A hectic summer

I honestly haven’t had time to spit this summer. It’s been brilliant, but rather tiring and I’m not as upset at the nights drawing in as I usually am.  A  little more time sitting down might suit rather well.

We’ve had two excellent holidays with various combinations of family this summer. First we went to Pembrokeshire with everyone, and second we took the grandsons to the Lake District.

Barafundle Bay. Really gorgeous.

We’d never been to south Wales and it really is gorgeous. The beaches are superb with apricot coloured sand and fascinating rock pools full of life. Marc even found a brittle star.  Tenby is a charming walled town with an interesting Tudor merchant’s house and a state of the art lifeboat, self righting even with 44 rescued people as well as the crew.  

And Pembroke castle has a keep built by William Marshal and a massive cave underneath. It was pretty romantic -you could see where the legends of Merlin and the dragon imprisoned under the Prince’s castle came from. We all enjoyed the swimming; the sea was cold but the water was lovely and clear, and perfectly safe. Unfortunately the weather was a bit off – it was warm but we had an awful lot of sea fret and quite a bit of proper rain.  But we would definitely return.

The Lake District on the other hand offered lovely weather, which is so unlike that part of the country that we were a bit slow to adapt! We took the boys to an indoor climbing centre on the first day.

But the next day we spent climbing Blencathra, which you can see from the lodge where we stay, only usually you can only see the bottom half and the top is covered with clouds. Marc asked if we were half way up after about ten minutes, which didn’t bode well, and then he grumbled on and off all the way to the top. But he didn’t struggle at all, and after a quick look at the view he skipped all the way down chattering nonstop. I don’t know which was more annoying, the chattering or the grumbling. Still we all did it, even if Phil and I felt it in the knees and hips the next day!  

Th summit

heading down via the tarn.

We visited Brougham Castle, which was of special interest to us because it was one used as a base in Edward I’s invasion of Scotland. We have read “A Great and Terrible King” which told us much more about Edward than we ever learned in school.  In fact it has led to a slight obsession with medieval history, which has actually now spread to dark ages Northumbria.

We have been to see “Finding Dory” (good, but not as good as “Finding Nemo”), some National Trust properties, Thomas has done a Kayaking course, Marc and I have fed goats and lamas and identified many bugs, which are proving almost as absorbing as dinosaurs, and I saw a watervole.  And Marc has learned to tie his shoelaces (he taught himself), and his school tie, and Thomas has learned to iron his own shirts. 

I think the thing I'm most pleased with is that I have crocheted a viking helmet, complete with horns, for my son in law's birthday. I think he thought it was a rather strange present - I'm reading that from his expression - but it fitted and actually I was impressed by how good it looked. I did have to unpick it about twenty seven times in order to get it more or less right, but it was worth it.