Reasons to be Cheerful: Crumble ,Snow and Piggie #R2BC

 
Apologies for not being a good host last week, I was laid low with an awful ear infection. I will catch up on last week's posts today and make sure I visit and share posts this week. Hope you will still join in and share the love by commenting on each other's posts. Here are some of my reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) Yummy Crumble

My son made apple crumble this week. It was the perfect comfort food when I was feeling rubbish:

2) Snow Fun

This week's fell race was cancelled due to dangerous roads in the snow! We managed to make it to the venue in a friend's 4x4 just as they made the decision. So of course we had to make the most of our first decent snow of the winter:

3) Bubble on the mend

After a scary week, with our last surviving guinea pig looking like he had gone blind in one eye, a daily double dose of eye drops and he is almost 100% again. He has regained weight, got his wheak back and is full of beans:

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#CountryKids Sledging in Kendal

Kendal was right on the edge of the Beast from the East part 2 and we just about got some snow on Saturday night:

On Sunday morning the fell race he should have been running in was cancelled as there was too much snow and very strong winds in the hills. So he decided he wanted to go sledging instead. As his had died during the last snow:

Oops this is now an ex sledge!

A post shared by Becky Willoughby (@lakessinglemum) on Mar 1, 2018 at 10:37am PST

I had to rummage in the shed for the unused inflatable sledge we had been sent as a back up to a review 6 years ago:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Proud mum, parkrun, hair cut and snow #R2BC

A new month means a new host so its back to Michelle! Please pop over to her blog and say hello. I am writing this as the snow is gently falling as Kendal seems to have (so far) avoided the full impact of the Beast from the East or Storm Emma. Here are my reasons to be cheerful for this week:
1) Proud Mum
My son went to the last Sportshall competition in Blackpool with gramps this Sunday. He finally achieved his first place in the chest push by equalling his PB of 6.75 m! He had to return his club under 11 trophy this week and if he got his maths right then he may have won it again thanks to that 1st place (we have to wait to see!):

2) Sunny parkrun

It was just beautiful down at Fell Foot on Saturday. Although it was so cold my legs were still not warm after 5 km! I took a head cam video of the route which hopefully shows you how beautiful it is:

After running I took this shot from the end of the jetty:

3) Hair cut

I hadn't had my hair cut since September (shock horror!) so I finally got round to booking myself in to get tidied up. I was advised that I might have an iron deficiency which is making my hair thinner so I am trying to take my vitamins to give me a boost:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Snow, Blue Skies and Winter Walks #R2BC

Trying to be organised for this week and actually have this post ready to go before Thursday! It has been a wonderful week with a variety of work and plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Hopefully folks can join in and share theirs too.

1) Blue Skies

It was such a stunning day on Sunday which really set off the Hoad Monument when we stopped at the supermarket for a snack on our way home:

2) YouTube Filming

I am now getting known as the lady who films the fell races! I made a sign so that runners knew what I was doing pointing a camera at them:

To see my latest one have a look on YouTube (and if you can leave a like or a comment I would appreciate it!).

3) Snow

Yesterday we had just enough snow to look gorgeous without causing too much hassle. I walked past this magical looking tree on the way to the supermarket:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Happy New Year! #R2BC

Its January which means I have handed the reins back to the lovely Michelle so do pop over there and say hello! There has already been plenty to smile about even though 2018 has only just begun:
1) Snow
Well it wasn't a lot and it didn't last long but it made for a more dramatic backdrop for our latest fell running film:

2) Coco

My daughter's cat thoroughly entertained 3 generations on New Year's Eve. He is turning lots of non cat people in to cat lovers:

He even tried to join in at Game of Life:

3) New Year's Day dip 

Sinking into the cold of Windermere on New Year's Day certainly put a smile on my face:

4) Family

Having shown you last week how tall my daughter is getting this week I can show you the height of my 11 year old next to my mum (she is 5ft 4.5)! I think he is taller than I was at his age...

Please join in and visit all the other happy linkers and share some love in 2018!

#CountryKids Fell Running Challenge no 3: The Helm in Snow

When snow fell yesterday we took the chance to do our first snowy fell running film. It was also a chance to try out my new Action Camera. I had discovered the day before that if it was clipped to a bum bag it only really recorded the ground in front of you! So my mum suggested clipping it to a head torch band instead. We discovered this worked alright so set off to a snow coated Helm:

My 11 year old had a quick lesson in starting and stopping filming before stripping down to his running kit and making the film. It turned out that in the cold with gloves he didn't always get the switch so we had a few sections of film that weren't of running (but you really don't want to watch my rear view walking up a hill!). There was an occasion when he had pushed the band back up and forgotten to push it down again so we had a few sky shots too! Luckily a couple of the head cam films were OK enough to put into this film alongside the ones shot on the main camera:

Film number 4 will probably be the first Kendal Winter League at Scout Scar next weekend... Here are the links to the series so far:

Challenge 1: The Helm

Challenge 2: Kendal Castle

Reasons to be Cheerful: Every cloud has a silver lining #R2BC

Joining in a day late as its been a bonkers week! Good job its being hosted by the lovely Ojo's World...  Here are my reasons in a week that's been a bit of a whirlwind:

1) Sunshine

Its amazing the power of having that wonderful, warm glow in the sky! Its been a lift to the spirits after all the rain:

2) Snow

In contrast having enough snow to have fun without causing chaos was another reason to smile as already shown in my Country Kids post.  You can see my daughter was very pleased with being able to build a snowman and have a go at sledging:

#CountryKids Winter Stroll at Crook

When the temperature gauge is reading a temperature like this there is only one thing to do...

Wrap up warm and head out for a stroll in the countryside around Crook, even if the children don't want to!:

There was plenty to investigate with frozen puddles to smash and ice to look at:

For grown ups there were stunning views across to snowy fells:

There are plenty of tempting looking paths that we could have followed:

#CountryKids A walk in the snow

We had walked into town today despite the rain as I wanted to buy some books and sneak in an early Mother's Day lunch. It was a pretty horrid day but once we were safely tucked up in Pizza Express tucking into a late lunch it seemed fine:

As we ate we noticed the rain was getting wintry and then it turned to snow! 

Now we haven't had much snow this winter in Kendal so it made for a much more fun walk home. It was proper big fluffy snowflakes the kind that you just have to try and catch on your tongue:

It took a long time to get home when we were walking along with our tongues out staring at the sky... One of life's simple pleasures:

#CountryKids Snow Post

It seems a long time since we had any snow so when we did get a bit my daughter couldn't wait to get out in it:

"Look at my snowman"

Not the largest ever snowman and hopefully not the last one we will get to make this winter, but it was quite cute:

Snowman

Finally some snow fun

My children have been very disappointed that Kendal seemed to be the only place in the UK without enough snow to use their sledges. They had been rescued from the grandparents' garage but had been sitting around doing nothing..

Then yesterday it finally started to snow and it didn't stop for over 12 hours so we had to stay at the grandparents' house:

The children were finally able to build a snowman even if it was in miniature:

Then we managed to get back across town and into the field behind our house:

We are so lucky to have just enough of a slope for a sledging session without too long a walk from the house. Normally this field is full of dog walkers but today it was mostly children with their parents having a great time whizzing down the hill:

There can't be too many places to sledge where you have an audience of sheep to watch you coming down the hill:

The children and I had a great time and my son even photographed me coming down on his sledge:

The snow might not last but at least we have had some fun! Just glad we filled up our bird house feeding station:

Chill Factore - Blogger Party

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Back at half term my children and I were invited to the Chill Factore in Manchester for their blogger party. It was pretty exciting pulling up outside the building with its special shape to accomodate the ski slope. On entering the complex it was amazing what they had fitted in to make it a ski experience.

We were in a group with families with children from pre-school to early secondary age. All of us were kitted out with clothing, helmets and boots before being taken out to enjoy a taste of the activities on offer.

For my children and I our first taste was the tubing which is basically a giant inner tube that you sit in before being pushed down the slope! This was really good fun as it wasn't very scary but pretty exhilarating. My daughter had the maximum number of goes but my son only wanted 3 runs down.

He headed over to the adjacent sledging slope and was very happy to spend the rest of the session going down on there especially on the special seated sledges:



I came from the tubing just as my daughter came flying to the bottom of the luge! She had found it a bit too scary and advised me not to do it. So of course I went down it 4 times! It is pretty scary and I had bruised elbows but it was well worth it. I did take some pics and video of other people on the luge but can't get them on here at the minute as my laptop is broken... Luckily I had uploaded a partial video of what we did to YouTube so here it is including my squealing (and some sideways footage!):



 

For the youngest members of the group there was a Snow Play area where they could have fun in the real snow:

By the end of the session all of us were a little bit tired and a little bit wet but mostly looked happy:

We were more than ready to retire to one of the bar areas for pizza, chips and a view of the slopes:

Just at the minute my two aren't keen on the thought of the main slope for skiing and snowboarding but I'm quite tempted!

I would definitely recommend Chill Factore for a different family day out. At the minute they are having special Christmas events including Santa in a real snow grotto! For the rest of the time they have various packages to let you choose your activities. Its not a cheap day out but it is a lot of fun as a family.