So where are we? First thing was lunch at The Swan. Blimey, we should have a loyalty card for this place. So yeah . . . we did and they don't. Then we had a walk around Grizedale Forest, vaguely following one of the marked paths . . . the red one, or the green one, I forget which.
So what's going on here? We're at this holiday house thingy somewhere near Church Lench and it's Easter Sunday. Hmmmmm. Must be time for an Easter Egg hunt. Eggs were hunted, eggs were found. Later on in the day, after a roast beef dinner we went for a quick play at a nearby playground. With the children in tow, I think the adults can use them as an excuse to play on the swings, see-saw, etc.
This was our last day at the holiday house thing near Church Lench. I took a picture of a vase. I dunno why. I liked the colours. Doesn't really look the same in photo form though. Never mind. Anyway . . . then we went to Ragley Hall for a few hours. No photography allowed inside. Much photography allowed outside. The children did some kind of treasure hunt and then that was that.
Where are we? Somewhere near Newby Bridge, looking at a plot of land for sale. A plot of land that comes (we assume) with a LOT of caveats. I don't know what we were doing here. Maybe we were just being nosey. I don't know. Anyway, look at the views! So you could own this plot of land on which you could . . . erm . . . not really do much . . . tend the trees, I guess. Build a little shed to store your tools, subject to a load of conditions. You can camp here . . . occasionally, light fires, run around your own land naked . . . paint the trees pink . . . or blue . . . or not, depending upon the terms of the covenant. And, erm . . . well, yeah. So that's about it really.
This, to the left, is a monstrously huge jpeg of the Crackenthorpe branch of my family, stretching from the 12th century through to the late 19th. I think my parents got this dodgy photocopy from my granny (on my dad's side) and it hung around my parents house for ages. God knows where my granny got it from, though.
. . . and this one, all 15.2MB, is the Kendal branch. Is branch the term? Lineage? Ah, whatever. Anyway, these images are hosted on an external web server that doesn't allow regurgitation / resizing of huge images (due to the amount of memory required), so you'll probably get some kind of error when trying to view these. The download link should work fine though. Good luck. That's assuming you're bothered, of course.
So we took a picnic up to Coniston and met Helen and Stu there. Then I think we walked to Torver and got the boat back from there. That would seem to make sense. R****** was a bit sleepy and fell completely asleep not long after going in the carrier. We boarded the boat back just as some dude from 'Silent Witness' was leaving, along with his two children. Of course, I had no idea who this person was, but the boat pilot (skipper?!) person seemed excited about it all and listed some of the other 'famous' people who had been on his boat. I only remember the name Craig Charles now and maybe some BBC newsreader . . . or someone. Hello? Oh yes. And note how M**** is carrying A******'s coat there, the blue one. That coat never made it back. Where on earth is it?
I feel it slightly remiss of me (or 'we', as A******'s parents) that it's only when A****** is six years old that we finally get him learning how to ride a bicycle. Anyway, we had kind of dabbled in the past and, maybe because of that, he took to it pretty quickly. He rides a bit like a wobbly vicar, but nothing a bit more practice can't iron out.
There's probably something wrong with me. Today one of my highlights was reaching our serviced apartment in Edinburgh with barely any navigation-based arguments. The solution: GPS-based navigation - let the phone navigate. So yeah . . . we got there dead easily. I can't remember what time it was, but that first picture was taken at quarter to four. For dinner we went to a ridiculously close Pizza Express. So that's how holidays should be. Minor mishap - R****** trapped his finger in the hinge side of the self-closing door. Ouch.
A day at Edinburgh Zoo - Pandas don't dig audiences
I think navigation computer got confused slightly by closed roads and also roads open only to buses, taxis and access. Hey, how was she to know? Nonetheless, she got us to the zoo and back just fine. Check out the lazy ass panda. It just sits in that crate thing for hours on end, just eating bamboo. The female panda was asleep when we were there. They can't share an enclosure, 'cos that would freak 'em out or something. Throughout the entire year, there's like a 3 day window when they both MIGHT show an interest in each other, if we're lucky. Although male panda would be like, "Hey, erm . . . you wanna, you know . . . get cosy?" and the female panda's like, "Erm . . . I dunno, I'm kinda tired again," and male panda's like, "Yeah, forget it. This bamboo ain't gonna eat itself anyway. Same time next year?" "I guess so. Wake me up if anything happens."
In 1441, Prince Munjong invented the first standardized rain gauge
After lunch at this fantastic burger place, we did a bit more exploring around Edinburgh, hopping on and off this tour bus thingy. We got up to the castle, but didn't venture inside. It requires quite a lot of money and we thought the children probably wouldn't be that bothered. Just before dinner time, we wandered up Arthur's Seat or 'alf (as in 'half') asleep, as A****** started calling it.
This was our last day in Edinburgh and we spent a good chunk of today at this 'Our Dynamic Earth' place, which was like a few leisurely steps from our apartment thing. I remember we had lunch there and perhaps we set off for home after lunch. Not sure.
