Since it was a bank holiday weekend, we decided to head over to the
Lakes for a couple of days and have a little break. We have been for
the day a few times, and wished we’d booked a room as we didn’t want
to come home, so this time I booked 1 night at a B&B. It was a bit
last minute, and we need a room to accommodate 4 so there wasn’t a
great deal of choice, but we ended up in a most interesting place -
it rather reminded us of Fawlty Towers, complete with a grumpy Basil
Fawlty in charge of the place. There were a number of foreign
tourists staying there, and I was waiting to hear ‘Don’t mention the
war’ at any moment!

Sunday was a little drizzly, but we had a wander around Windermere
and attempted to find a couple of geocaches in the town – we failed
pretty miserably at both of them, but did have a lovely meal in a pub
in Bowness and then the kids had an ice cream in the seriously pouring
rain.
Monday, after an interesting breakfast, we headed out to glorious
sunshine. I decided we would attempt another geocache, this time out
of town. It was only a short walk, but I hadn’t quite realised it was
up a steep hill. Phil had told me to check the altitude as well! And
I know, it is the Lakes and that means hills! The weather was
glorious, but due to the rain the previous night it was rather damp
underfoot and we managed to walk through a bog or too. Still the
views from the top were spectacular, and we found the cache as well,
I think I’d have been in trouble if we’d not found this one either.

After the walk, we went to Grasmere and had lunch sat outside in
glorious sunshine overlooking the river, it was almost too hot! We
could have been abroad.

After lunch and a play in the park, it was starting to cool off, so
we ventured up to Keswick and the Pencil Museum. One of those places
I’ve driven past before but never actually visited. The kids really
enjoyed it, and we were in there for ages. It’s not very big but
they get a quiz to do and there are lots of pencils for colouring.
A coffee and a cake in Keswick and then it was time to head home, we
had 2 very sleepy kids on the way back!

All in all it was a really lovely weekend.

The kids have been off school this week,  so Phil and I took the week off work so we could all have a relaxing week at home.  Unfortunately the weather has been awful,  and we haven’t really got out as much as we would have liked.  On Thursday the sun was briefly shining,  so I suggested we head out for another geocache.  It’s quite bizarre really, I hate going walking for the sake of walking,  but tell me there is a tupperware tub to find and I am quite happy to head out for an ‘adventure’.

We decided to go to Holywell Dene,  Phil used to visit quite often as a child, but I’ve only been once before.  Again it makes you think,  I’ve lived here for 18 years and this is right on my doorstep.

Our destination was ‘Starlight Castle’,  a small castle which was built overnight for a bet.   Phil checked the maps and ensured we were on the correct side of the river and off we set.  We found the castle fairly quickly,  unfortunately it was at the top of a very muddy and steep bank.   We debated a while and then decided the only thing to do was climb up,  so off we went.  We made it to the castle fairly easily but our GPS said we weren’t there yet,  so we had to keep on climbing,  and then scramble through some pretty heavy brambles  but eventually we were rewarded with a find.  Our 4th so far,   so we are still quite new to this.

Just as we found the box it started to rain.  This seems to be a recurring theme,  but at least it wasn’t snow this time.   Our next problem was how to get back to the car.  I really didn’t fancy my chances going back down the hill,  but we scouted out a number of possible alternatives and none of them proved fruitful  so unfortunately the only option was back down that hill.  Unfortunately,  I was wearing crocs rather than hiking boots,  so I really didn’t have much grip at all.   Phil helped me down, and as I went from tree to tree like a pathetic girl I had this sudden realisation,  I have turned into my mother!

We made it back to the car,  which was rather conveniently parked next door to a fish and chip shop.  Perfect we thought,  let’s warm up with a cup of tea and a plate of chips.  Unfortunately,  the chip shop was closed mid-afternoon,  and we were all rather disappointed,  so we drove along to Marshalls in Tynemouth as the taste for fish & chips was strong by now.  By the time we got to Tynemouth it was absolutely chucking it down,  so we got off that hill just in time.  We dove into a very busy Marshall’s and had one of the nicest plates of fish and chips I’ve had in a long time.

I quite enjoyed our last cache, but the weather has been so awful that we just haven’t been able to get out recently. We were all cooped up this morning and getting grumpy, so I decided to head out to a very local cache and see what happened. The location was St. Mary’s Island which is one of those spots we visit pretty often (if we were feeling really ambitious we could walk from home, but I’m not that keen).
I read the info, and made a fairly massive assumption that the cache was on the island. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t….. This added greatly to our confusion (well mine and Katie’s, Molly just follows along collecting shells).
This was a 2 part cache, we had to find a notice board, and then collect clues from the notice board to find our final destination. We manged the first part with a little help from the nice people in the shop, but the 2nd location appeared to be in the middle of the sea which had me flummoxed. We gave up and headed back to the car, when I realised the GPS was directing us past the carpark and around the cliffs, the final location wasn’t in the sea, it was across the sea!
Once we’d worked that out, we found it very easily and headed back to the car for a nice warm up as it was rather blustery on that cliff-top.

my friend Jane has been telling me about Geocaching for a while now. I thought it sounded interesting, but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it enough to justify the purchase of a GPS unit. However, when Jane offered to loan me hers then I ran out of excuses and decided we should give it a try.

We set out on Saturday but it started to snow so we get cold feet and changed our mind, but this morning it was bright and sunny so we headed off again. We managed to find 2 caches and only got slightly lost (I decided we should head out off the path and threw the woods which would have been fine until we came up against a fence so we had to retrace our steps a little).

The excitement when Phil unearthed a little green tupperware box was real enough, and we excitedly swapped a plastic easter egg for a pink plastic clip (purpose unknown but Molly liked it because it was pink)

Once we’d found the first one, there was no stopping us and we set out for our 2nd destination undeterred by a little sleet or snow! Molly ended up finding this one, which was considerably easier to find considering there were no leaves on the trees and not a lot of hiding places around.

We signed the log book and declared ourselves grand adventurers! Then it was time to head back for a coffee. By the time we got back to the carpark we were frozen and normally we would have been a very grumpy family indeed, but we were so pleased with ourselves that everyone was in great spirits and is really excited to try another, only maybe without the snow this time!