Reasons to be Cheerful: Proud Mum #R2BC

I am joining in once again with Michelle for Reasons to be Cheerful this week. Its great to have things to make us happy and to share each other's pleasures. I look forward to reading everyone else's. Here are mine for this week:
1) Proud Mum #1
My daughter performed at her school's musical recital. She sang a beautiful song (maybe she will let me share it on here!). Meanwhile here she is with me in the River Kent:

2) Proud Mum #2

Here is my son on his way to 1st place in the junior school wrestling at Langdale at the weekend. He brought his SATs results home this week and passed with flying colours. He even got the maximum score for his maths!

3) Furry Mum

I have to include our furry family in this week. How could the sight of a guinea pig in a tunnel not raise a smile:

4) Blooming lovely

My wild flower seeds are now flowering in the front garden. When I walk down the path I pass the poppies with bees buzzing in and out gathering pollen:

That's it for me! I will now pop over and read all those on the link:

Langdale Gala 2018

On the first Sunday of July its the Langdale Gala at Chapel Stile which is a traditional Cumbrian event. The weather wasn't typical when we arrived:

After signing in for the fell race the first event my son took part in was the school's Cumberland & Westmorland wrestling. There was a little mix up when he wasn't in the draw for the juniors but after I'd pointed this out he ended up winning and getting £5! This was a friend's son in his first ever bout as an under 15:

The flat races then started with traditional events such as sack, sprint and egg & spoon races. My son was in the sack race:

 and then I had to head up onto the fell side for the fell races:

Due to the heat all the juniors took the lower level route. There were some disappointed teenagers that they had to only do the under 13 route:

Rydal Water Swim

On Wednesday my daughter and I headed up to Rydal Water for an open water swim. It was such a beautiful day and so peaceful:

We parked in the LDNP car park (note it only accepts cash at the moment) and took a short walk to a secluded little beach. Then we went out into the blissfully warm water:

It was so calm and still with just the current from the river causing any commotion:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family Fun #R2BC

A slightly belated reasons to be cheerful so its just as well its Michelle being host this month! Its just been such a full on week that I hadn't had time to blog really. Any way here are some of the things that have made us smile and kept me busy:
1) Summer Fete
For once I made it to the school fete, for some reason my son's school always does them straight after school. Not only that but I was early enough to actually win on the bottle stall. Not a bad haul for £2:

My son had fun on the water bomb throwing game and eating cakes!
2) Fell Race
On the final race of the junior championship my son had his best finish yet beating people who have beaten him in all the other races. Not sure on his final finish position yet but hopefully close to the middle of the table.

3) Langdale Gala

Review: Saal Photobook

Sponsored Post

I was offered a voucher so that I could try out and review a Saal Photobook. Regular readers will know that I take loads of photographs but hardly ever get them off the digital version and into a hard copy... So this was a golden opportunity for me to rectify that.

To start with I had to download and install the software to my laptop. This was a trouble free process. Then I had to decide which of the many photobooks to choose from. In the end I chose the 15 x 21 glossy book with 26 pages for £24.95. 

The hard bit was choosing which photos to put in it! At least getting them in was pretty straightforward with a little bit of trying things out. I sometimes used the auto features and at others adjusted the photos to fit myself. I was able to save the progress and come back to it and didn't have to create it all in one go.

Once completed I processed the order which again was very simple. Then I just had to wait a few days for the photobook to arrive. I am certainly impressed with the quality and feel of the book (I should probably have come up with a better title!):

The pictures that have spanned over a double spread still look amazing: