#SilentSunday

 

 

Art at the library

Our local library has a regular art club for children one Sunday a month. The only time we have managed to go is when it coincided with my book club! Today when we nipped into the library there was a special day on with the resident artist getting children to help create a haunted house backdrop for this summer's reading challenge:

Of course my children were straight in there without even pausing to roll up their sleeves! They had a lot of creative fun painting one of the house walls:

They were having such fun I had time to take out a couple of books and sit reading one whilst drinking a coffee! It took them a while but eventually they produced this:

My daughter then had had enough but my son went on to do some turrets:

It was good old fashioned messy fun:

And I had a chance to notice and admire son of the great bits of art in the library building itself:

What a great way to attract families into libraries and I hope we can make t for the next session at the start of the holidays!

Flowery Friday

It's Friday so here are my favourite flower photographs from this week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 26: Midsummer Edition

Whilst Michelle has found plenty of reasons to be cheerful I am celebrating midsummer with my own! Well not sure it is summer as once again it rained today but here we go:
1) Beautiful Buildings
We live in an area with lots of beautiful buildings such as St James' Church in Staveley. It always lifts my spirits to see the church especially when the sun is shining:

2) My Big Boy

It was lovely watching my son playing at his Little Kickers football class this week. They are now playing mini matches and it looks like proper football and not just ball skills:

When autumn comes we will have to look at getting him into a proper football club!
3) My daughter
She seems to be more even tempered at the moment and its been delightful watching her playing outside with other children. Let's hope the summer brings more of the same. Meanwhile here she is enjoying the view over Windermere:

I am sure there are many more reasons that I am smiling but I'll stick with those! Why is everyone else cheerful this week:

Weigh in Wednesday Week 9

Afraid my chief photographer refused to do her job tonight so no lycra shot just the post workout shower look:

As you can see I am still smiling despite the fact I'm feeling a bit bloated and gained a whole 0.5 of a pound!  Its not a huge amount and hopefully will be gone again quite quickly. 

I had been pretty good this week and only really went over the top on Saturday when it has come to eating. One I've realised looking back at what I have eaten is that I haven't consumed as many vegetables as I should have done. That might help explain feeling bloated as I haven't had enough fibre. So I will be making sure I have 1 or 2 portions of vegetables or fruit with every meal...

Exercise wise I am back up to 2 runs this week. The first was along the beautiful Dales Way again on a lovely sunny morning:

It was hot one but I amazingly did my best time on the route yet. Then yesterday circumstances forced me to run around town instead of cross country. So I thought I would attempt part of the route I did for the Star Walk. There are some pretty steep hills on this section but I managed more running up them than I did on the actual night!

So now I have two fitness challenges for the next week 1) run Dales way faster 2) run up Queen's Rd without walking any of it! I am sure my fit pod will help me on these challenges.. Tomorrow I'm also getting on the bike again to fetch kids from school (though someone has told me it will be raining...).

Onwards and slimwards ...

Coconut update!

Looks like some birds have been having a good old peck at the coconut I wrote about yesterday! Now I just have to see if I can spot which ones....

Tango Aargh

Post sponsored by Britvic

#CountryKids What do to with your prize coconut!

As I mentioned on Saturday my daughter won a coconut at the village Fayre. Now I hate coconut and my children weren't too keen on trying it so what to do? Well we have lots of birds coming into our garden so why not let them have it?

First of all we had a relative drill a hole to extract the "milk". Two brave adults (incuding me) had a sip *yuck* - most of liquid ended up poured down the drain! Then the coconut was put in a plastic bag and taken back to the workshop...

Quite some time later we were presented with a blue tit friendly feeder to hang under our bird table:

There were also plenty of chunks for my son to put on the table itself:

He is now keen to see if any birds actually come and eat it! Watch this space...

#SilentSunday

 

#CountryKids at the Village Fayre

Today we have spent the afternoon at Ings Village Fayre. This is the neighbouring village to their school and the children from both villages attend together. Therefore events at either village are well attended by people from both. The day wasn't looking too promising when we arrived as it had rained all morning:

I was there in my capacity as an Usborne book seller as well as a parent. My children are quite adept at setting up with me then going off to spend their allocated spending money! The great thing about a local Fayre with people we know is that they and I feel safe for them to wander around without me.

It was a nice traditional fete with homemade cakes, card tombola and other tempting games and stalls. My daughter soon went off and my son headed for the coconut shy opposite us. This was being run by the landlord of the local pub the Watermill Inn and my son spent the next hour assisting by collecting the balls that had been thrown.

His sister had to keep coming back more frequently for more of her spending money as she seemed determined to try all the games! It was a lovely family atmosphere with people from all generations finding something to enjoy. Everyone made most of the lack of rain and we just had to occasionally hold the marquees down in the wind! Eventually my son went off with a friend and his sister took over on the coconuts:

By the end of the afternoon our combined winnings included:

• A coconut
• A packet of crisps
• Water bombs
• Mini plane
• Flying saucer toys
• Chocolates
• Hariboes
• Chocolates various
• Wine bottle stoppers
• 2 cuddly toys
• Bottle wine (hic!)
• A pineapple

Such are the joys of village fetes! I missed out on seeing the duck race but my son got to watch. The water luckily wasn't flowing too fast like last year when they had to cancel this part of the afternoon. Just outside the main part of the fair was a street organ but I only caught it right as it was shut down:

In the church my children were fascinated by the traditional lace making crafts on display:

The altar window was also pretty eye catching:

The parish hall which hosted the fete was the village school from the 17th century and rebuilt in 1859 but closed in 1972:

The old school warning sign still exists and is so much nicer than modern ones:

So glad that the community still rallies round for events like this even though most people with school age children can't afford to live there! My children certainly enjoy the village atmosphere so I just need to win the lottery to move in properly... Roll on next year and we will be there again soaking up the village atmosphere.

Flowery Friday

It's Friday so time for F themed photos! This week it's flowers:

Our wildflower front lawn

Rhododendrons 

Iris

Reasons to be cheerful Week 25 Feeling Fab!

Our lovely hostess Michelle is looking forward to some time to prepare for her new life in Sussex. Exciting times for her and her family! Nothing quite so exciting here but enough to be cheerful about:
1) Race for Life
As I wrote last week my daughter and I were doing the race for life in Preston at the weekend. A great chance to do something with just the pair of us. I've already written a full post about the day itself but here is a quick montage:

2) My big boy
I"m not sure whether its the influence of the older boys in his class or being in Beavers but he is starting to be much braver about things. On Sunday he had a good time tree climbing in the park near my parents' house:

He is still cracking through the Beast Quests books and we are now on book 8!
3) Running on the Dales Way
Today I felt it was worth trying out my still slightly sore calf on a run home from school. My route is half on the Dales Way which I join just before the railway line outside the village:

Then it follows close to the River Kent through fields and woodlands. Not only do I pass plenty of sheep and lambs but also get to glimpse herons and other birds around the river. Today as I reached the top of a steep stile (the interesting part of running the route!) I couldn't resist quickly capturing the view of the meadow ahead:

Hopefully this will inspire me to keep on running as its all helping my challenge to get healthy which I wrote about yesterday.