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Sunday 1st April 2007
   
Today was another dull day of DIY. Front room pretty much finished: second coat of white applied to ceiling where necessary, edges (between ceiling and walls) done, paint-work sanded/cleaned, first coat of gloss applied to paint work, new shelves fitted, new shelves populated with books and games. Loads of stuff. Front room pretty much done then.
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So yeah. Then these picture are probably taken during a late (that is, after dinner) walk to the park. This is part of M****'s crazy decorating schedule - we have to go for a walk in the park to make it seem like we haven't been neglecting A****** all day. He loves it. Once in the playground, A****** led us from    
one ride to another (albeit in a kind of drunken like fashion immediately after the roundabout) and then promptly left, so we followed.
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Monday 2nd April 2007
    
Today was my birthday, so off we went to see the 'choo choos' at Lakeside/Haverthwaite. I'm writing this a week and a half after the event, so it's all a bit fuzzy now. We drove to . . . I think we started at Haverthwaite. Yes, that was it. In the train, pretty much a carriage to ourselves, A****** initially stood up, probably wondering what was going on. When the train started moving, a huge grin gradually emerged. The train terminated at Lakeside, where we had our lunch, checked out the aquarium and then walked over to Newby Bridge . . .
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. . . where we had a quick drink at the Swan (?!), fed some ducks (with some kind of crow thing watching) before heading for the tiny little train station.
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We had some time to kill before the Haverthwaite-bound train turned up, so wandered around the station. M****, still thinking of her dream garden, insisted I take some pictures of a certain tree, thinking it would look good in our back garden, I guess.
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Tuesday 3rd April 2007
 
Today A****** was being looked after by grandparents (on M****'s side) and so M**** and I got down to the fun business of more decorating. This was after checking out a couple of tile shops somewhere in the White Lund industrial estate. M**** felt uncomfortable about me taking pictures, but they were probably taking pictures of us. What's the difference? (erm . . . they're not putting their pictures on the Internet?) We also went to Lancaster town centre to pick up some curtains (now presumably clean) and some lunch. Back at home, we began tackling the spare bedroom.
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Friday 6th April 2007
Bournemouth, arrival
 
Today was the first day of our weekend stay over at Bournemouth. We set off at about 11am this morning (only half an hour later than planned)
  
and got there about 6 hours later (including a 45 minute break pretty much half-way through). That evening, we went for a walk along the promenade, had a 'chippy tea' and then sauntered back to the flat.
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Saturday 7th April 2007
     
Today we did hire a beach hut and pretty much hung around the beach all day. Cleverly, M**** and I neglected to bring along A******'s sun-hat, so uncle Simon improvised with his hat/snood/combo thingy (it's probably got a name). I also neglected to bring much in the way of cash, so . . .
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. . . at some point in the afternoon I wandered along the promenade, seeking out a cash machine. The one on the pier was out of service, so I had to venture slightly up the hill, where one could be found outside some kind of conference centre thing. From the beach hut to the pier was quite a long walk (well, for a holiday anyway) - perhaps about a mile, a mile and a half. I took these rather dull pictures from the end of the pier (no where near as long as Southend Pier).
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Sunday 8th April 2007
    
Today Simon and Beccy did take us to a lovely pub somewhere in the countryside, where we had lunch before going for a walk somewhere around the New Forrest. The lake/reservoir thing reminded me of some place I'd been to in a dream, only in the dream the lake was artificial and paved, plus there was a little building thing where you could coffees and ice creams and such-like. Hmmmm.
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At one point during the walk (well, not a point, more of a stretch, I guess) we passed a fenced-off field surrounded by horses. I touched the fence (more a length of fabric ribbon stuff, about 4cm in width) and was puzzled by the static shock. I kept doing this in a Homer Simpson like fashion, before someone pointed out that it was actually electrified. Well, it did seem odd to be building up a static charge when walking on grass/soil.
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So yeah . . . various pictures of people. A****** fell asleep part way through the journey and awoke about . . . oh, I don't know . . . three quarters along.
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Monday 9th April 2007
Bournemouth, departure
  
These pictures were taken at New Alresford. We had a plan to go to some zoo somewhere but I'm not a big fan of zoos, and the £15 entry fee meant that the rest of us weren't really that interested. So . . .
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We passed through New Alresford, stopped at Old Alresford for a picnic but, due to a complete lack of any kind of public convenience, had to go back to New Alresford. There was another plan to visit the nearby Avington House, but this turned out to be a private stately home, so no go there (kind of makes you wonder why they bothered putting it in all the road atlases, but hey).
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So, after looking at some old buses and trains, we went to this café and did a bit of wandering around before all going our separate ways: A******, M**** and I back to Lancaster; and the others to Bournemouth.
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Thursday 12th April 2007
        I left work early today and, once home, the three of us made our way to Hest Bank, for a wander around the sands. During this walk, we kept wondering about the tides, high and low, and it was only when I got home that I discovered the BBC has an excellent section devoted to high and low tides for all over the country. With that in mind, we needn't have hurried in quite the manner that we did. My trousers were rolled up in that manner to lessen the sand getting on my trousers.
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Sunday 22nd April 2007
Nowhere, we're nowhere
      
Well, that's what it seemed like. I was driving, M**** was vaguely navigating and sometimes telling me to drive in a 'smoother' fashion. We headed for Abbeystead and then kept going, heading for Dunsop Bridge. That first picture was taken a couple miles before reaching Dunsop Bridge.
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We had planned to go for a walk somewhere, but the weather was against us, and we simply kept driving deeper and deeper into the Forest of Bowland until the rain abated. At certain times, it seemed like we could have easily been somewhere in the highlands of Scotland, going by the terrain, the weather, the lack of cars/people, and the livestock stumbling dangerously close to the road. Anyway, we carried on and, by the time we had reached Slaidburn, the rain had stopped (pretty much), so we went for a walk around the village green and then the village itself, where there seemed to be some kind of vintage car thing going on. A****** was having a field day in the overflow car-park, using to full effect one of his words of the moment, "Car!"
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Friday 27th April 2007
Brief wander around Clougha
       
After work, we did go for a walk around Clougha. We can't have been there for much longer than 40 minutes, I guess. A****** hadn't been out of the house much (except to play around in the garden), so needed a bit of a run around before dinner. We stopped briefly on a bench in order that we could eat a couple of Gary Baldy's (no, I don't know how to spell it either).
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