Reasons to be Cheerful a Happy Easter #R2BC

I don't know about you but I really love the Easter weekend. Whether its the double bank holiday, the chocolate or celebrating Jesus there are plenty of reasons to smile at Easter. Hopefully people will have time to share their happy posts with others this week despite it being school holidays (well for many of us it is!). Here are my Easter reasons to be cheerful:
1) Fond farewells
Something I never expected working as a supply teacher/teaching assistant was to be given a farewell bouquet of flowers! I was therefore very touched after a half term in one school to be given these in front of the entire school:

2) Proud mum

My son volunteered for the first time at our local parkrun. He was assistant run director to start us all off and then sorted all 207 finish tokens at the end (2nd highest ever turnout!). Glad to say he really enjoyed it and wants to do it again:

3) Easter fun

The littlest room in the house

Before we fully moved into our Housing Association home we just had time to carpet and decorate most of the rooms in the house. One room that is still virtually untouched, but is in desperate need, is the downstairs bathroom. We are lucky to still have one as many residents have knocked theirs through to make a decent size kitchen! I have to say that the state of this room means that I will avoid using it and always suggest visitors go upstairs... it is only my children and their friends who tend to make use of it.

All we have managed to do is put in some Ikea Algot shelving for camping gear and our large collection of sports shoes:

#CountryKids Easter hunt up Stickle Ghyll

We just hadn't had enough of hunting chocolate bunnies after Saturday and Sunday so we consulted the National Trust website and headed north. It was a toss up between Allan Bank in Grasmere or Sticklebarn in the Langdale Valley. As it was already early afternoon I decided to go for Langdale as I thought that Grasmere would be very busy with nowhere to park. It turned out that there wasn't much space at Sticklebarn either but luckily just enough for us. This was a slightly different trail as it turned out to be more of a walk with a quiz rather than a hunt. It was also the most picturesque of the ones we have done this weekend:

We have been to the pub several times as part of my 10 k races but had never really explored up the valley and seen the waterfalls that they are using for hydropower:

It wasn't the easiest of walks so luckily we were both wearing trainers and are fairly fit:

The instructions were to start the trail when you got to the bridge. This was the first indication that we were headed in the right direction (although with only one route it would be hard to get lost!):

My son couldn't resist a bit of mini mountaineering by climbing on the boulders alongside the manmade footpath:

We finally reached the bridge and I read out the first clue:

Once he had worked it out and we had filled in the answer plus the missing letter grid we carried on up the valley:

This is the style that needs replacing and they need to raise the funds to do so:

A walk in the Lakes wouldn't be the same without at least one stream to either step or leap across. I took the sedate stride route whereas my son took the risky route:

It was at this point my son worked out that I had been stringing him along and that we didn't need to walk any further to find answers! All the questions were general knowledge based on the Lake District. Once he had filled in the final clue he refused to go any further:

At least we had made it far enough up to enjoy the views back down:

He then raced it back down to the start to claim his bunny. I took my time as I am not too keen on rocky, steep paths.... It was then threatening to rain so we retired to the pub for refreshments and entertainment:

The pub had a lot of these Victorian i-pads and we had fun playing noughts and crosses, hangman and squares:

We had an interesting drive back down the valley as a farmer was herding some of his Herdwicks along the road with his faithful sheepdog:

And this lovely pair were claiming right of way alongside Elterwater common:

It was a beautiful end to the day on Windermere and I'm glad we spent some of it out enjoying tghe fells:

#CountryKids More Easter Trails with the National Trust

Saturday was such fun we decided to do some more trails on Sunday afternoon. We decided due to lack of time to head to Sizergh Castle. The children did this trail on Friday with gramps but I hadn't been. So many others had had the same idea that we had to queue at the entrance for a car parking space. It was cold and wet so it was probably just as well the trail was a very quick one!

There were some simple clues to follow and some obvious things to spot:

My son shot off ahead and we soon lost him:

#CountryKids On the trail with the National Trust

My son and I decided today to try and do as many Easter trails at local National Trust properties as possible! We were going to be at Fell Foot for parkrun already so it seemed a great opportunity to tackle a few that were close by. It turned out that the Fell Foot one was a Spring trail and not an Easter one but it put us into quest mode:

The series of cryptic clues led us all over the park and some were quite tricky! There were a few other families also trying to find all the bunny rabbits that were hidden in all sorts of places. It took us about 40 minutes to find them all and claim his prize of a mini telescope.

Our plan was then to head over to Claife Station via the ferry to do their trail. Unfortunately when we got to the ferry it was temporarily closed... So we had to do a plan B and head to Wray Castle via Ambleside. It took ages but at least we spotted a couple of Herdwicks on the way:

Lots of other folks had had the same idea as well so we had to wait for a parking space before we could collect a pack for the Easter trail:

Reasons to be Cheerful: End of term #R2BC

It was so fabulous having plenty of new people joining in with the linky last week. I hope you have had a chance to visit them all. Reading them made me feel a lot happier over the last few days.
This has been another rubbish week healthwise with the latest thing being my daughter developing an allergy to penicillin! My son and I have still got our cold too... This hasn't stopped us finding reasons to smile and with today being the end of spring term in Cumbria we are so looking forward to a much needed break. Here are the things that have kept me smiling through it all this week:
1) Blue skies
We have had some stunning weather up here in the North West. The colour of the sky has been amazing:

2) Daffodils

The yellow beauties have been bursting out all over:

3) Sport Relief

My son and I overcame our colds to run just under 3 miles for Sport Relief - he was 10 minutes faster than me! If you want to sponsor us the link is http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/teambeckywilloughby 

Paste this code into your post to add the linkup! get the InLinkz code

 

<center> <a href="http://beckywilloughby.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Reasons to be Cheerful" src="http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o585/LakesMum/6894b786-0238-4650-8556-714fdbb64aa2_zpsef0827cd.jpg"/></a>

Reasons to be Cheerful: glad that week is over! #R2BC

When much of the last week has been spent coping with a child in hospital and lots of long drives to and from Lancaster it could be hard to be cheerful! I am so glad she came home on Monday and that life if slowly getting back to normal. With all the stress there were still some things that made me cheerful:
1) Williamson Park
I went on an orienteering trip to Williamson Park and managed to grab this shot of the monument. Its a lovely park that I would love to explore more with my family (although my son is currently sick of trips to Lancaster!):

2) Croci

After visiting my daughter on Sunday we came across hundreds of beautiful croci along the side of a busy road in Lancaster:

3) Fun with my son

Reasons to be Cheerful: Mother's Day and other treats #R2BC

Life is hectic and I am not blogging very much but I won't be missing reasons to be cheerful. We need to share the love a bit more and get more folks joining in with this mood lifting linky. Please share and join in this week. My own reasons to be cheerful this week are:
1) Mother's Day treats

My son insisted on getting money of his bank to buy granny and myself a treat for Mother's Day. He did then also insist on helping me eat mine!

We then joined my parents in Hawkshead for both mums to be treated to an afternoon tea at Grandy Nook tearooms:

2) Beautiful bloom

My bargain Amaryllis has finally fully burst into bloom and is a delight on my windowsill:

3) Cumbria Weekend

At the last minute I entered a competition as part of Cumbria Weekend this week. I was lucky to win a family ticket for the Freedom of Lake on Windermere Cruises. So that is our Sunday sorted:

get the InLinkz code

 

<center> <a href="http://beckywilloughby.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Reasons to be Cheerful" src="http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o585/LakesMum/6894b786-0238-4650-8556-714fdbb64aa2_zpsef0827cd.jpg"/></a>

#CountryKids the long way into town!

There are days when we have to head into Kendal town centre and it is lucky that we can turn into outdoor fun! My son and his friend were with me this Saturday and we had some adventures as we headed along the canal path. First of all we encountered a dog whose owner let the boys throw its ball for it:

My son quickly learned that the dog ball toss wasn't as easy it looked! Then the boys decided it was time to go running and my son followed the route his coach took up and over the turning bridge:

Their various running games got us quickly into the town proper near to Miller Bridge:

After our shopping the boys spent half an hour in the park whilst I drank coffee:

Instead of going home on the canal path we went back along the river so we could watch the birds:

We are so lucky that our town is so beautiful to walk around that its a pleasure to do so:

Nearer home we checked out where the environment agency had dredged out our gravel bank so reduce the chance of flooding:

Outdoor fun doesn't have to be big day out when you live somewhere like Kendal!