Trekking along on holiday

Thanks for coming over if you've come from the Trek Along With Me knitalong. I'm having trouble with Blogger, so I'm putting all of my holiday pics into one post, including all the Trekking ones, so bear with me on the non-trekking pics!

I spent a week in the Lake District in a cottage with my Mum, plus my brother, SIL and two nephews. And Monkey.

Monkey had a great holiday. He spent a lot of time catching up on some sleep (he obviously doesn't get enough at home) and even agreed to share his fruit with Noah, who is also a bit of a fruit fiend.


Noah and Dylan (my nephews) and their parents were able to join us for the holiday as Dylan was born so late my brother's two weeks of paternity leave were still running! Dylan also spent much of the holiday sleeping. And drinking milk. And pooing. But I suppose that's what you do when you're 8 days old.

On the Monday I found a knitting group to go along to in Penrith. I met Cynthia and Amanda in the Bluebell bookshop (scroll down the link a bit. It's an excellent bookshop, with comfy things to sit on, lots of nooks and crannies to explore and a good range of books) and spent a couple of very pleasant hours knitting, chatting, drinking tea and scoffing raspberry scones.
The trekking socks didn't get an outing here though, as I also brought Eloise with me to work on on holiday.

Then I found a furniture shop with a sale on. I bought this dining table and four chairs at half price and they are slight seconds. Amazingly the man said he would deliver them to my new house next month for only £25 (it'll take him the whole day to do the journey in his van, and the petrol alone must cost more than that!)

Then, finally, the socks got an outing! Mum and I went to Whinlatter Forest Park (England's only mountain forest. Is that true? It's what it says on the Forestry Commission website!) to check up on the ospreys. They were reintroduced to Bassenthwaite Lake a few years ago and have hatched a few chicks before, but this year they managed three! You can watch them live on the webcam. The socks went for a walk around the park and through the forest. But not very far as it was hilly and Mum has old bones which don't like hills.

Then we drove on through the Honister Pass to the Honister Slate Mine (which claims to be the only working slate mine left in Europe. Not sure if that's true either!).

Over the other side the sock was hungry so we stopped off in Rosthwaite at the Flock-In for a cup of tea and some tea bread. Greedy sock needed two cups of tea...

whilst admiring the view over Borrowdale.

Another day Mum and I went part of the way round Derwentwater on the launch (I did try knitting on the launch but it made me feel seasick so the sock had to go back in my rucksack!)

Then we got off and walked back to Keswick (only about three miles. Not sure if that counts as a trek or not!)

Saying hello to some Herdwick sheep en route.

And on yet another day, we took the car ferry across Windermere to Hawkshead. The sock put in an appearance on the ferry.

And on the final day Mum and I took Noah to the Alpaca Centre (the sock stayed at home). He wasn't too sure about the miniature donkeys.

Or the alpacas (even though the babies were really sweet)

and the adults were due to be shorn the next day.

Instead he found a much more interesting old tyre.

And sat in it.

Back at the cottage, Dylan was having another snooze.


So, yes, a good holiday, and we managed a little bit of trekking too! Mum and I also went to see the Da Vinci Code one night at the Keswick Alhambra. The film wasn't as crap as I thought it might be (well the book was, wasn't it?!). Tom Hanks was wrongly cast, but it didn't get boring, even though the storyline is a load of codswallop. There were only about 10 of us in the cinema! We were surprised how much of Lincoln Cathedral we could see (it stood in for Westminster Abbey in the film) and didn't think it was particularly violent (some friends who'd been to see it thought it was, but I suspect they hadn't been to the cinema for about 20 years).

We also found a wonderful ethical/fair trade clothing shop in Keswick called the Stripey Sheep. I could have spent a fortune but restrained myself to a couple of tops.

You will have to wait for pics of progress on the sock and Eloise. It's far too hot now to get them out for a pic!