Reasons to be Cheerful: Nostalgia, Fells and Garden #R2BC

It is the end of August today (where has this month gone?) so I will be handing back over the lovely Michelle for September as the hostess with the mostest. I will still be joining in and visiting you all though to watch out! Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Nostalgia
One of the great things about sorting out and completely rearranging a bedroom is that it produces lots of treasures from the past. This week one thing that emerged was my whole school photograph from Beaconsfield High School in the summer of 1987 - the year I took the last ever O level exams. There were 800 of us at the school at the time and they lined us up in form by height and then merged us in our year group as we went onto the school field. I have just photographed my Year 5 section (what year 11 used to be called!). Can you find me?

2) Tail Walking at Parkrun
My son and I volunteered to be Tail Walkers at Fell Foot. This is a fun role at the back of the event keeping the walkers company on the 5 km route. This time we started with a gentleman in his 80s who used to run marathons but is now on doctor's orders to only walk. It was lovely to stroll through the park and meadow chatting to him and encouraging other runners as they passed or lapped us. Plenty of time to take photographs too. Then he stopped at the end of lap 1 to be with his daughter an we had to leg it over a kilometre to catch the young runner who was now the tail:

#WordOfTheWeek Garden

When I looked out of my bedroom this morning my garden looked like this:

Basically for the last few months I have barely had time to mow the lawn let alone weed or trim the hedge (not that I have the right equipment!). Luckily for me some other members of my family are much more green-fingered than me and they are equipped for virtually any garden work. They came round after breakfast and with me achieved:

•  2 weeded borders
• a mown lawn with all grass to the back trimmed
• a hedge tamed to a reasonable size
• old guinea pig run removed
• hardcore from previous tenants removed

It was just as well it was green bin day and they don't collect until lunch time as we filled 2.5 green wheelie bins (thanks to the neighbours!) and still had all of this to take to the tip:

It was lovely to look out of my window after lunch and see the transformed view:

So much more space and somewhere you would actually want to sit out in! Still things to do and next up is to relocate the compost bins right up to the back out of the way... watch this space...

#CountryKids Glenridding and Ullswater

We had friends visiting Cumbria from the south coast and when I had to think of somewhere to meet up I suggested Glenridding on the shores of Ullswater. Its part of the Lake District I have barely been to and I wanted to go again. So my son and I had the fun of Kirkstone Pass, the highest pass open to motor vehicles in Cumbria, with twisty roads and up to 1:4 inclines to get there! We met up at St Patrick's Boat Landing and over coffee my friends suggested a row on the lake...

The water was pretty smooth and as the only big vessels are the steamers its a pretty safe body of water to be out and about on. It did help that my friend was an experienced oarsman who safely got us past the restored Steamer Pier:

There were quite a few people out enjoying the water despite the lack of wind for sailing:

The red sailed boat did seem to manage OK and added to lots of my photographs like this of the Inn on the Lake:

#CountryKids Virtual Vikings, Waterpark Fun, Windy Beaches and Rugged Coasts

After our busy history day we went for more of a fun-filled one and headed back down to Waterford to visit the King of the Vikings which is the world's visit virtual reality Viking encounter: 

As there are only 8 people in the attraction at a time we had to book and then wander around admiring the mix of modern and Georgian architecture around the Anglican cathedral:

We even had time for a very happy coffee:

#FitnessFriday A Step in the Right Direction

So its time to see how I have done since last Friday when I committed to losing the weight  had put back on and running more! First up how is the 1000 km challenge going:

So that's another 25 km achieved and I am now only 119 km behind instead 122. I can still do this as I had worked out I needed to run 3.67 km a day for the rest of the year so with a few longer runs to make up for missed days I will earn that medal...

What about the rest of my fitness plan?

1) Diet

I have been increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables in my diet as I wasn't hitting the 5 day. Have to admit its probably more fruit than veg though... This week I also ate oily fish a few times at lunch with both tuna and smoked salmon as I know I have been missing out on this type of food. A good lunch looked like this:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family, Friends and Celebrations #R2BC

Where is August vanishing to? Scottish schools are back already and we have less than 2 weeks left here! So much still to make me smile this week though and I hope lots of you join in too and then comment on other blogs:
1) Happy Birthday Dad!
Today is my dad's birthday so I just have to post the oldest photograph of him I can find which must be from the early 1950s!:

2) Furry Family

We have 3 furry family members who bring us all lots of pleasure here are Bubble (Splodge playing hard to get!):

and Coco:

3) Movie Time

#WordOfTheWeek Nostalgia - Jig-Map Jigsaws

We are having major sortings out and getting rid of lots of things at the moment and as always when you go rummaging in boxes you find old treasures that take you back... Before selling some jigsaws I thought it would be best to test them out to see if they were still intact. So my dad and I sat down to tackle one together - just like we used to do on Sundays in the days of black and white TV! We had a few of these Jig-Maps which combine puzzling and geography with their place name quiz:

I had forgotten how the pieces were all more unusual shapes than most jigsaws:

Some even abutted rather than connected to another piece which made it more complicated:

#CountryKids Jerpoint Abbey, Thomastown, Inistioge and New Ross

Another day of balancing the pleasure of 3 generations on holiday. My son was not impressed with the fact that we started off at Jerpoint Abbey (using our English Heritage cards):

I think the lovely folks on the reception desk could see his lack of enthusiasm and so explained about their children's trail. He still had dragging feet as we started off out hunting for items in the carvings such as what a saint was holding or deciding which number a certain saint was in the line up:

#CountryKids All England Stone Skimming Championships

After Parkrun yesterday my son decided he wanted to enter the All England Stone Skimming Championships which were being held in the same park. There was quite a queue to sign up as the competition was open to all ages with no qualification. At £3 for an adult and £1 for an under 11 it was a well priced event too. Our first task was to choose from the selection of skimmers that the South Cumbria Rivers Trust had supplied:

Its all to do with the size of your hand and how they fit when you are preparing to throw them! Then we had to wait to take our turn at skimming and first of all we watched some of the seasoned experts; such as Ron Long The Old Tosser who has written an excellent post explaining how to skim stones.

Next up was Gareth Twamley who with his first stone broke the local record with an awesome 88m!!

The slightly choppy waters (and occasional straying waterfowl) weren't the ideal conditions for stone skimming:

Recipe: Hot Dogaghetti (Hot Dogs and Spaghetti)

Sometimes you see an idea on Pinterest and you think hmm I could do that. Sometimes it can go wrong (see here) but this time it went well so I thought I would show you my version. This is perfect for either lazy home cooking or for camping as you just need one saucepan to cook it in. So here are the instructions for Hot Dogaghetti:

1) Ingredients

Enough hot dogs and spaghetti for your diners (in this case my 10 year old on his own!):

2) Preparation

Put a big enough pan of water on to boil and then divide up the hot dogs to chunks and the spaghetti in half:

Careful insert 5 or 6 strands of spaghetti into each chunk of hot dog: 

#FitnessFriday Time for Action

Having had 2 weeks away on holiday after a very stressful half term my weight has been heading in the wrong direction! Not only that but I am slipping further and further behind in my 1,000 km running challenge:

So I need a multi pronged approach to getting back first of all to where I was 2 months ago on the weight front and then to keep up the momentum.

1) Diet

On holiday pretty much anything goes and portion sizes seem irrelevant! Now things are back to normal (if there is such a thing) I need to be more careful. I have started to drink herbal teas in the afternoon instead of caffeinated coffee:

I am making sure that my fruit and vegetable intake is increasing and that portions of protein and carbs are decreasing. Yesterday I even whipped up my own cupcakes so that they were a healthier naughty treat (although my son and his friend ate half of them straight off...):

Reasons to be Cheerful: Friends and Home #R2BC

It's Thursday so it is time to celebrate our reasons to be cheerful! I have now recovered from a fun but tiring week co-ordinating a Single with Kids holiday in Pembrokeshire and have had plenty of reasons to smile as we are now midway through our summer holidays. Here are a few of them:
1) Old friends
We managed to come back from Pembrokeshire via Buckinghamshire to spend time with my High School friends and their families. Great to catch up in good company and in good weather! We have been friends since 1983 and spending time together is still fantastic:

2) Back to Kendal
As much as I loved Pembrokeshire I did miss Kendal so its great to be back with more time to soak up our local sights. This is Stramongate Bridge one of several old bridges across the River Kent:

3) Kindness & Support

#CountryKids in Tramore, Ireland

My son had been keen to leave Waterford as he had seen a leaflet about Pirates' Adventure and he was keen to try out the fun. First up was adventure golf which was partially glow in the dark:

Then he challenged me to a kid friendly game of 10 pin bowling:

Luckily for him there was another boy on the pirate ship climbing and soft play and he had lots of fun playing hide and seek with him. Then it was on to the bumper motorbikes:

#CountryKids Dunmore Cave

After the fun of Foot Golf it was Gramp's turn to choose an activity and he opted for Dunmore Cave which wasn't too far away. Its almost a tradition now to visit an underground attraction on our holidays! After a video introduction we descended into the cave following our guide:

It looked rather creepy as we were about to go in especially after hearing the story of a massacre of women and children in the cave by Vikings in 928 AD:

Once we had reached the bottom of the main steps we could still see the daylight reassuringly at the top:

#CountryKids in Waterford

A change of scenery with a drive down to Waterford which is the oldest city in Ireland and the only one still bearing a Viking name. We parked on the waterfront and then walked down to Reginald's Tower, this is a medieval structure built on top of a Viking one:

Each floor of the tower had an exhibition about a different aspect of its history from Vikings to Medieval to a Georgian prison. It still very much felt medieval with the low arched doorways:

There were peep holes to act like a scary Viking through too:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Families and Friends #R2BC

In a change from my usual reasons to be cheerful I am not having a photographic one! With it being the summer holidays its time for a change and keeping it short & sweet. So here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Family
I am so glad that being off school gives me plenty of time to spend with my family. During the school year things rush by and its hard to show them how much you appreciate them. Its been good to have time with my nearest and dearest and hope that there is more to come as the summer holidays go on.
2) Friends
The holidays are a great time to spend time with friends whether they are local or from far away. I have enjoyed getting to know other adults on my estate too. My son has been spending more time with the children on the estate and with his best friend from school. Let's hope this a step to deeper friendships.
3) Home sorting
I have made major inroads on sorting out the house whilst not having the inconvenience of work! So hopefully now I have a home that I am able to have folks round to more often which will make me smile even more.
Please join in and share your happy posts. 

Reasons to be Cheerful: All Sorts #R2BC

This is the kind of week that reasons to be cheerful is made for when lots of things have gone wrong so you need to focus on the positives to lift your spirits! So its good to be back hosting the linky so I can post these reasons to be cheerful:
1) Pokemon Go Raiding
Thanks to a chance conversation in a shop we joined in with 2 group raids capturing our first legendary Pokemon! Looks like this will keep us out of mischief for a while:

2) House Sorting

I am enjoying having time to catch up on housework and get the house better organised. Quite a bit of decluttering and I am selling some now redundant bits of furniture. Hopefully end up before September with a house I can be a lot more proud of:

3) Orchid

This beautiful orchid was a leaving present from school and its looking gorgeous on my window sill:

#CountryKids Kilkenny Foot Golf

The thing my son was most looking forward to about our trip was the chance for another round of Foot Golf! He even packed his new football boots to give him a better chance against me and took his own football... did he beat me after all of that...

This time we went to Pococke Golf club where there was a choice of regular golf, foot golf or even rugby golf! Of course there was only one option for him so we paid up and kicked off:

With all the combinations of games there were plenty of signs to keep us going on the correct greens:

Each hole had its own par ranging from 3-5 and a football sized hole to score into: