Reflections on Windermere....

The kids have just completed a four week 'course' with Windermere Reflections a local programme set up to increase the understanding of environmental issues in the Lake Windermere catchment area. Just one day per week they've learned all about the problems with Himalayan Balsom, how phosphates effect the lake and wildlife and how the area has changed over the years with less trees and more sheep causing erosion.....amongst many other things. They've made newsreels on Ipads,completed river surveys, made outdoor art Andy Goldsworthy style, created felt pictures and designed a cartoon strip for a possible book.... It's been a really interesting four weeks.

Interestingly one of the games they played was all about how we look after the environment at home or in our own lives generally and as the only Home Ed group they had run this for, we were the highest scoring group ever! Apparently the school groups generally scored much lower..... different types of families maybe? just a coincidence? or maybe a feeling of disconnection from what goes on around them at home as they are away in school so much? who knows....but I had a proud parent moment anyway!!

 

Ressurection of the Green Dream.....

Ok, it's been over a year snce the last blog, a lot has happened since then.....2013 was not a fantastic year in many ways but we are here ready to tentatively put our boots on and step forward.... watch this space..... !

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

 

Pines and picnics...

After a lovely Christmas and New Year down South (I'll write about this in the next few days) we have had the first few days of no rain....hurrah!! Apparently we're heading into a really cold snap for the next month so decided to get out and enjoy the cold, crisp, dry and sunny day we had on offer today by heading back over to Grizedale Forest.

We are slowly working our way through the different trails, so today it was the turn of the Grizedale Tarn Trail, 3.5 miles of beautiful forest walk with the added bonus of a natural tarn and sculptures along the way. Although it was a chilly day, the sun shone through the trees and we found a lovely little spot for our lunch but I'll let the pictures do the talking......

The start of the trail...

Through the arch...

with the sun shining through the trees...

over the bridge...

winding up the musical trees as we went.....

That's one big stile!!

Over a stream ...

Nice place for a picnic...hot soup all round..

A very peculiar man-made channel in the middle of the forest.....

What's that bright shiny thing above the pines?

The fox!

A rather large, wooden spiky thing

The newest sculpture...'Ben the serious rambler'

A fence!!

and it goes on....

We found the tarn! 

Pulling my stomach in whilst trying to smile...not easy!!

Grizedale Tarm...ahhhh...

Interesting stile with drop down cover to keep deer out (or in!)

Over another stream....

Cairn tree

On the homeward stretch, back at the bridge.

Time for hot chocolate!

Here comes the ferry to carry us homeward....

  

Two poorly children....

After proudly telling someone last week that our kids never get ill and are extremely healthy (!) both of them came down with one of the many bugs going around at the moment....sore throats, coughs, headaches..... and two miserable kids! I really don't like the idea of packing them off to the doctors to be dosed up on antibiotics so went for the homemade route instead....

Our first stage was to make Apple Cider Vinegar and Honey drinks   - 1tsp vinegar, 1tsp honey and warm water. The kids are quite used to this as it gets foisted on them whenever I think a bug may be on it's way!! Both of these ingredients are great for loads of things so well worth having this anyway.   

As E's cough just doesn't want to go away we tried a really simple Onion and Honey Cough Syrup - sounds weird but actually seems to be pretty effective so far. It's so easy to make it's ridiculous... 1 white onion sliced, pop it in a jar, pour honey over the top to cover the slices, cover with muslin and leave overnight. In the morning, take out the onion slices and use a tsp at a time. Funnily enough, although you can tell it's had onions in it you don't actually really taste it, just lovely sweet honey with a bit of a oniony aroma on the side! The kids aren't too impressed but they have both managed to take it without too much fuss and they're both asleep and not coughing so that's a result!!

We have had to dose them up with paracetamol but I guess that's a lesser evil than antibiotics, we'll see how it goes......       

The Forest Beckons....

We have had some weird weather here recently, pouring rain, soggy ground, weird glowing skies, rumbles and flashes and even a mini earthquake apparently!! A few days ago the sun was shining and it was one of those lovely cold, crisp days,my favourite kind, so we got over to Grizedale for one of our planned walks which had been postponed about four times this month!
 

Going over Windermere on the car ferry - see the snow on the mountains....COLD!

  We decided we would break ourselves in gently and start with the shorter walks first so we chose the Millwood Trail, only about 1.5 miles under the Go Ape course.

Start of the trail

Go Ape - can you see someone way up there in the trees?!

 It was a lovely walk of contrasts, the adventure and occasional screaming (!) from the Go Ape course above our heads mixed with the quietness of the forest on a still cold day mixed with the sound of flowing water from the streams.  Just lovely! Once we left Go Ape behind us and headed up into the forest we met very few other people, the forest belonged to us for a couple of hours. We stopped at the top for some 'cowboy' lunch (baked beans and bacon- weird I know but the kids love it, and it's WARM!) and had great views down to the Visitors centre.      

Looking down over the visitors centre

High Street, Grizedale

A hedgehog?

Along the way we passed different sculptures, some hidden up little paths to discover.....

These wood markers show you where to explore..

Didn't know the name of this one, kind of like a half built shelter!

 












































 Then it was down for hot chocolate and a play before we all got far too cold and headed home....