Wainwright Challenge: 6/214 Latrigg

On Saturday the 8th January I was in Keswick to film the Cumbria cross country championship. Afterwards, I made the most of my location to walk the 2 miles to the top of Latrigg. I just had to walk out of the park and keep going up:

When I reached the summit I was hit by a short hail storm as I enjoyed the views across Derwentwater. Skiddaw was hiding behind the clouds.

I may not have had the best weather for my hike but I was very happy to have started my campaign off. Only 208 more to go!

Keswick Mountain Festival Junior 5 km

On the weekend 9th and 10th June I attended Keswick Mountain Festival as a volunteer. Before I had any tasks I watched the Junior 5 km trail run as they raced from Crow Park. Here are my photographs:

This was before the fabulous music concert I blogged about from the Saturday night.

Keswick Mountain Festival Music on Saturday

I was volunteering at Keswick Mountain Festival this weekend and one of the perks was access into the music. This gives you a taste of The Farm and Melanie C plus the atmosphere and stunning location. Can you spot the man on his stag do?:

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 22 - Half term fun #R2BC

Whilst Michelle has been enjoying Butlins (not jealous much!) we have been having a really fun time staying at home! So many reasons to smile:
1) A taste of summer
It seems to have gone again but Saturday and Sunday were hot and sunny and we made the most of it. I've already written about what we got up to earlier on the blog but this photo sums it up:

  2) Fun with friends
Family friends that are more like family than friends have been staying up here this week. The children are similar ages to mine so we have been out and about showing them so of the places we love. I have already blogged about Keswick which was fun despite the drizzle! Yesterday we went to Brockhole:

  We had fun in the adventure playground, playing crazy golf and enjoying the indoor soft play. 
Today we went to Wray Castle which is being renovated by the National Trust after decades of use by government and commercial organisations. This was my first proper visit so I will have to dedicate a whole post to it! Just as a taster:

Victorian Mock Gothic

Indoor fun

Outdoor Fun

3) Winners!
My mum entered a competition in the local paper and won herself 2 free goes on the brand new 10 m high climbing wall at Tree Top Trek at Brockhole. It officially opens on June 2nd and the climbs will be on that day. She has kindly decided that it would be better for my daughter and I to partake *gulp* so I will have to over come my fear of heights and inability to scale a climbing wall! Watch this space as my mum will be recording the event on camera. I am looking forward to whizzing down the giant zip wire at the end!

Family Fun: A Damp Day in Keswick

WIth torrential rain forecast and four under 10s to entertain we arranged to drive up to Keswick this morning. It's about an hour from Kendal (subject to traffic!) but it has a lot of indoor venues for families.

First up was a return visit to the Puzzling Place after our last successful visit in 2011. It had all 3 generations really intrigued and there was something for all of us to test out and puzzle over. These included a room where nothing was vertical:

She is standing straight!

An interactive rock pool:

A gallery of holograms:

And the room where your size perception completely fails:

We eventually dragged everyone back out to eat a picnic - luckily it was barely drizzling.  Then it was off to the new museum that had enticed us to visit Keswick. This is the Keswick Dinosaur and Raptor Experience which had only been open since Saturday! Its on the site of the old mining museum and combines both dinosaurs and their living descendants raptors. We were greeted at the top of the steps by one of these live birds:

And then in the reception area you meet a model of a genuine T rex skull, its amazing how big it is:

We managed to go the wrong way round the museum (somehow none of us noticed the dinosaur footprints showing us the right way round...). So the first room we went into was a chance for the children to get hands on as paleontologists:

Further on was a room with dinosaur related colouring and puzzles:

Then there were displays of fossils and replica dinosaurs with plenty of information to digest. Only 1 child was persuaded to do the simple quiz which encouraged them to take notice of the exhibition properly. The others were more interested in getting up close to the models:

We were very lucky as Colin the owner had time to talk to us and let a couple of the children handle Oscar the Screech owl:

If you have a couple of hours to spare the museum is a good place to spend time as family and at £14 for a family of 4 its not going to break the bank. We will be back!

Afterwards we braved the slightly heavier drizzle and headed for the shores of Derwentwater. There is always an attraction to water for children and the views weren't too covered in cloud to spoil it for the adults:

The children found a canine friend to throw sticks into the lake for:

Once they knew you could buy bird food they were happy to move on and look out for goslings etc:

Eventually the children got too cold and damp so we headed back to the cars via Hope Park:

All in all a great day despite the weather and I thoroughly recommend Keswick as a rainy day family destination!

Reasons to be Cheerful XIV ( #R2BC )

Michelle on a blog break at the minute so this it being guest hosted for 5 weeks! Today's hostess with the mostest is Emma at a Matter of Choice.
Things feeling pretty positive for me again this week so here is what is making me smile:
1) Family Fun
We rounded off the school holidays with a 3 generation trip on the bus to Keswick to try out the leisure pool up there. It was a bit of a shame that it was a very wet day so we couldn't see the fabulous views properly from the top of the bus but it was a good fun change:

The pool itself was great for all of us for a splash around (not cheap at £15 for 4) with shallow sloping beach type bits, a wave machine and a black hole flume. My 8 year old and I had quite a few goes on the flume but the others stayed jumping in or playing catch with a beach ball. Think we will go back again sometime but save it for a special treat.

2) Halloween/Bright Lights

My children once again went to the free party at our church St Thomas Kendal and had hot dogs, cakes, party games and fireworks. Then they were allowed their first ever trick or treating in our street. Being a family estate all the trick or treaters going round seemed very nice and it was a lovely atmosphere so guess I'll let them do it again next year!

Best dressed house in the road

3) My son

He is so very nearly 5 and growing up fast. At swimming this week he swam quite away unaided on his front and is getting more confident with floats on his back. At parents' evening I was told he was settling in well and was doing his best to obey class rules. His phonic starting sounds are really coming on and we just need to work on his fine motor skills.

4) My daughter

Her cycling is carrying on getting better and despite a big crash resulting in a bloody nose she is loving to be out on her bike as much as possible. She even managed to cycle all the way to church and back on Sunday with very little fuss. Her parent's evening report was that she was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. For reading she is about 6 months ahead of her age and her spelling has improved. Just need to practice those times tables and joined up handwriting...

5) Operation 3rd bedroom

Apart from the fact the front room, landing and bedrooms 1 & 2 are chocker block with temporarily homeless items this is coming on well. My dad took out the fitted shelves and plastered the holes over making enough room for a bed. I had a lucky moment in Morrisons and spotted an ad for a second hand cabin bed going cheap so that will make the transition much quicker. Next step is to construct the bed in place and then move his stuff in there from his current bedroom.

6) (late update) Diet

I finally lost weight again this week after wobbling for most of October! Only a 1lb but hoping that its all a start of a downward trend to last until Christmas... I've joined up with the Twitter #NoAlcoholNovember pledge so hope that has the same result as last year. Not necessarily the booze that's the problem but the reduced self control to snack after a glass of wine!

Click on the linky to see who else is smiling:

Family Fun at Keswick, Cumbria

The lovely Sean at Treasure Trails Cumbria kindly let me try out another of his family trails to review on the blog so I selected the Keswick spy trail. This was a bit different from the Kendal murder mystery one we did last month. Instead of eliminating suspects and weapons we had to use clues around the town to crack a code. Once again I recruited some willing volunteers from the senior generation to assist in completing the trail and took the drive from Kendal to Keswick through a very murky and chilly Cumbria.

When we reached Keswick it was still quite early in the day and chilly so we decided to visit the Puzzling Place first in the hope that the weather would cheer up.