Christmas 2010

Had a good Christmas at home.  It is nice to spend some time with the family....

Oscar helping

Zoe's new capo

Unwrapping

Hannah and bracelet

Christmas Lunch 2010

Cathy, mum and dad just before Christmas

Autumn (Christmas next!)

It's been a while, so here are some things that we have been up to since going back to school.....
Relaxing.......














Inset day at Legoland....

Bikes in Holland

Bikes are certainly pretty popular in Amsterdam....

Netherlands

Saw Liz and Jay last night.  They all seem well having moved out here over a year ago.  They have two new kittens, but I forgot to ask their names.  Their eyes don't really glow like that.  It was the flash!

Summer Holidays - Lake District

Had a great time and great weather in the Lake District at Cathy's.  The children fed the lambs in the field next to Cathy's garden, walked around the windmills on Kirkby Moor and up Coniston Old Man, paddled in Lake Coniston and went on a boat trip.  Here are some photos.......

Summer Holidays - Spain

Sunday 1st August 2010:

Alarm went off at 01:55 as we had to get to Gatwick for 3:30. It didn't seem so bad when I booked the flights.

Anyway. The trip went fine, and here we all are having dinner looking out over the Med, with Gibraltar as a backdrop.

Monday 2nd August 2010:

Morning in the pool, then went to Tarifa this afternoon. The most Southerly point of mainland Europe. An interesting place, if not the most picturesque that I have visited.

Tuesday 3rd August 2010:

We drove to Ronda, one of the "White Towns", famous for their spectacular and picturesque appearance. In Ronda's case also famous for bullfighting. I have never been a fan, but I did find that the visit to the bullring and museum did make me more sympathetic to the spectacle. I felt that the bull pens from where the bulls are released into the ring had a particularly grim atmosphere.

The drive to and from Ronda was along spectacular twisty mountain roads. I think that Lynda and the children were relieved to get back to the apartment in one piece!

Wednesday 4th August 2010:

Had a day staying near the apartment at the beach and the pool. Everyone pleased not to be driving too far.  I did go to the Carrefour supermarket to buy a few things and noticed that at the far end of the shop they have a pet shop with puppies for sale. Of course, now the children want to go back!

Thursday 5th August 2010:

Went to Gibraltar today. Managed to park at La Linea and walk across the runway into the town which was quite exciting. It was very hot so we tried our best to stay in the shade where we could. This wasn't easy though. The children bought a variety of monkey shaped souvenirs. After wandering through Main Street and past the Trafalgar Cemetery, we queued for the best part of two hours and took the cable car to the top of the rock. 

The view was good, I have photo of dad's dad at the top of Gibraltar, but I couldn't see the exact same spot. There were quite a few apes around looking intimidating, and we had some excitement when one jumped up onto my backpack that I was wearing and tried to open it. They are quite heavy I found! Lynda shooed him away, and no harm was done.

We did have some final excitement when I couldn't get the car park machine to recognise our ticket. All became clear when I realised that I had put the ticket from our visit to the bullring into it. It worked much better with the correct ticket inserted!

Friday 7th August 2010:

A day of beach and pool today. We arrive at the beach around 11:00, have a swim and play on the sand, and by 13:00 it is too hot to stay any longer. So we head back to the apartment for lunch.

We all went to see the puppies for sale at the supermarket as well.

Saturday 7th August 2010:

Went to the beach again this morning. The wind had got up and the waves were a lot bigger than yesterday.

Off to the pool for the last time in a minute.

Grandparents

Saw mum and dad at the weekend.  The children climbed the apple tree that Mark and I planted from seeds from our apples when we were children......

Chessington

Went to Chessington World of Adventures with Zoe on Monday.  Sunshine and small queues combined to equal good fun.....

Cycling....

I went to the MotoGP at Silverstone on Father's Day.  So on Saturday we did some family things, including a ride out on our bikes.....

The Beach!

Had a good trip to West Wittering on Friday last week......

No Daniel until Friday!

Daniel is off on a school trip for a couple of nights. His first on his own. It is strange to have just the girls around.
Daniel was looking forward to the trip, and we got a text saying that they had arrived safely.

Hannah had a day trip to to an outdoor centre. She also had a good time.

Pennine Way (Sunday)

Another long day. We walked 15 miles today from Lothersdale back to
Malham. The guidebook didn't think much of this section, but I
thought it was quite picturesque with some interesting things to see.
These included several horses, some canal boats and quite a few
rolling hills and dales.
We even saw a sheep with a bucket on it's head (see photo).













All in all another good day. My feet are quite sore now, but I expect
that I will survive.
See you all tomorrow.
Love daddy
xxx

Sent from my iPod

Pennine Way (Saturday)

Had a long day today. We got a taxi to Horton in Ribblesdale, and
managed to buy a map in the Tourist Office. This was even more useful
than we expected, as Uncle Alan had brought the wrong page of the
guidebook so we wouldn't have had a map at all!

Highlights of today were a big hill called Pen-Y-Ghent, Malham Tarn
and Malham Cove.
Hope you enjoyed your sleepover Zoe and Hannah. See you on Monday.
Love Daddy xxx

Sent from my iPod

Pennine Way (Friday)

Had a good journey up and met Jonathan in the pub,where we had lunch.
I had a rather unhealthy double cheeseburger with chips, I'm afraid.
We then set off dropping the cars off at the right places and started
our walk from where we finished last year. The weather was pretty
good and we covered seven and a half miles in just under three hours.
I used Zoe's walking pole that she lent me during the steeper sections.
The B&B is nice and so is the village of Malham. We should have taken
our torches when we went out to the pub on the evening though. As it
was very dark coming back, and we have to walk back across a narrow
footbridge over a river. Nobody fell in though, so that was good!

Sent from my iPod

Cycling with Zoe

Had a good morning on Thursday on our bikes....