Sunshine and sharpening - Day 18

It was a day to don my Victorianesque teacher garb with long skirt and lace up boots:

After more than 2 weeks of social isolation I think it got to me a bit today as I wasn't feeling much motivation. I did rustle up crumpet pizzas with, for me, a cold chicken salad:

My only successful mission was to empty out my school bag and sharpen all the pencils!

Medieval mayhem - Day 6

It was another glorious sunny day up here so my choice of medieval attire turned out to be a trifle warm today:

I had a pretty busy day of real work as I was tutoring 3 of my regular students. We are all getting the hang of this video conferencing stuff. It's a steep learning curve but its making such a difference to my ability to still earn a little money, despite being confined to the house.

My son decided I had worked hard enough and said I had to come out in the garden for some fresh air:

He had even gone off and made me some peanut butter cookies:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Mud and Sunshine #R2BC

 
How did it get to Thursday already? I'm joining in a bit late with Michelle as life is whizzing by. Here are some of my reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) Petition Started

At the second attempt I've managed to get a petition started to amend the Mental Health Act. At the moment the current one makes no allowances for people with autism so they can be denied treatment. Please sign the petition to help rectify this wrong.

2) Running


Yes running - I actually ran not just once but twice including a mood lifting 6 km out on the old canal:

I do now hope I will be OK for my 10 km race in 2 weeks, although I've now caught another cold....

3) Muddy Fun

The sun shone for the Sedbergh fell race which meant for those landing in the water jump it was more funny than horrendous! It certainly made the spectators smile:

Plenty more muddy moments on my video:

4) Spring Sunshine

Like most of the country I have been loving the unseasonal mini "heatwave". Walking to and from work has been heavenly:

 

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Reasons to be Cheerful: Sunshine, Garden and Wainwright Bagging #R2BC

I am feeling in a particularly cheerful mood as I host for the last time before handing back over to Michelle! The financial pinch of 2 weeks with no paid work is over and although I am not working full time I can breath again... So here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Tutorial in the sun
We didn't have as long a heatwave as everyone else in the UK but my student on Thursday made the most of it by having her lesson in the garden:

2) Gardening 

Since writing about my front garden last week I have made even more progress! I grabbed some 50p bargain flowers from the supermarket to add some instant colour. My wild seedlings are beginning to sprout and since this photo the grass has been cut:

Just hoping that my sad looking jasmine will survive!

3) Wainwright bagging

Whilst filming the fell races on Saturday I took the chance to finally get to the top of Cat Bells. You can see how pleased I was with myself:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Sunshine and Showers #R2BC

I am really pleased that the original founder of Reasons to be Cheerful is back to co-host with me again. Welcome back Michelle! Here my reasons for this week:
1) Little victories
My children both had friends over this weekend to camp out in the garden to test out the tent before our first camping trip later this month. Afterwards for the first time since I bought the tent 2 years ago I got ALL yes ALL of it back in the bag from which it came. It was a good feeling!

2) The route less travelled

In memory of a friend's daughter who tragically died as a baby I am attempting to walk a mile every day this month. My friend is raising money for the Lullaby Trust in her daughter's name. We are trying to mix up where we walk and at the weekend took the other side of the river route home after a trip to the cinema. Its great to have time to chat and contemplate as well as discover new things such as the T'crack in Kirkland.

3) Running away

Reasons to be Cheerful: Sunny Sundays and other things #R2BC

You can tell I am back at work as the post is a few hours late again! So pleased how many people joined in last week. Hopefully I visited you all and you could see what was making other folks happy too. Here are my reasons this week:
1) Sunny Sunday
It was such a glorious last day of the Easter holidays in Kendal. We walked the 2 miles to church and then meandered back with many stop offs including a bite to eat in the Brewery beer garden:

2) Winning things

Its been a little while since I won anything so it was lovely to receive my prize of a new waterproof and shockproof iPhone case (ideal for Cumbrian weather!). The wonderful Kate on Thin Ice with tech21 had run the competition:

3) Spring

The weather may have turned wet and grey but its not stopping the signs of spring bursting out all over. I love seeing the cherry blossom suddenly bursting out everywhere:

4) Treasure trove

I was sorting through a bag of assorted cutlery that came from my grandparents. I do wonder how many generations of the family have handled some of the pieces? Amongst the pieces were these three coronation spoons from 1937 when George VIth was crowned:

5) Encounters of the canine kind

My son's running group is back on the Helm in its official home territory. We were up there last night and I encountered these two gorgeous spaniels:

6) Shiny things

I have recently been converted to using Enjo products by a local friend who has become a consultant for them. After he demonstrated the power of microfibres on cleaning my kitchen I bought a starter kitchen pack. Now I have just use cold water and a microfibre sponge to get my sink this shiny: 

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Reasons to be Cheerful: Every cloud has a silver lining #R2BC

Joining in a day late as its been a bonkers week! Good job its being hosted by the lovely Ojo's World...  Here are my reasons in a week that's been a bit of a whirlwind:

1) Sunshine

Its amazing the power of having that wonderful, warm glow in the sky! Its been a lift to the spirits after all the rain:

2) Snow

In contrast having enough snow to have fun without causing chaos was another reason to smile as already shown in my Country Kids post.  You can see my daughter was very pleased with being able to build a snowman and have a go at sledging:

Reasons to be Cheerful: The End is Nigh! #R2BC

I don't mean the end of the world but the end of term! Here in Cumbria Friday afternoon sees us breaking up for the holidays and I can't wait. No wonder it hasn't taken much to make me happy this week:

1) Tea in the park

Last Friday it was so hot I treated us all to fish and chips in the park it really was bliss to chill out in the sun at the end of a busy week:

Hoping we get more days like this in the holidays!

2) Family Bike Ride

It had been too long since we went out cycling so I took the offer of another adult willing to come with us to get us all out on our bikes. The second half of the bike ride had me smiling once my son got his confidence back:

3) Staveley Carnival

This is such an amazing event for the whole family. I've written a long post about it already but here is a taster:

Shame we have to wait 2 years for the next one!

4) Operation House

It's nice to feel at the end of the week that progress has been made in sorting the house out a bit. There are little areas that look so much better to me though its still very much a work in progress to be be completed over the summer. I even cajoled the children into starting to tidy their rooms and I am managing to slowly increase the number of chores they each do. Not a smooth ride but hopefully it will be worth it in the end..

5) Positive body image

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Reasons to be Cheerful Week 20 - 2014 #R2BC

A dozen lovely bloggers joining in last week thanks everyone! Hope it makes you smile to read about all the the things that are making other people smile? There is definitely something contagious about happiness. Here are the things that made me cheerful this week:

1) A Movie Gala 

We all had an amazing time at the Postman Pat gala performance on Saturday. Not quite Hollywood glamour but it was an amazing experience:

Being interviewed by the BBC!

2) Sunshine

We have had to dig out the sun tan cream and hats this week! A taste of what summer could be like?

3) Celebrations

Its always great news when friends get engaged and we have a chance to celebrate:

Keeping it short this week as spent much of Wednesday night at casualty with my daughter who luckily hadn't broken her leg before being a bridesmaid! Why are you smiling?

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Reasons to be Cheerful week 43 #R2BC

Doesn't this linky come round fast! Not fast enough to get us to half term though.. Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) Proud of myself

I can't believe that I actually managed to get round Go Ape at the weekend! I am a) scared of heights and b) not physically strong so very cheerful about it all:

2) Proud of my son

Compliments about my son's footballing skills from his after school coach. All the Little Kickers lessons must be paying off:

3) Proud of my daughter

She did even better on Go Ape than me! Nothing seemed to phase her and she even did one bit I failed to do. Here she is showing me how to cross a cargo net:

4) Sunshine at last

Its been so wet this week it was great to finally have a sunny day to have a run in:

Why are you cheerful?

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 30 The Sneezing edition #R2BC

Having spent much of the last week with a stinking cold (thanks kids!) its harder to be cheerful but I have managed to find a few rays of sunshine:

1) Sunny Sunday in the Park

Having been house bound and mostly horizontal on Saturday it was fabulous to be out and about on Sunday. After church the lovely sunshine lured us to spend a few hours down at Abbott Hall park. Whilst the children played I soaked up the sun and enjoyed the local paper with a coffee:

Then we took the longer route home along the canal path and river bank:

2) Last of the sunflowers

It's fellow flowers are now just food for birds and homes for spiders:

3) Picnic teas in the park

There won't be many more of these but whilst they last we are making the most of them:

And yesterday's one by Windermere was wonderful too.

4) Fabulous Roses

Spotted a wonderful bush full of roses whilst walking into town yesterday. Just so beautiful:

5) Moving Up

My daughter is in year 5 so our first chance to start looking at secondary schools! Scary to think she is nearly at that secondary age but we started by looking around the school I work at on its Open Evening. We all loved the musical performances that were put on. Each department had also put out hands on stuff for students to try. Wish we had had more time to see it all (will have to wait for next year!). It was good to see our historical reenacting kit being used in the history department:

And in the PE department my daughter made the most of a mini trampolining lesson: