Askrig and Half Term

Half term began with a camping trip to Askrig in Wensleydale. It really should be called the trip-of-one-walk, because one walk was pretty much all we did, albeit several times.

We had no school on Friday so arrived bright and early to sun in a field inhabited only by a flock of sheep and a brood of hens.

We put up our tent and watched with amusememt as a bunch of lambs trotted over immediately to nibble it. The hens were much more forward - they went straight for our lunch, irrespective of whether we were mid-bite or not. Dorothea didn't greatly enjoy that so we had to build her a fort.

Everyone was much happier once we had worked out an effective deterrant.

Once we were all set up we decided to wander up the stream to a waterfall which we had spotted on the map and the campsite owner had mentioned as a good poddle. It was lovely walking along the stream with the sun falling through the leaves. There was more wild garlic than we had ever seen in one place - fields of it smoothing every contour. It was a wonderful walk.

And we were totally unprepared for the waterfall when we got to it. Mill Gill isn't much mentioned in the lists of Dales waterfalls, so we were expecting a stream trundling over a couple of rocks. We found this:

A cathedralesque space hollowed out of the rock with ferns and mosses dripping down the sides and several levels of falls. Amazing!

We could have sat there for hours, but we had people to meet, so were wandered back via the most wonderful field of buttercups and wild flowers to protect our tent from the peckish lambs.

That evening, by his request, Nathaniel was in charge of food. He set up his kitchen to his own design and made most of the food!

The next day (after not much sleep, as the lambs never slept (or slept in shifts) and were constantly peckish), we named all the chickens (Findus, Richard the lionheart, Donald, Pecky McPeckface and Lupy), and then took K and D to see the waterfall. The walk was no less wonderful.

Then we set off for the next one. It was a "just over that hill" sort of walk, there was always somethin we wanted to see around the corner. Nathaniel and I took some detours to look at good limestone pavements.

Then the path petered out and we had to climb up the totally dry riverbed. We could hear the falls ahead of us, and knew that the stream was full below us, but here the water was running so far under the surface boulders that we could find no trace of it. Really strange.

Whitfield Gill Force was even more incredible. A tall free fall down some slate-like rock.

D found a route to stand behind it at once.

And then, after the casual comment of "this is the sort of rock that you find fossils in", the kids found fossil after fossil after fossil.

It was only certailed by the fact that we had planned just a little morning bimble and had only bananas and cake with us - not enough to fill the stomachs of kids who had been climbing over rocks all morning! So we reluctantly went back. Thea led the way, and helpfully left a trail of patterans to make sure we didn't get lost (we've just finished reading Swallowdale).

Once more of the party had arrived we walked down to the river proper, to find stepping stones across it. Much fun was had jumping from one to another, and eventually all the kids were in the river in their underwear, trying not to get sucked by the current through the gaps between the stones.

The next day we were ready for  more than waterfalls. The hill above the campsite had been beckoning the whole time, and although we quickly realised we weren't going to be able to get the kids to walk the whole way, we still aspired to the top.

 
So we drove a bit closer and set off up the hill for some lunch in a grassy knoll with the ever-present Dales sheep. It became clear quite quickly that the younger members of our party weren't going to make it, and two adults kindly offered to take them for a less strenuous activity while the rest of us climbed. Quickly we got to Dales-moorland, a totally different sort of moor to my favourite North Yorks/Dartmoor heather.

Nathaniel and D enjoyed the stiles.

We trudged up the last steep slope, stopping to appreciate the view, and admire the antics of a pair of paragliders who were throwing themselves off the top.

And then we were there, and it was great! The view was rather hazy, but wonderful!

That evening the campsite owner encouraged us to pick our own eggs at will and many eggs were chosen! We decided that the least we could do was to feed the hens our scraps.

They were great chickens - once we had made it clear that they couldn't eat food that we had picked up to put in our mouths, and that they weren't allowed in our tents (or car boots), we got on very well. Better than with the lambs, who insisted in nibbling our tents throughout the night and climbing up on the plastic camping boxes and looking nonchalant. Neither enjoyed the afternoon game of football though.

Day three was never going to involve massive adventures due to the whole packing-away activity, so we decicided that those who had missed the waterfall had better seen it. So, for the third time, off we went through the buttercups and wild garlic (I made a vat of wild garlic pesto when we got home!).

This time we added fire to the adventure and Nathaniel built a fire at the bottom of the top fall and we had toasted hot cross buns and mashmallows as the water cascaded down behind us. It was pretty terrific.

Then Nick slipped (obviously had not been heeding the constant reminders of climbing cautiously that the kids had been subject to), and hit his back pretty hard, which put a bit of a dampner on the occasion, but it was time to go home, so we all scampered (or limped) back to a field, again deserted apart from us.

A heavenly trip!

After that, we didn't need an exciting half term! Ian was away on two different trips, and the weather was cold, so Thea and Nathaniel and I just poddled round the house contentedly day after day. We watched out tadpoles grow legs,

made boat-dens in the living room,

created complicated dwellings in the sandpit (a mix up of Skara Brae and the Mesa Verde),

and ate long tapasy lunches.

All very acceptable.

May

I am determined not to let the blog slide into being very out of date again, so you may have to deal with some very photo-heavy, word-light posts!

So far in May........
We took F to the new trampoline park for his birthday. It was fun! This was towards the end of the hour-long session, and they are both pretty exhausted!

Unfortunately I have no evidence of us learning how to do front flips. In fact I have very little evidence of anything, becuase they moved so fast, this is the least blurry photo I managed:

It was easier when they were sitting still enjoying the ultimate birthday treat - slush!

The Steiner School Spring Fair yet again raised the question - is it wonderful or is it a cult? When a group of rowdy 4 year olds fall immediately silent on the gentle ring of a bell in order to watch the puppet show, I err towards the latter.

Ring the bell for silence and then light the candle

There is a right way and a wrong way to decorate windows. Seriously, we have been taught this!

But when everyone (except me and Thea) are experts at circus tricks because they are given time to practice them in class everyday, I return to the former!

Of course, Thea is ecstatically happy there....

And who can resist the combination of maypole dancing and sheep in the playground?

On a very different note, Nathaniel attended a birthday party at a high wires park. Not one of those trendy ones in a forest, just some hire wires in a light industrial estate. not very aesthetically pleasing. I wasn't sure how well he would rise to this challenge, as he has not been very confident in the past, but he had a whale of a time and just powered round.

Rather him than me....

Life dominated by Arthur Ransome

And so it continues.......

There is much excitement when a tow bar is fitted on the new car, allowing the boat to go back to the sailing club.

The new Optimist, acquired from the deep south, is installed under the club house:

And the crew get to work in sanding down the foils ready for re-varnishing.

An interest in making arrows in the style of the Amazon pirates leads to a morning learning how to do whipping (which was much better before I accidentally pulled out the feather and had to reinsert it for the photo):

And then arrows are made:

Meanwhile, everywhere you turn, you find a new boat picture has been drawn.

And Nathaniel has discovered the existance of Peel Island and is clamouring for a visit. Just as well we now have a canoe at our disposal!

Summer

Hooray, the sun has appeared and it is warm. Perfect weather for making May crowns at kindergarten and then skipping along to a maypole song to make your streamers fly out behind you.



And to enjoy the blossom.

It is also time to eat outside at all times from breakfast to supper.

And if you conveniently have the day off school so that your school can be a polling station, the best thing to do is to don swimming stuff, switch on the hose and turn the slide into a slippery slip!

Long may this weather last!

Swinging

It was the sailing club open day today, so although we were at the club, we didn't get much sailing in. The kids went for a ride first thing, but then got on with other things while the adults were trying to convince punters to sign their lives away. Can you guess what they were up to?

Clearly they did have a little help, but together we created a:

Swwwwwiiiinnnnng!

Rosedale Abbey

Now, you may think that I start all posts about camping trips with "We weren't entirely sure about the weather....", but in this case it really was true!

The forecast was for 24 hours of two-raindrop (BBC levels) rain, including 3 hours of one-snowflake and 3 hours of two-snowflake snow. The temperature ranged from 0 to 8 degrees. That's pretty extreme, even for us!

But we went! How crazy are we?!

But, of course, it was fun. Yes, it started raining as we arrived at Rosedale Abbey after school on Friday and stopped the constant onslaught at about 10am the next morning. The stove in the tipi may have helped a little! The rest of Saturday was filled with snowshowers and rainshowers. So we went for a walk. We went up over the high moor and it looked like this:

Then we went down into the Goathland Valley and walked along the swollen Esk though woods and fields, and watched passing steam trains.

Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes it was hailing and sometimes it snowed. Yes, that is a 7-month old you can see being carried in a sling - I said we were mad. We had a well deserved pint and scone and chips in the over-heated pub and were all very happy.

Next day the sun was shining and we were able to take pictures of our camp next to Lake Brazier that had appeared in the we-didn't-think-it-was-that-low dip right next to us:

And Nathaniel started on his quest. All weekend he had been border-line whinging because he wanted to get onto the island in the middle of the stream that ran alongside the site.

However, the stream was so swollen that at times it looked like churned Guiness (yep - brown with white froth), or posssibly Coca-cola. And there was no way that kids were going to be allowed to wade in that. But by Sunday, I was able to wade carefully to the island without getting any water over the top of my size 8 wellies, so Nathaniel decided it was fair game.

He was almost right. He's got pretty tall wellies, and some careful measuring established that there was only about a metre that was too deep for him, and the flow was dropping rapidly. He was quite convincing that he wouldn't get washed away. So I lifted him over the high bit and put him down in the shallow bit and let him walk across, first to the other side of the stream and then accross to the island with all sorts of warnings about getting washed away. And then, because he had the tallest wellies, he was shipwrecked on the island while I took the wellies back for the next 7 year-old. 20 minutes later there were 3 shipwrecked marriners.

They search for wild animals, and D made a spear for spearing fish, but they weren't able to hunt for their supper, so we had to create system for sending over provisions.

It wasn't ideal - we were lacking length in some of our rope, but it worked. Then the younger members of our party wanted to join in, so I piggy-backed them accross, put some more provisions into the bag and abandoned them. We struck camp and it was very quiet for 45 minutes. How peaceful!

I think we'll do more shipwrecking in the future.....