The boys are away for the weekend…

…so the parents will play πŸ™‚

We dropped the boys off at Grannie Cuckoo’s yesterday afternoon as we had a night out with the other parents from Elliot’s previous class. They seemed oblivious to the fact that we were leaving them behind as they got their gear together to go out to see great grandma.

We went down to the Capri in Horbury Bridge for the meal – it has really changed since we were last in there – perhaps a little crammed but the general feel of the place was great and the food was pretty spot on too. The company was great as well – we had a great time and typically were last to leave at around 12:30am.

Pleasantly we did not have any evidence of hangovers this morning so got ready and went out on the bikes head down to the canal and then South towards Horbury Bridge and on towards Wakefield. We then jumped on the Denby Dale Road and took on the loooonnnnngg ride up to the roundabout by West Bretton. then right to Midgley and down through Netherton, UP Storrs Hill and home. All told, approx 20k journey and all was good excepting the rain that hit us from Midgley on.

Interestingly, the cycling has not immediately affected Simon’s right knee that has been troublesome for the last month or so. He thinks running may be a bad idea, but cycling seemed to work out OK.

Tonight we are heading out again, this time to Wakefield with Kerrie and Spencer to the Cow Shed. suspect that there will be significantly less alcohol involved tonight πŸ™‚

School holidays coming to a close…

Vicky took the boys out yesterday to buy their uniform for the next school year. We need two of everything now that Oliver starts at SunnyHill this September. The blazers are Β£70 each alone :-(. Our strategy was to leave it until later on in the school holidays so that we can ensure that we get the right sizes to maximise use during the school year. That was a good plan except that there are no longer stock to fulfill our needs so we have had to order stuff in. Thankfully, we did it now and hence there IS time for the order to be delivered….

Mummy, Elliot and Oliver have been out today at Cannon Hall Farm with Jessica (from Elliot’s class last year) and her mummy. Apparently Elliot has been a very grumpy painful little boy today so he will perhaps not be getting another invite from them to play… πŸ™

We met up with Curtis, his brother and his daddy on Sunday at the half way house for a pint on Sunday – was great to catchup again and acts as a reminder that the holidays have simply passed us by really quickly πŸ™

Home, but not until a day on the beach in Morecambe Bay

Yes, we are finally home again, although not until we enjoyed almost a full day on the beach yesterday.

we set out at around 11am and were installed on the beach with Costa coffee and picnic by about 12:40. We did not leave that beach until well after 4:30pm so were claiming that as a whole day on the beach – let’s face it, it is as close as we are going to ever get to having a full day on the beach anytime soon :-).

anyway, it was a lovely day with the temperature breaking into the low 20’s and the kids just had a ball. When we arrived there was no sea at all in sight – to the point that the boys enquired as to why there was no sea – don’t think they have ever been to the beach and not seen the sea before :-). Once we explained the tide and that the water was over by America for a little while, they set to building sandcastles, playing with their cars and digging a large hole to play in.

The tide did come in and high tide was around 4pm, although obviously it could be seen for about 2 hours before this as it made its way in. Typically, the sand out beyond the beach area was more like mud, and Olly just loved slipping in it and hence got sticky muddy – so we were going to have to wait for the tide to come in to clean him up either way :-). Mummy decided that she would walk down with them and do the 100yards or so of buddy beach to get to the water as the tide came in – it certainly looked hard going from the comfort of the beach towel πŸ™‚ for the three of them but they made it and danced in the water, slowly coming further up the beach as the tide came in.

As we left the beach it became obvious that the lack of sunscreen may have just burned Olly a tad on his face and neck. What wasn’t so clear at the time was that daddy had burned his neck, his shoulder and his stomach on his left hand side rather badly – he is now a glowing red beacon that has been used to show the boys how angry the sun can be and what it can do to our skin if we don’t protect ourselves properly πŸ™

We ended our day by heading out for dinner on the way home – we actually fancied a Chinese meal so set out for the magic wok in Windermere, to find that while it should have been open, they were slow in getting ready and the restaurant was just not ready. So we meandered North and ended up in Waterhead, where west in the gardens of the Waterhead Hotel and enjoyed a fantastic meal. we would definitely go back there again for a meal if we were in need of feeding etc.

Separately, the night before we ended up at the Sun Hotel in Troutbeck Bridge -we enjoyed a fabulous meal there also.

So, the holiday is over and we are home – already looking forward to the next time we can escape normality and head up to the lakes for a short break – the kids seemed to have a wonderful time and I suspect would chomp our hands off if offered a weekend at Grandma’s lodge again anytime soon πŸ™‚

Ducky’s Park Farm Day

And it was a bit wet and a LOT muddy – clearly a lot of rain water has fallen at the farm over the past few weeks. It was nice to go back there but a little disappointing to see that they had not really made any additions / updates to their existing infrastructure of three years ago πŸ™

The kids were blissfully unaware of this and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They really liked feeding the goats / sheep, although one of the cheeky older goats managed to grab hold of the bag that Elliot had his food in – stole it and it tore – so he ate the bag :-). Elliot was not best pleased with the goat so decided that he was only going to feed those that were not so cheeky πŸ™‚

The indoors section had them both enjoying themselves thoroughly where Elliot found a friend called Matthew who he played with for the better part of an hour and Olly disappeared to a section upstairs entertaining the folks up there with cat mewing and the like. We did think we had lost him for a few short moments until mummy heard the mewing coming from the room. πŸ™‚

Overnight rain

We had a LOT of rain overnight last night, although we did not get the hailstorm like the one back in Ossett !!!

While it has rained today. it has mainly been OK, so we nipped out to Kendal and have bought the boys new school shoes – Elly is now a 13G and Olly an 8G (if you understand kids shoe sizes).

We went into the big play centre on the Glebe in Bowness (where they used to (well, still do it seems) sell lots of Bayliner boats) for a couple of hours and then back to the lodge for a couple of hours outside. Β The boys are LOVING playing outside of the lodge – they simply do not want to come in to go to bed however. Β Oh, AND they are eating like horses right now as well – seems like the Windermere hunger is kicking them like it kicks us adults πŸ™‚

Hoping to get to Ducky’s Park Farm tomorrow – let’s just hope we can get up and ut early enough…