Airtime!

A small but notable development in Louis' skatepark skills. He's learning to lift the front wheel as he leaves the lip of ramps, and there's real fresh air between his tyre and the ground. Click photo for close-up proof!

Kelpies Revisited

Catherine and Matt, Isabel and Sally were visiting from London town, so we went with Paula and Dave to see the Kelpies. We took the tour, went inside a Kelpie, and concluded the best view was probably driving by on the M9. They're part of a larger park project called The Helix, which looks nice but will be much better when it's finished...

A Frog He Would A-Reading Go

Holly often catches frogs of various sizes in the garden, especially around the greenhouse. This week, she took a notion to have the occasion photographed, and send the resulting picture off to the Beano. That's why the hapless frog appears to be reading it.

Tyrolean Traverse

After the - albeit short-lived - success with the slackline, I wanted to try rigging a zip line for the kiddies. Keith dug out our old climbing rope, and with a little bit of reading I managed to rig a Tyrolean Traverse and an improvised harness. It all worked a treat - especially between big trees in the park - and the kids especially loved hanging upside down for some reason. Next step, a pulley to make a zip line!

Holiday Over

We returned from far-flung Cumbria to find - surprise! - that the weather in Edinburgh was glorious too. In a vain attempt to hold on to that holiday feeling, we had Paula & Dave round and drank wine in the garden until the sun set. How symbolic.

Cumbria - The Pool

Somewhere between our holiday house and the Lake District, there's a wee village called Greystoke. Yes, the Greystoke of Tarzan fame. They have an excellent pub with a lovely beer garden, and a rather splendid community-run outdoor pool. So we spent a bit of time there, for obvious reasons. Retiring to the aforementioned boozer for the traditional ice cream and beer, the kids even enjoyed a game of giant chess while we supped cold lager in the sun.

Cumbria - The River

Just up the road from our holiday house, there was a nice wee town called Dalston where we ended up for ice creams and beers a couple of times. Running nearby was a splendid river, just the right depth for wading in on a hot summer's day. So we did.

Cumbria - The Fish

We were hungry, so we went fishing! A rather nice wee fish farm does "fun" fishing in which you hire a rod and - with a bit of tuition in the right kind of baiting - have a pretty good chance of catching something. We used sweetcorn and red maggots which seemed to do the trick, we caught four rainbow (I think) trout and had them for tea. Fresh, yum!

Cumbria - The Park

It's not unusual - even when on holiday - to visit a park or two, this time around they were both in Carlisle, Bitts Park and Hammonds Pond. Both had variations on splendid swingy spinny things, as well as (not pictured) a pond, a miniature railway, more high wires, a water play area and all sorts of good summery stuff. We spent a bit of time in both with my shiny new frisbee.

Cumbria - The Tarn

A tarn, it says here, is is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. "Mountain" is perhaps overstating it slightly in the case of Talkin Tarn, but it's certainly a lake or pool. What Wikipedia doesn't mention is you can hire a boat and row on it. Which we did. And then we walked around it.

Cumbria - The Farm

We only really had bad weather one day, when we were at Walby Farm Park. It chucked it down for an hour or so, at which point we were in the shed, learning about milking cows and using ferrets to trap rabbits. Outside, the puddles were no impediment to go-karting and sheep racing...

Cumbria - The Trees

So we had a couple of weeks off at the start of July, and decide to have a bit of a staycation. We chucked some stuff in the back of the car, and a few short hours later were installed in a nice wee holiday house in rural Cumbria. So simple, so easy, so nice. On the first day we headed to Treetop Trek in the Lake District, to do a bit of the now-familiar high wire trail round the trees on the shores of Windermere. The sun shone and it felt like a proper holiday!