Reasons to be Cheerful: Challenges, Wins and Guinea Pigs #R2BC

Hard to believe its the last day of November as its gone in a flash! The last time of Michelle hosting then its over to me for December. Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Challenge Complete
When I injured my foot in October I thought that I would fail to earn my 1000 km medal as its either run or walk and not a mix! I had reached 706 km of running and it was tantalising close so frustrating... Luckily thanks to Pokemon Go I have walked over a million steps to 1001 km since May, so my medal is on its way:

2) Guinea Pigs

As the temperatures have started to plummet the guinea pigs can't stay in their outdoor hutch. I have sacrificed a corner of my kitchen to keep them cosy for the winter. I love seeing their little faces and hearing their week whenever I go into the kitchen:

3) Rediscovering Hidden Treasures

Forest School: Bird Feeders

As I am just starting out to teach forest school with children from Nursery to Year 1 I have been researching simple ideas of things that they can make to incorporate into our sessions. We are going to be looking at winter as a topic from this week so I have been looking at simple bird feeders that we can make. These look easy enough for them to do (as long as they don't eat the cereals!):

These look good too as long as no-one is allergic to nuts:

A photographic walk through Kendal

I have taken so many photographs of Kendal that I have put some of my favourites together on YouTube:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Dancing, Adventure and Steam Trains #R2BC

Its Thursday which means its reasons to be cheerful with this month's host Michelle. Next its back to me so I will have to get organised! Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Steam Train
A group of photographers had booked our local steam train to run up and down the line at the same time as we were at parkrun this weekend. How many parkruns have one of these:

2) Parkrun Marshalling

My son and I volunteered together as marshals on the meadow hill and I had taken along my camera to capture some of the action. It was lovely to get smiles out of the runners and walkers as they took on the climb:

3) Ceilidh

On Friday night I went to a ceilidh with my mum and daughter. Us youngsters were out danced by the U3A folk and Scottish dancers but we had a really time:

#CountryKids A weekend of fun at Kendal Mountain Festival #Kendal17

Having popped up  quick post with just a YouTube video yesterday I thought I had better elaborate a bit more about the fun we had at Kendal Mountain Festival this weekend! First of all I got us tickets to see a talk about a new Channel 4 show Britain's Abandoned Playgrounds. This is a show where a free runner, slack liner, BMX rider and skateboarder have fun in some unusual locations:

There was a chat with the makers of the show plus the stars. A couple of them demonstrated their skills in front of us (check out the video from yesterday...) We watched some footage and then got to see the world premiere of the first episode. At the end the stars were happy to stop and chat to the children:

Outside lots of the children had a go at free running around on the walls etc much to the angst of us parents! Guttingly I had missed out on tickets to see Steve Backshall who was on next so we went home for the night.

On the Sunday we walked into Kendal to the Base Camp at the Brewery Arts Centre: