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 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:

Reasons to be Cheerful Schools Out for Summer #R2BC

Once again the lovely Michelle is hosting the linky so please go and say hello! Its the start of the summer holidays for us in Cumbria so there is plenty to be cheerful about:

1) Fun in Bolton

At the weekend were in Bolton for IronKids. A really fun event and I was proud of my children. This picture was accidentally humorous too:

2) Community Play Area

Since moving to our estate I've been involved on the residents' committee and our big project is a play area. The plans were agreed between the council and the contractor this week and it will be built this autumn:

3) Blast from the past

I had a chance to walk with my son through some of the older parts of Kendal where we used to walk coming home from nursery:

Reasons to be Cheerful : Marching on #R2BC

Normally I would have handed the hosting reins back to Ojo's World but she is having a break this month so has left the linky with me! Hopefully I will continue to look after it well.. 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) Blast from the past
Inspired by my old Guide blanket I have started a macrame owl kit:

It is really satisfying to re-learn a forgotten skill and to see how it grows. Those half hitches are satisfying to conquer! When finished I will blog more about it...

2) Marshalling at Parkrun

I don't often get to volunteer at our Parkrun as I have to find another responsible adult to run with my son. Luckily the regulars are all very friendly and I know which ones run the course in a similar time to him! So on Saturday I was on of the team of marshals on a very cold day at Fell Foot. It is such a pleasure to be able to encourage people with a comment or a wave. I even had a chance to take plenty of photographs too. This is my son on his way to 16th male position in the event:

3) Winter Run

I have already blogged about my trip to Manchester for the race. There were so many reasons to smile about the day including: 

• meeting other mummy runners
• the atmosphere
• my finish time
• the support from my daughter

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Guide Blanket nostalgia

My daughter is off to Guide camp next month and as part of it will be sewing more badges on to their camp blankets and talking about the badges on them. When I mentioned I still had mine the leader suggested that my daughter brings it along with her. So I dug it out of the vacuum bag in which it has been stored for years:

Over the years I had sewn all these badges on and I still have some in a box waiting to be added! I obviously had stuck to some sort of plan as to where they were sewn as they are all in certain places. 

My Brownie badges must have been the first ones sewn on when I first got the blanket. I was in 3 different packs from moving house and did plenty of activity badges:

Then I moved on to Guides during the early 1980s and the 75th anniversary of the Guides Association:

I then moved up to Rangers and more adventures whilst at the same time being in the Red Cross to do my Duke of Edinburgh's award and First Aid qualifications:

Wordless Wednesday: Nostalgia