Skip to main content

Summer highlights 2018

Um, hello?  Is this thing on?

 Testing... testing...

 Ah, good.  Can you all hear me now?  It's been so long that I've almost forgotten how this works.

 Right then, the boys are back at school and it's on with the blog!  Here are a few highlights of what we got up to while they weren't at school.

The great outdoors

The weekend before the holidays, we headed to the Peak District to climb Mam Tor.  This takes about ten minutes from the car park, so it's not as strenuous as it sounds.  There are beautiful views from both sides of the ridge.  Just make sure you don't overbalance into a gorse bush like I did (ouch!)


Our National Trust membership got put to use again, as we returned to our local favourites.  The boys explored the maze at Calke Abbey and played giant Connect 4 on the lawn at Sudbury Hall.




We also visited somewhere new: Bradgate Park, near Leicester.  We were most impressed - it's a beautiful spot, with deer roaming free, a photogenic ruined house, and plenty of rocks to climb on.



And in our own back yard, the vegetable garden has been loving all the sun - we've eaten more tomatoes than you want to know about - and we camped out for a night.  Gotta love a campfire!




Vehicles

Aeroplanes at the Aeropark by East Midlands Airport


Trams at Crich Tramway Museum


Cars at Cars in the Park in Lichfield


More cars at Donington Racetrack



New experiences

Toby played in his first piano recital, held in his piano teacher's back garden.  He was very confident and did a great job!



Theo suddenly decided he wanted to take the stabilizers off his bike.  I spent 10 minutes hanging on to the back of his saddle while he got his balance, and then, suddenly, he was off!


We took the boys to the cinema for the first time.  Derby QUAD, our local independent cinema, offers extremely good value family tickets, so we went there to see Hotel Transylvania 3.  Vampires, werewolves, and strange jelly monsters on a cruise ship - what more could you want in a movie?


Friends and family

It's been a very sociable summer!  We enjoyed a visit from my grandparents, who flew over from America for a week, quite unexpectedly.  Grandma (always a 1st-grade-teacher!) had the boys counting chocolates, and Grandpa taught Toby a poem (A flea and a fly in a flue...).  They all had a great time together.  Various other family members dropped in while they were here, too, so we had a houseful for two days.

We also caught up with friends from Bristol and Sandhurst, visited Graham's sister in Yorkshire, and spent time with parents and local friends too.



And finally...

Graham and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with a couple of nights away in Lyme Regis.  My parents looked after the boys, and Graham had arranged everything, with a beautiful B&B, an enormous bunch of flowers, and even some perfect weather to top it all off!  It was such a treat to eat out, go for a long coast walk, and simply wander around without a care in the world (for two days).





And when we got back, our cares in the world had made us a very nice anniversary cake!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor   Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as
Post a Comment
Read more

The Churnet Way: bells at Alton

Alton village and Alton Towers are perched on opposite banks of the Churnet, with the river cutting a deep valley between them. Most people drive straight through the village on the way to the theme park. But I have a great liking for walks and no fondness at all for rollercoasters, so I found a large layby to park in at Town End, in Alton, and pulled on my boots. The church bells were ringing as I set off. I vaguely wondered if there was an event. A wedding? Unlikely on a Tuesday morning. Maybe a funeral. I followed a footpath across a few fields to reach Saltersford Lane. This was the width of a single-track road, but mostly overgrown and muddy. I was grateful for the strip of stone flags (and some more modern concrete slabs) which provided a dry surface to walk on. Presently I came out into some fields and dropped down a slope to the old railway line, at the point where I left it on my previous walk .  bit of old rail   There followed several miles of walking along the railway path.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Churnet Way: Rocester and Denstone

I looked at the stile and shook my head. Only a few metres beyond it was a busy B-road with a nice wide verge to walk on, but between the stile and the road was an impenetrable mass of brambles and bushes. I wasn't getting through that lot. Reluctantly, I turned left and trekked along yet another field boundary in search of a gate. You may recall that my previous walk had taken me to Thorpe, with Toby. If you're really paying attention you will know that I'm then supposed to be continuing on the Limestone Way as far as Matlock. Well, I've taken a detour.  I realised that I had crossed every bridge over the Dove so far, apart from one small one just south of Rocester. I couldn't miss that out, could I? So today's walk was designed to take in that bridge, but it also happened to start me off on the Churnet Way , which I rather liked the look of. I think I will follow it for a while and come back to the Limestone Way later. JCB factory and lake The walk had start
Post a Comment
Read more