.  Certainly was a lovely evening out.