Adventures in home working

Carlisle was a surprisingly fun place to visit.  Debbie and the elder girls had been there last year and stayed in university diggs for a couple of days, so I too the twins to the best of the places that they recommened.  We spent most of our time at Tullie House and Museum and had a lot of fun.  Then we went around the Castle which is expensive and not really worth the money – but hey its a holiday – then we went to the much more impressive park. 

This is Tessa posing on the cannon at Carlisle castle with Anna ready to climb on as well.  The views from the castle wall are pretty good, its from there that we spotted the park.

The park has a nice walk by the river but the kids play area of the park is one of the best free parks we have seen and the girls played there for nearly an hour.  In the summar I bet its even better as it has an interactive wet play area, perfect for hot sunny days.   The girls liked the lay down swing best.

We arrived at one of the forts at about 16:30 so didn’t have much light left.  There is not much of the original wall left but the area we were going to see was about 30 minutes walk from the car park. 

We had a really great trek up to it and it was pretty amazing to imagine the logistics of constructing it in such wild lands.  The ambition of those in charge is truly incredible, its hard to imagine anyone nowadays even considering such a difficult undertaking.  Today its probably the equivalent of the sea defenses that have been recently constructed in Holland and probably need to be constructed around the coast of Britain within the next 50 years.

The scale of the wall is difficult to imagine, in this pic two of my kids are dwarfed by it and it was much taller when originally constructed.  I guess most of the stones have been raided by locals to build dry stone walls and houses.

The grass at the top of the hill was really incredible, cropped very short with bolders all over and very spongy. 

Even those of us with Arthritis couldn’t resist running around on it.   However those of us who slipped over soon discovered that not only was it spongy, but it was also holding a lot of water as Debbie and Jenny found out.  We would have loved to walk a lot more as it was a really nice crisp night, but it was getting pretty dark by the time we got back to the car and headed back to Carlisle for the night.

We have spent the last few days in the Lake District, we started off in Kendal, then went up to Carlisle for a couple of days and then back down to Arnside which is one of our favorite walking areas.

I only took the Treo 650 so the photo’s are not that impressive, but at least I have something to remind me.  I find that I rarely take any other camera with me so next time I upgrade my phone the quality of the camera will be an important consideration.

The twins and I had a really good time on the pulley in a park in Kendal, warming up before we hiked up to the castle on the hill

We are all big fans of pulleys, I used to have a big pulley system in my back garden as a kid.  Dad used to work for a Crane manufacturer and so he had plenty of access to scrap cables and pulleys.  This first pic is of Tessa having fun, I used to have a pic of Anna as well but she thought she looked too ugly so I had to delete it .

We really enjoyed the walk up to the Castle but Anna typically slipped and ended up covered in mud.  The Castle is a ruin, but its still great for running around and exploring and its free of charge which makes a nice change.

There are really good views of Kendal from the tower but we still couldn’t see Debbie and the elder two kids who were down in Kendal shopping for walking boots.

This is a view of Kendal – well worth the steep climb.

We had a great lunch at a friendly cafe and then jumped back in the car and headed up North to Hadrian’s wall.  I had never seen it before so I was pretty impressed.

the Village is a real gem!

I love my food, so a great bakers and butchers are essential

I loved the fact that most walks combined beach, cliff top and woodland elements.  Especially useful on a sunny day

I came across this wood within a few minutes of leaving the cottage we were staying in

I feel as though I have lived most of my life by the sea, and when I haven’t I have still been walking in the woods or the hills, so my favourite places always have great views.  Up until now though my favourite place to visit has been Filey in North Yorkshire,  it has a great beach,  good cliff top walks and a lovely Victorian town, everything I need to relax.  Whilst it was only 45 minutes from home Filey certainly deserved the Favourite place status, but now we live on the other side of the country and it’s now a 4 hour drive away so I reluctantly admit that I need to find somewhere new.  Arnside is that place,  Arnside has wonderful views, a great craggy coastline, lots of little bays and cliffs to explore, wonderful woodland, hill top and beach walks.  Not only that but just as important the village is a gem, the people are really friendly and it has a great bakery!

One of the things I noticed as I walked around chatting to people was just how many of them seem to have moved there because they fell in love whilst on holiday, which is always a good sign.  I have saved the best for last,  Arnside is only 1 hours drive and 1.5 hours away by train – pretty much perfect.  If you get bored of the place you can jump on the train and go over the river to Grange over stands or walk around the headland to Silverdale.

It was interesting to see that Debbie was also really taken with the place, which surprised me a little because we already live in a great Sea Side town which she doesn’t seem to appreciate enough.  When I asked he about this tonight on the way back from Tennis she agreed and said that she had thought the same thing and that it had needed her to enjoy being in a place in a holiday setting in order for her to appreciate all the great things about our current home.

The photo’s in this post were taken during a 3 hour walk that I managed to cram in on my first and only – so far – day there, but stay tuned for news of more visits!