Summer Hols Week 1

Aged parents kindly towed their caravan up to the South Lakes for us and we spent a few days getting away from it all.  The weather was mostly kind to us and we didn't have too much rain.

Caravan life is not really for us.  Poor Nick kept banging his head on things as he's rather tall and it's a real pain forever putting beds up and down. However, we were inspired to get out about a bit more and have upgraded our tent.  But more about that in a future post.

Here's Milly Molly Mazda looking very at home and outdoorsy in the lovely woody caravan site. Top box fitted the roof bars so we managed to take all our stuff too.

So what did we get up to.  Well, we took the boat all around Lake Windermere and encountered many different weather systems throughout the day.  Watched the heavy rain that drenched us in Bowness rolling down over the mountains and then an hour later it was sunny again!

Oh well.  I do now possess a rather fetching floral waterproof poncho. Makes me look like a walking tent but I was oh so much drier! All in all a very fun day and a really good way to get around Bowness, Ambleside and the lake in general.

On board - a fairly sunny moment!

We were joined for a couple of days by Nick's son, girlfriend and the boys. That was 8 of us and only a 5 berth caravan. This called for some innovative thinking. There is a teeny tiny porch awning but it became clear that this simply wouldn't be big enough. So They brought our tent along (which they had borrowed) and voila - a caravan awning extension was born.... well more of an annexe really.  Anyhow, it meant we could all stay.  Us and kids in the caravan and the other two in the tent.  Oh and a couple of visiting hedgehogs.  They arrived in the awning on the first night to nab some of the dog's food and came back every night. Very snuffly and noisy but also very cute!

Lots of great little walks around the caravan site.  We needed some supplies so we decided to walk to the farmshop at Sizergh barn.  A lovely stroll through the woods and some fields. Lots of gorgeous wild flowers and some interesting road signs!

Off to the Sizergh Barn

The unusual road sign - lots of looking but nothing spotted!

Got our supplies and ate like kings.  All of the following day to look forward to. A day out in Grizedale Forest.

I just love Grizedale forest. There's so much to do. You can walk, cycle, check out the wood sculptures, and swing from the trees at Go Ape. We packed a picnic, picked an interesting path and finished up on the cairn picnic-ing on the top of the crag with the most spectacular view of Morecambe Bay and the Cumbrian mountains. There were also lots of whinberries growing up there and lots of purple faced children!

Nature highlight of the day was the awesome dragonfly spotted on the way up by elder daughter.

We had a really good time.