Lake District Holiday 2011

See, I told you I would try better to post more often. However, this post is for my Mother and Father-in-law. The family is awaiting a new arrival, however the labour started on Monday afternoon (it's now Wednesday morning). So this is to give them something to do while they are waiting for news.

Alice started nursery a few weeks ago. She really enjoys it, however there are loads of tears (from Alice, not me) when I leave her. I'm assured that as soon as I leave she is fine and when I pick her up she is all chat on the walk home about what she's been up to. We filled in a wee book about Alice and what she likes to do and her development stage. She drew this picture of herself for the book.

A very good likeness, I'm sure you will agree!!!


Last week my mum came over from Northern Ireland and we all went off to the Lake District for a week's holiday. We stopped in Bowness as that's where we had to pick up the keys and went to the Beatrix Potter Experience. It was good, but not worth the money it cost. Alice did enjoy it and thankfully we have the complete works (in one book) of Beatrix Potter, so she knew most of the characters. This is Alice with Mr McGregor from The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Next day we went to Hill Top where Beatrix Potter lived. Stuart and I joined the National Trust for a year (we got 25% off a year's membership through a voucher I got in a child's magazine), so we got in free here. It was a very good afternoon, though. Alice did a little trail looking for paw prints on stones and then writing down the letters beside it and we had to re-arrange all the letters to make a word. She really enjoyed that. This is Alice with her Nanny (my Mum) at the door of Beatrix Potter's house. Also the lady inside gave Alice a book and she had to find all the places in the book from the cottage. This kept Alice's attention (a bit more anyway) as we looked round the house. It was very interesting, talking to the people who work there about her life.

We went to the Aquarium on a very wet and windy Monday. It was absolutely pouring it down, then went swimming in the afternoon. Stuart had his first experience of a Sauna and Steam Room. He said he prefers the Sauna. I don't go near them given last time I went in one I came out and fainted!!!

On the Tuesday we went into Kendal. Then went onto Sizergh Castle. There'd been a really horrible road accident and the main road had been completely shut. So we had to drive up and down really tiny wee roads to get us to the castle. Alice was a bit fed up by the time we got there and so her behaviour left a lot to be desired. We then had a very long drive home as we had to drive up and round Windermere and the traffic then came to a standstill about 5 miles where we needed to turn off. So we managed to turn round went into Bowness and had dinner. By the time we came out the road had cleared. We didn't fancy the route round the top of Lake Windermere we were going to have to take otherwise.

On the Wednesday the weather was a bit better. Cold and cloudy, but not wet!!! So we went to the animal park. It was a really great park.

Alice nearly got eaten by the Hippo!!!!


A good display by this peacock!!! Thank you for obliging.

These Rhinos were hilarious. They stayed like this for a good hour!!!

A couple of other rhinos a bit closer up. Remember you can click on the picture to get a closer look.

We really liked this, the baby monkey riding on its parent's back.

Alice was desperate to feed the giraffes. We had to wait for quite a while until they decided to come down for something to eat. It was fascinating watching them run down the hill though. Stuart talked a lot about their legs. Apparently most animals walk using opposing legs (right front and left back etc) whereas giraffes use the same legs (right front, right back).

Just really liked this bear having a good old lounge!!!

Alice was very brave and tackled this crocodile!!! Who do you think won?

My mum got pretty close to this lemur.

Then it was time for the feeding of the tigers. They hung the food pretty high up in the trees. So when they came out they just jumped up the trees and grabbed the food and then jumped back down again and tore into dinner!!! Fascinating to watch.

Alice was very upset that she didn't get to go down and feed the penguins. However, the enclosure was packed and she wouldn't have got near them, so we watched them from above.

Thursday was a very wet and cold day!!! So we went on a steam train and then the boat up Lake Windermere to Bowness. We reckon it was about 60% Chinese, 30% American and then 10% rest of the world.
Just a view of the Lake in Bowness.


Alice and Stuart feeding the swans and ducks.

Stuart went for a walk from the cottage to a place called High Dam one night. So he took these photos on his walk.



I think this one is my particular favourite. He changed the shutter speed and got this amazing photo.

On the Friday, the weather was a bit better so we went swimming in the morning and then went to Brockhole Lake District visiting centre. It was a really beautiful place. Alice and Stuart sat on this boat.
They weren't going to be going anywhere!!!


A view of Lake Windermere.
Alice on the zip wire at the playground. It was a really great adventure playground.


We had a really great holiday. The weather was cold, wet and windy, but it didn't hamper us getting out and about. It was the first time Mum had been to the Lake District and she said she really enjoyed it. We all came home with colds though. So we all spent the bank holiday feeling really ropey!!!

Sorry it's been a while!!!

Well as you can see I (Pauline) haven't blogged since Christmas. Just been very busy and particularly given how long it's taken the photos to upload (nearly two hours!!!!!!).

So this is mostly photos from January until now.



Alice, Stuart and my mum playing ludo from a Christmas cracker.

Alice using her new binoculars to view the birds in the trees.

I bought some new modelling balloons (£5 for 100) and so was trying out some new balloon shapes given these ones don't burst when you blow them up!!! Alice would put the flower up to our nose and we had to sneeze, again and again and again!!!

The plates we had been using with Alice since we was a baby started to fall apart, so we thought it was time to upgrade her crockery and cutlery. This is the first use of it all.


Alice is now 4. What a big girl and she does think she can do what she likes, when she likes now that she is 4. So we've had to have quite a few talks about the rules still being the same even though she thinks she's a "grown up" girl now. We did use her turning 4 to change certain things and she has taken to those new rules really well without any fuss. We had a few of Alice's friends round for her birthday party a few days before her birthday. Nana (Stuart's mum) came up to help with the party. There was lots of cutting and sticking etc. to do before the party. They all made a wee bouquet of daffodils to give to their Mummies on Mothering Sunday.

At the end of the party they were all given a balloon hat to take home, they seemed to go down well, as they were all very excited to show them to each other.

Then on the Monday we took one of her new presents (the kite) to the lighthouse. It was great kite flying weather (windy, but freezing cold), however, I'm not sure who was enjoying flying the kite more, Alice or Stuart.
Grandpa (Stuart's dad) arrived for Alice's birthday celebrations too. Her main present was the bike. She had asked for a bike with a seat at the back so she can take her toys for a ride. She was very excited. We asked her what she wanted to do in the afternoon after lunch (we had planned to go to a farm) but she said she just wanted to play with her new toys.

Grandpa had made this bee hive with a string of bees the same scale as the dolls' house he'd made for Christmas. Stuart's dad keeps bees and has been for quite a few years now, the honey is absolutely delicious!!!

We had a special dinner for Alice and then the birthday cake she had requested. Chocolate cake with strawberry icing. Thankfully Sainsburys do a strawberry flavouring.


The day after Alice's birthday we went to the farm. This photo is for Stuart, he has a weird obsession about pigs!!!


At the farm they have a racing car circuit. We weren't sure how Alice would handle driving it herself. So she had a go with Stuart and then wanted to do it herself. She did really well and had about 4 goes on it!!


The week after Alice's birthday she was invited to a friend's birthday party. It was an emergency services party. So Alice wanted to dress up as a fairy doctor!!! She doesn't really do dress up, when we go to Seven Stories there are loads of costumes in the Attic and a wee theatre and she doesn't want to dress up at all.

Other news. As most of you will know. The trees have finally come down!!!!! They just left all the trunks and wood out there for weeks and we kept seeing people with wheel barrows and saws taking the wood away. Not from the council, just people who live around and about!!! The insurance company has also agreed that we can use our own structural engineer and builder to do the repair work. I was hoping it would all be done by September however, the engineer was saying that the ground will take a couple of years to recover. So not sure if we have to wait that long before we can do the repairs!!!

This is a before shot.

This is an after shot. The garden now looks fairly bare, without the trees and the leylandii in our garden gone too. So at the weekend we planted some seeds in our new vegetable patch. Some carrots and salad leaves, next month we'll plant some courgettes. We also planted some sunflower seeds to see whose will grow the tallest!!!

Also, we found out a couple of weeks ago that Alice will be going to our first choice of First School in September. She will also be starting nursery (at the same school) after Easter three afternoons a week to help her settle in when she goes full time in September. So we've got a visit to the school tomorrow afternoon and hopefully this will help her when she starts mid-May.

Anyway, sorry it's taken me so long to post, will try to do better.

Christmas 2010

Another Christmas has come and gone. Alice was incredibly excited and a lot more aware this year of what Christmas was all about and how many days there were to Christmas etc. She did very well though and woke at 8am on Christmas Day. She drew a list for Santa Christmas a few days before Christmas and on it was a drawing of a doll and a dinosaur with a long neck. Santa was very kind and brought her a family of dolls and a dinosaur with a long neck. She said, it was exactly what she asked for.

Stuart's dad, Ian made Alice a dolls' house. It is utterly amazing and by far her best present. Stuart was asked to go and measure our front door and Ian made a scale model of our front door for the dolls' house. He also painted it the same colour as our house. The letter box on the front door was made by his father many years ago, so Alice's great-Grandfather. Ian kept it all these years and put it on her front door. He even made a door bell to match ours too. I think my next job is going to be making curtains for it.


All the furniture has been bought by friends and family and goes really well in the house.

Alice playing with the house.

And again.


She also got a tiny tears doll and the first thing she wanted to do was see her going on the toilet. So she was stripped and fed some water in her bottle, so Alice could see where she did a wee from!! Alice has called her doll Rosie. She got lots more as well as these toys. One of her favourites was a balloon animal kit from Santa. I made her a mouse yesterday and she carries it around quite a lot and strokes it a lot.

This is just a wee update as I haven't done it in a while. Also these photos were taken with our new digital camera. We think the pictures look a lot clearer, however, these have been reduced for the blog.

Snow, Snow and More Snow and It's still Snowing!!

Yes, as you can it has been snowing since Wednesday 24th November. Thought I would post a few photos of the snow. This was last Friday, when the snow started to fall a bit more.

The was Saturday 27th out the back of our house.



The car in the front covered in snow.

Alice in the garden, trying to walk through the snow. It wasn't sticking together at all so we couldn't build a snowman.

Mr and Mrs Snowman sitting on the chairs!!

Alice pulling her doll Lou-Lou up the street in her sledge. Poor Lou-Lou had not clothes on!!!

Stuart trying to get the car off the drive last night to go shopping. He reversed it and because there is a dip before the road goes back up again it wouldn't go past that dip. The wheels just kept spinning. So he digging the car back onto drive!!! He's walking with his massive ruck sack today instead!! About an hour and a half after this photo was taken it had snowed about another 4-5 inches.

This morning it was -9 degrees and it had snowed all over again. We just can't believe how much it has been snowing. The other day we had thunder and lightning through the snow!! Didn't witness it as it was late at night and early in the morning. That's really rare as a phenomenon!!!

On Sunday as the temperature had lifted slightly, the snow started to melt a bit. So the snow that was sitting on the roof slid down and took our guttering with it. So the guttering is strewn in different parts of the roof and the garden below. The noise was horrendous, I thought Stuart or Alice were coming through the roof (I was right below were it was happening). So with no gutter to catch the water and very low temperatures this was the scene outside our bedroom window this morning. One of those icicles is about 60cm long and about 10cms in diameter.

The road at the top of our street was horrendous this morning. People couldn't get their cars up the hill and so they were just getting stuck not being able to go anywhere. A poor woman was nearly in tears. I went over to her (was with Alice so couldn't offer to push) and asked if she was OK. She said the car just won't move and she doesn't know what to do. So I went to the other cars and got people out to help her. Then another couple of blokes who were walking past pushed her up the hill too. Then all the other cars behind couldn't get up either, so they were all having to help each other. Another man skidded her car and just missed some railings. He had a group of people helping to dig the car out for him. At the top of that hill is a bridge going over the metro line and they would get up the hill and get stuck trying to go over the hump of the bridge. I've never seen anything like it!!!! The hill is not that steep or big!!!!!

I hear on the weather forecast that it's due to remain for another wee while yet!!! People here just aren't used to these kind of conditions. The snow is a bit stickier now, so we might get out tomorrow and try to build a snowman. I think some boys are trying to build an igloo in the field behind our house. They've been at it since yesterday!!!