Archery Girl

One of the advantages of Home Educating is the fact that we can have beautiful places all to ourselves on some days but also that we can join in with the crowds when we want to without feeling we have to cram everything in to holiday times. We've had some fantastic weather up here in the last week, although still bitterly cold with snow on the mountains, the sun has been lovely and warm and really makes you feel like venturing out again.

 Eilidh and I had a rare day all to ourselves and decided to take advantage of one of the Easter holiday archery sessions at Brockhole Visitor Centre and use our residents passes to have a trip on the Windermere Lake Cruises for part of our journey home. It's really nice to have some time one to one with the kids sometimes, although not always easy to do!

Brockhole Visitors Centre

Looking out over Lake Windermere, snowy mountains!

One of Eilidh's favourite places.....up a tree!

Beautiful sunshine = sparkly water!

Leaving Ambleside on the boat back.

Wherever we go the pencils come too!

Deep concentration! She loved every minute x

We had a great day and I'm thinking this archery lark may be costing us a bit of money in the future!

The Long London Interlude...

I know it's been ages since we updated our blog.....we've had a bit of a family crisis in the last few months with my brother (J) being rushed to hospital in London and on life support for weeks. I won't go into huge details here but it has been and still is a horrible, stressful and very upsetting time for us all. Although he is stable at the moment, he has got a long way to go and some major, major things in the near future with their own set of risks.

On the bright side he's alive and fighting all the way!.... We've spent much more time than we had thought we would visiting London Museums and getting to know parts of London we would maybe never have ventured to ... and family wise, I think we've all pulled together where I know I was feeling a bit disconnected all the way up here in the Lake District. Funny how life goes isn't it? .....

Well there you go...so we've got a bit of catching up to do!  I guess the best place to start is London, with J being right in the middle at a hospital in Paddington, it's a great place to venture out from and very weird for me to be doing my old commute into London from Berks / Bucks area again, this time with kids in tow! We've spent many hours, whilst waiting for hospital visiting hours, wandering around the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, V&A, playing at the great Diana Memorial Park in Kensington Gardens, eating noodles and pizza at Camden Market and braving Hamleys on a bank holiday (not recommended!!). The kids and D have done a massive walk around a lot of the main attractions including Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Eye, Globe Theatre and over Tower Bridge while I was ill one of the days, so they have now seen more of London than I have!! 

We had always said we would take the kids to London in the next couple of years and although this wasn't in the best of circumstances, it has still been a great experience for them and we may still have a few more visits yet this year.

Royal Albert Hall

Tower Bridge

Globe Theatre

Marble Arch

Pirate Ship at Kensington Gardens