Reasons to be Cheerful: Hero Worship and Energetic Fun #R2BC

 
I am a day late once again to join in with Michelle! Life is so hectic at this time of the year so we have decided that there will no official link up again now until January when I will be back hosting. Meanwhile here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Hero Worship
As a teenager I avidly watched our wonderful middle distance runners as they dominated the world of athletics. To actually meet one of my heroes whilst at the Liverpool Cross Country, put a huge smile on my face. (I did have to explain to my 12 year old why I was so excited!

2) Energetic Fun
On Friday I went country dancing with my mum and the U3A. Boy can those retired folks show us young 'uns a thing or too! So much fun.
Then on Sunday my mum persuaded me to go for a short hike up Cunswick Scar. A lovely day for blowing out the cobwebs:

3) Feeling Christmassy

We acquired a mini Christmas tree at Ikea on our way home from Liverpool. We haven't had a real tree for years even if its smaller than our fake tree:

Reasons to be cheerful: Proud Mum #R2BC

 
I am so sorry I missed last week's linky. It is a very rare occurrence for me over the last 7 years as it is a post that has helped me so much. Its a good job Michelle is such a generous hostess! At least it was for positive reasons as I am just working more hours and we had a lot of things going on at the weekend. Any way I have so many reasons to be cheerful but here are just a few:
1) Proud Mum #1
My daughter is a big campaigner for mental health issues and tonight went live on national radio (Listen 1:41 in). To hear the reporter describe her as eloquent and brave makes me feel so proud:

2) Kindness

I am working in such a caring school at the moment. One of the staff knew a child I was working with needed a tea light for his craft wardrobe so she went and bought him some:

3) Celeb spotting

Whilst videoing the race on Saturday I got almost in touching distance with a sporting celebrity in the shape of Jonny Brownlee:

Kendal Mountain Festival 2018

We have just had the 2018 Kendal Mountain Festival from Thursday to Sunday. My son went to the opening ceremony on the Thursday night and I had to collect him from Basecamp at the Brewery:

Then on Friday he had a school visit to the Leisure Centre for talks and films. In the evening we went to see a talk on film making from Salt Street Productions who had inspired me last year:

The talk included a demo with Eric Moor:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Supervet, Proud Mum and Blackpool Illuminations #R2BC

 
I am running late joining in with Michelle this week as I've just been so busy! So much to be cheerful for as its been my son's 12th birthday. So much else too so here are a few highlights:
1) School Bakeoff
Some amazing cakes at the school cake sale and bake off with a bonfire night theme:

2) Super Vet

I had won tickets to the National Pet Show and took my daughter. She was delighted not only to meet lots of gorgeous animals but to hear and meet the Super Vet Professor Noel Fitzpatrick. I queued for an hour and half to get her book autographed:

3) Proud Mum

My son had his first Sportshall athletics competition as an under 13. He was competing against athletes a school year above him. So creditable to get a 5th, 7th and 10th against the whole of Lancashire:

National Trust Mottisfont

After our petrol head day at Beaulieu  we opted for a lower key day with a hike and a National Trust property. (There is a video at the end of the post). We followed part of the Monarch's Way from our accommodation over to Mottisfont. 

My mum and I enjoyed seeing the churches on the route but my son was not at all impressed:

After a 3 mile walk we were very relieved to reach the estate:

It wouldn't be a National Trust property in the school holiday without some sort of trail. On this occasion it was scarecrows. My son had had enough of trails so we didn't join in:

I spotted that there was an adventure playground so after a bite to eat we headed over to find it. There were some lovely carved pieces of wood to show us where it was:

It was all made from wood and there were opportunities to balance, climb and jump:

For a rest we explored the rest of the gardens. The gardeners had cunningly set up leaf bins to encourage children to collect them up! We didn't manage to bag one of the child sized wheelbarrows but my son did his part:

Of course we had to look around the house as well. It is built on the old abbey and the cellar is part of the original buildings. The inside of the house is currently celebrating the life of sons of Maud Russell who lived in the house after 1934. There was also a chance to play the harpsichord and grand piano that they had played:

We had a final wander around the gardens including the Font that the house is named for, the rose garden (sadly we missed most of the roses) and a chance to do a Hobbit impression at the foot of a venerable oak tree:

All in all a good use of our membership. Here is a little video of the play area and music:

Beaulieu Motor Museum

After a day exploring gardens we went for a change of pace with a trip to the Beaulieu Motor Museum. We booked tickets online the day before to knock a bit of the entry fee! My son and I had never been to the museum and my parents hadn't been for a few decades so it was a good place for a three generation visit. This post includes the YouTube video of our day.

We kicked off our day with a ride around on the Monorail. This was a great way to check out the layout of the grounds and also to learn some fascinating bits of information on the way round:

Then we headed to the Top Gear section of the museum. Not only did we see excerpts from the shows but could get up close to some of the vehicles they actually used:

Another fun way to avoid walking around the grounds was to catch the vintage bus. We had a couple of rides up on the open top deck:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Back Home #R2BC

 
I have handed the reins back over to Michelle for November so I know we are in safe hands! Thanks to everyone who joined in with me in October. As well as having had a lovely half term break (plenty of blogposts on their way!) these are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Safely Home
We drove at dawn to Heathrow from our holiday accommodation to meet my daughter's return flight from USA. So happy to have her back in the UK.

2) Frosty Start

We started off the new half term with a cold snap which added a sparkle to the garden:

3) Halloween Pumpkins